A Thank-You to the Scottish Media.

Last updated : 30 October 2009 By BdTS
You just can't help but laugh at the media lapdogs - no, 'former' media-lapdogs, I suppose - who are now crawling out of the woodwork to criticise Sir David Murray for bringing Rangers to the brink.

It's a stance that I suppose should only be welcomed, but one just can't help feeling a twinge of anger at the downright two-faced patronising claptrap that many of the media have been delivering to us all in recent days.

Let's face facts - In the case of Peter Martin and his employers, Radio Clyde are a station whose agenda was to protect and maintain Sir David Murray in his position at Rangers - firstly, to ensure that Minty continued to feed their Celtic-Minded propaganda station with the necessary Rangers-related filler to keep the advertisers happy and secondly, to ensure that Celtic flourished on the park against a Rangers side that for a decade has been up and down from its knees like an over-worked lady of the night. The Daily Record and Jim Traynor are very much the same - Traynor had managed to elevate himself to a position where through a deal with Rangers, his paper were granted first dibs on countless big stories concerning the Champions, a position that involved fierce defence of the former chairman's direliction of duty to ensure it was maintained.

Back to Mr Two-Surnames, Pedro tells us in his column in The Evening Times this week that 'Oor Davie' should now be remembered for bringing Rangers to the brink; yet over the past decade, any calls to his employer asking for the current owner to invest wisely in our squad or plan for the future have been met with replies of "Do you want to go into £85 million of debt again?" or "Rangers don't have the divine right to win everything", coupled with the usual memories of 9 in a row and the obscene quotes about chasing the dream. Needless to say, any kind of on-field Celtic failure is met with a huge post-mortem.

It was because of the likes of Radio Clyde, Peter Martin and The Daily Record amongst numerous others, that David Murray was allowed to run rough-shod over the support through their culling of any calls criticising the chairman and their refusal to communicate the goings-on behind the scenes at the club in an effective manner. In a sickening display of sycophancy last month when Murray stepped down as Rangers chairman, it was claimed that had it not been for Sir David Murray's presence as Rangers chairman, Walter Smith and Ally McCoist would not have been coffin-bearers at Tommy Burns funeral. That's right : A Rangers manager and his assistant would've been incapable of displaying human decency towards a Catholic friend on his or her passing.

Some others who have let the side down:

  • Jumping back to Radio Clyde, Remember DJ and the "I don't know who the Rangers Trust are but I don't like them" quote?
  • Remember the RSA's Vice President Ross Blyth's attempted interception of the "We Deserve Better" campaign in January which was nothing more than a smear campaign aimed at genuinely concerned Rangers fans?
  • Did anyone hear DJ say to me on Monday that the current Rangers side is better than the one inherited by Murray when he first arrived as chairman? And that it had won nothing for years? (It actually won the League and League Cup double the season before he arrived and had a starting 11 of Woods, Stevens, Butcher, Gough, Munro, Walters Durrant, I Ferguson, Cooper, McCoist and Drinkell: not ONE of our current starting 11 would get in that team)

The Rangers Supporters Assembly and the media outlets in question are skimming over the deserved criticism of Murray with a suggestion that we all must look forward, without pointing fingers at anyone.

Well, sorry - All of my fingers, toes and even my elbows are aimed firmly in the direction of the 'papers, radio stations, pundits, former players and even many of our own fans - who have protected Sir David Murray with lies and flawed-logic  - for the current mess we find ourselves in.

The debt we are in is nothing new, and it's the second time in 7 years we've found ourselves on the brink of administration. On the way to it, who has questioned the running of the club? Which former star-player/'Rangers Man' has stuck his head out and asked questions on the fans behalf? Which pundit or journalist has sat Sir David Murray down and questioned him over the asset-stripping, firesales and lack of forward planning that has left our club close to death once again?

No-one. Yet now they are all crawling out of the wood-work to say "I told you so".

The Rangers support should remember this in future and more importantly, remember who it's 'friends' are...or more importantly, whom they aren't.

On a serious note, though: thank you to Radio Clyde, BBC Scotland, The Daily Record, The Herald, Jim Traynor and all of the Scottish Media for finally acknowledging the message you've stopped the wider Rangers support from receiving for a decade.

We couldn't have done it without you.