Thomson praises Gers Fans Generosity

[North Rd 2,860]

Alex Thomson latest blog praises the fans not the fat cats

Tuesday 17 April 2012

6:27 pm

Alex Thomson

20Rate this

It was certainly a big day for Rangers FC – a great send-off for a fine player and former captain David Weir. Photographers on hand to record the occasion on the Ibrox turf as club chairman Craig Whyte presented Weir with a premium Glencairn glass decanter and blue glass trophy with the Rangers crest and players’ signatures beautifully engraved upon it.

Weir received the souvenir to mark his five years at the club at half-time in a match against Aberdeen on 21 January this year.

No doubt the glassware’s been well used chez Wier since then. The only blot on the celebration being that Glencairn were not paid the £354 that Rangers owed for the glassware.

Week after week it went on.

“I wasn’t that bothered,” says Managing Director Paul Davidson. “They’ve been customers for years – like Celtic – and you don’t kick a customer when they’re down. They’ll be back.”

And then came the call, on Easter Monday.

A Rangers fan. Turned out they’d seen from the published creditors’ list that the company hasn’t been paid and the indignity was just too much. The fans got together and held a Northern Soul evening fundraiser.

A few days later they were at Glencairn’s East Kilbride factory south of Glasgow. With the £354 in cash.

“Well,” says Paul, “I couldn’t take it. We had a half hour’s spirited discussion. In the end he just sort of threw the money down and said take it – it’s yours – we’re leaving.”

He picked it up. But when Rangers eventually pay – as he still feels they will one day – he’ll donate the cash to a fans’ charity.

Across Glasgow and beyond, many have similar stories to tell. It speaks well of the ingenuity and commendable sense of honour many Rangers fans feel. Embarrassment even, that things should have come to this.

Across Glasgow the long creditors list is a painful footprint of bad business and debt across a city. The roots of a long-established FC cruelly laid bare in its community.

The newsagent up the road from Ibrox… a picture-framer here… a cab firm there. Individuals without the large bank balances of the men in suits inside Rangers, who ran a once-proud football club and global brand into the ground.

Susan Thomson has a surprise caller as well. She talks about it, as she completes a bright pink butterfly on the face of a toddler at a Southside Glasgow playgroup.

Her company – Your Sonsie Face – was owed £40 by Rangers, who’d hired her in-demand face-painting skills. Of course, Rangers hit the buffers and she never saw her invoice paid. But she too got the visit – another Rangers fan appearing on her doorstep one day with another envelope full of cash.

Not everyone’s so lucky. In the fabulous new building which is North Glasgow FE College in Springburn, Principal Ronnie Knox looks out over the spectacular atrium.

He’ll happily explain how this sector of education’s been hit hard by government funding cuts. This is the bit of planet education which turns out things we need – plumbers, engineers, technicians, designers – and they come from all over the world.

So he needs his invoice paying please – £11,000 or so owed by Rangers. They could pay players thousands a week but not a premier league city college which – irony of ironies – often helps young footballers who don’t quite make it find another path in life.

The money was owed for a variety of training programmes run here for Rangers. And at this figure, you won’t find groups of even the most well-intentioned fans turning up with envelopes.

Nor, though, are we seeing all those wealthy men who put Rangers into this mess helping out. I could be mistaken but the former directors have not been sending cheques to the college to help the debt.

Men, already well-off and many on fat salaries, who we know have yet to pay back any of the loans they received whilst Rangers went to the wall.

It would be good to report that these men are inspired by the fans of the club they love, to open their chequebooks to needy creditors across Glasgow.

But sadly, as yet, little sign of it happening.

[WVB 2,560]

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I would have no problems with paying more of these small creditors out of the RFFF.

[NessFTW 40]

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I would have no problems with paying more of these small creditors out of the RFFF.

