Some interesting and hopeful points from the AGM.
Despite the video homage to David Murray the punters weren't having it and the first question asked, not unreasonably, why he wasn't there to 'face the music.'
The Board members appeared at times to be on a different planet from the rest of us. The scale of our debt appeared to take them by surprise as if they knew nothing about it or it was something like the weather over which they had no control despite taking a director¹s wage while the cheques and contracts were signed.
A lot of young Bears were in the forefront of asking questions - some of them straight out of the pages of the fanzine!
A major detail were the clear indications from directors Douglas Odam and Donald Walker that the financial restructuring of the club is being underwritten by the Bank of Scotland¹s belief in the strength of the other parts of the Murray empire. Give him his due, Murray is paying in some way for his mistakes.
One thing that came over loud and clear was that the Board have nothing to offer in defence with regard to their behaviour and inaction over the media onslaught. At least 50% of questioners demanded action about the media. In their defence the Board essentially said the fans were on their own as the club doesn¹t give a damn - oh, they hid behind the flimsy excuse that they don¹t ban free speech from our players and management, that their is freedom of the press in Scotland and that the fans have the choice not to buy the papers.
So, the functionaries will do damn all about it but we the fans have to?! The club chose to go into a filthy deal with the Daily Record - why else have all the major Rangers stories in the last two years been announced in the Retard? Our old pal Martin Bain responded to repeated questions about Advocaat¹s shameful three-day of diatribes against his own players in the Retard by stating that Dick wasn¹t paid for his interview - of course not, it¹s all covered by the dirty deal.
A call to ban some scum (and to BURN Gerry McNee by one over-enthusiastic
participant!) was met by the squeal that they couldn¹t. When the last questioner of the day pointed out that they barred Follow Follow from Ibrox Bain turned into a cul de sac by claiming we were banned for our ³sectarian content² - ie, talking about history, politics and religion¹s impact on football in a mature way. So he¹ll ban us for daring to answer the club¹s sectarian critics but he won¹t ban those who make jokes about the dead of the Ibrox Disaster, those who accuse him and his fellow directors of sectarianism and responsibility for murder, who spit on the memory of our founders, who mocked the death of Jock Wallace. I could go on but you get the picture. They ban us because they can but they are terrified to ban the real scum.
At the base of it is Bain's claim that we were refused admittance due to sectarianism. It's bollix.
Bain is a man who Murray lets loose to negotiate the £34million NTL but he spends, between the two face to face meetings we had, a complete working day to decide to keep me out?
Representatives of commercial organisations would give their right hands (and not a few brown envelopes) to have that amount of his time. But he decided to waste his time dealing with a 'sectarian fanzine' did he? It's never been about sectarianism.
It's about money and control.
He offered me a seat in the press box if I signed the FF domain name and fanzine over to him and gave the club editorial and advertising control over the site and the fanzine.
The tide is turning and I think it¹s very significant that the most numerous, articulate and hardline questioners were all young.
Interesting times ahead.