Hollow and Empty-The Rangers Apology

The chairman of Newco Rangers, Malcolm Murray, did not come anywhere near pleading an unreserved Mea Culpa to exculpate the sins of the former Rangers owners in an Apology Statement that seemed to many critical observers to be far too conveniently timed as the last, desperate bid to stave off a humiliating demotion to the netherworld of Scottish professional league football: the Inferno of Division Three.  The fate of Newco Rangers would appear to be out with the SPL, even taking into account owner Charles Green’s alleged furtive and clandestine meetings in smoky back rooms with the rest of the top flight clubs who had, under the camouflage of moral integrity and being open hearted and minded with their respective fans, sated the thirst for retribution for years of perceived bullying and intimidation by Glasgow Rangers and the small matter of their fans threatening a mass boycott if their views were not regarded as sacrosanct and non negotiable.  Green’s genuflection, while trying to maintain a whip hand, was the first squat with the begging bowl. Murray ( no relation to former Ibrox supremo, David ) and his squirm inducing speech, was the pursuit of an increasingly panic stricken plea for leniency from the Newco’s erstwhile partners.

But the lengths and concessions Newco Rangers are striving to offer – on no basis of authority other than the recently deceased “ history and tradition “ of the Old Rangers – are also shrewdly calibrated to appeal to the SPL club chairman’s visceral greed. Despite hysterical rumours being egregiously and fantastically propagated by the less than fact conscious Glasgow Media Mafia ( the Daily Record and The Sun published threadbare “ puffs”, vested in no evidence whatsoever, that the SPL “ Rebels “ had been charmed by Green’s sweet talking and massaging of their collective Greed Gland and were prepared to “ re-think “ their stern and publicly announced opposition to allowing Newco Rangers to stroll unimpeded back into the SPL ) , the SFA President, Stewart Regan, portentously and belatedly pronounced that even if the SPL reneged on this stance, the governing hierarchy of Scottish football would rebuff any such move. It’s about time the SFA grasped the enormity of this mess and intervened: it’s just a pathetic and shameful scandal that they have only done so now, when Scottish football is on the precipice of calamitous catastrophe.

St Johnstone, evidently relieved by the SFA’s sudden and unexpected protective body armour,  immediately refuted any possibility of a rapprochement with Newco Rangers over being re- instated to the SPL and reiterated their desire to keep them out. How convenient. The rest of them, despite the assurances so sanctimoniously and oleaginously graced upon their seething, incredulous and sceptical supporters, will not dare revise their promise. It is, however, a measure of just how much these disreputable club chairmen think of their fans that they were allegedly prepared to concoct grubby deals in corruption befogged rooms after they had vowed no such thing would happen. One suspects that had the SFA not safe-guarded the SPL clubs position, the lure of the filthy lucre might have undone them. And made them complicit in betraying their fans.

Or, however, we could give the SPL dissenters the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they are still filled with the righteous fury towards a now non-existent club telling them what to do and dictating events, as if they had not suffered extinction. Perhaps they are still animated by the crusading zeal of the Scottish League Clubs, who are now beginning to comprehend what it feels like to be manipulated and intimidated by a “ club “ that currently has absolutely no member status in the Scottish game and is behaving like some ghoul, continuing to haunt the place where it once lived in an incarnate manifestation.  Or perhaps there are a precious few outspoken Ghoul Slayers like Raith Rovers’ straight, blunt talking Chief, Turnbull Hutton. He calls intimidation and bullying by their names. And the rest of the Scottish league are lining up behind his impressive presence to perform the necessary exorcism of all that Rangers arrogance and sense of entitlement. At least these men can see that a dead football club, like a “ Dead Parrot “, is a Dead Football Club.

Meanwhile, The Newco Rangers can flute and siren as many apologies into the wind as they wish. Maybe their remorse would have been acceptable or considered genuine if they had confessed at the very outset to the scale of irregularities, deceit, conceit and criminality that has so sordidly been unmasked, like some tacky Scooby-Doo villain just as the Final Act is about to played out in this lamentable saga.  To say you are heartily sorry, long after the event, about the “ distress “ caused, is rather like the serial killer expressing remorse to the family of a long murdered and grave- less victim. Indeed, to preface the apology with the weasel words and framing device of “ It was not our fault, but we still offer an apology anyway, so let us have our ball back “, is the handiwork of some deeply unrepentant recidivist  who, once admonished, will never amend their ways.

The Newco Rangers Apology is a hollow and empty waste of words.

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