That's a good idea mate

[North Rd 2,860]

It does show one thing " we DO have the best fans in the world "

[Marco Negri's Beard 1,423]

Ha am I the only one who thinks, what if Susan Thomson from Your Sonsie Face has had 10 generous Rangers fans all comin in to give her the 40 quid...and she just keeps schtum about it every time. Then when a CVA is being agreed, she'll just say, 'well, i'm still waiting on the money from Rangers' - Ha, could easily happen surely?

Like others, i'd happily pay off a lot of these smaller creditors with the RFFF, as it would eliminate any such problems. We'd have records of who has actually been paid off.

Great gestures though from these fans. Top marks

[pcbear 10,913]

There would have to be a cut off point but i would suggest that everyone owed up to £2000 should get the money from the RFFF, thats publicity of the fans goodwill to the community that money could not buy.

[gunslinger 270]

paid by Nash on follow follow.

[broxieman 14]

Why couldn't the RFFF do a "private-CVA"...? Take the list of small creditors, pay them, have them sign a formal "Paid" note which is then sent to the Administrators. There could be no preferential treatment complaints from other creditors as it would not have been done by the Administrators.

[ayrshireger 523]

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I would have no problems with paying more of these small creditors out of the RFFF.

Same here. If it goes to a CVA these small creditors will get barely nothing in return. If the RFFF pays the small creditors, up to a certain value, then it will keep small companies from losing money, which in this climate could result in job losses etc.

[GeneralCartmanLee 313]

the VT for his report just failed live on C4 news....

[Jimbo. 952]

the VT for his report just failed live on C4 news....

Mr Bean; The journalist years.

[soulboy 2,518]

Didn't realise there had been a northern soul night to raise funds apart from rangers northern soul is my other passion. Would have went along and added to the fund raising.

Nice to hear though that small creditors are getting paid.

[MosesMcNeil 1,664]

I can't take Thomson seriously.

Sanctimonious on Clyde last night, duped by an internet eejit and here a series of cheap jibes at our clubs expense. His concern for our fans seems entirely hollow to me.

I'm not surprised by the stellar showing from within our support. Magnificent in truth.

[Halfwaybear 59]

But Timmy Thomson has the wee caveat at the end regarding not paying the College.

FFS that is what Administration means ya Bhawbag.

[californiadreamin52 339]

Fans came out well, but they still managed to stick the boot into the club...

[sergio 1,199]

I feel a little saddened by the College, I am a Springburn Boy, and that College helped my lad gain his Cisco accreditations for him to find a decent Job and a good start in lIfe.

[Ger for life 199]

That's a good idea mate

This It's the Mr Struth Protestant way!

This is in response to WVB's post I made an arse of cutting & pasting - Old bastard syndrome lol

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

Yep - I would love to see the RFFF pay of some of these smalll creditors (and get receipts)

It was quite a well written article as well !

[simplythebestest 2,145]

There would have to be a cut off point but i would suggest that everyone owed up to £2000 should get the money from the RFFF, thats publicity of the fans goodwill to the community that money could not buy.

You realise the irony right?

[CoatbridgeBear 7,113]

The RFFF has been used to pay some creditor debts.

[aird 3,770]

Me and Ronnie Knox are pals, i got the principals award when i went to North Glasgow. I'll have a word

[baxterboy 476]

I feel a little saddened by the College, I am a Springburn Boy, and that College helped my lad gain his Cisco accreditations for him to find a decent Job and a good start in lIfe.

i'm a springburn boy ma-sel.

i didn't have the privilege of attending the college but was a proud student at Wellfield School where on the first day i observed the fellow student next to me hammering 4 inch nails in his desk with a petrified teacher looking on.

it's very sad that the college and others have suffered from Rangers plight. but, as another punter has pointed out, this is the tragic nature of administration, and this cunt Thimson knows it.

for me, the bastard has praised gers punters simply as subterfuge for sticking the fucking knife into our team again - when he knows fine well that this is the reality of every company that enters administration.

so he's still a cunt for slagging Rangers at every opportunity.

and take a bow Nash, and other altruistic bears who have contributed to those owed by the team they love.

class act!