Andy’s Sting In The Tale (04/07/25) “Cotolette di Agnello Grigliate”

The current price of this signature dish in a wonderful wee restaurant, La Capaninna in St Helier Jersey is £29.
That’s £7 more than the cover price for David Murray’s ‘Mettle’, published yesterday.

What on earth has this to do with Andy’s football blog?

It is to raise a subject that only gets a couple of lines on page 182 but it succinctly sums up how football journalism worked in Scotland then and still does today.

“Succulent Lamb Journalism” a la Murray.

I have appendixed the full, still quite amazing, article penned by James Traynor back in 1998, when Mr Murray, then of Glasgow Rangers promised to bounce back after a difficult season during a session where he treated two ‘pals’, Traynor and Spiers to ‘the works’ in Jersey.
(David had a lot of ‘pals’ in the media who got treated to ‘the works’ in good order, but to happen in Jersey showed you were in the inner cabal).

Traynor’s subsequent article is an ugly mix of fan-worship, reported bravado, reassurance, casting of doubt on his biggest rivals and general-sucking-up by a quite disgraceful journalist who was paid enough not to be a sycophant.

My Overview of ‘Mettle’ is it is 294 pages of well enough written tribute/whitewash by Bruce Waddell ex Editor of the Record and edited and published by the current owners of The Daily Record, Reach PLC.

As we guessed last week, it fully exonerates David from everything that went wrong when the club slalomed from ‘Boom Times’ to ‘Bust’ and was then sold for £1 to a non-fan.
£1.
£21 less than I paid for the book.

It’s a fact that David sold Rangers to a two bit carpetbagger called Craig Whyte.

It’s also a fact that David was never ‘duped’ by anyone in his life.
And the ‘asset stripping scoundrel’, Mr Craig Whyte, who Paul Murray and others had been warning Mr Murray about for months was the best/ only option he had on the table.

The book itself is a small-chaptered, surface-only mix of  family and football stories interspersed with political populism stuff.
Like how David thinks it’s a disgrace that: 99% of salmon production in Scotland is foreign owned. Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow Airports are foreign owned. Wind power is owned by conglomerates not the Scottish people. Whisky is 70% foreign owned too.
All true David, and I agree.
But it’s ironic you can now add your blue club into the foreign-owned Scottish entities.

Here’s three insightful ‘lifts’ from the text.

“We were obviously borrowing far too much money which had become readily available”.

“If a word of this appears in the paper I will never speak to you, Rodger Baillie, again”.

“HMRC were ‘leaking’ information to a journalist at the BBC and increased the EBT liability”.

My advice.

This will be news for not quite as long as Liz Truss’s famous Tory lettuce.
So don’t buy the book yet.
And if you need it for an Xmas gift it’s headed for the bargain rack at a charity shop near you very soon for the same price that Craig Whyte bought the club.

This Week’s Sting

1. Thanks Ann

2. Spain Looking Like Champions Already

3. Cruel

4. Obrigado Diogo

1. Scottish Football Needs More Ann Budges

We heard this week she will retire as Jambos chair later this year.
I have nothing but admiration for what she has achieved and like the idea of fan-owned but not fan run clubs.
Fit and proper person?
Most definitely.
Ann had vision, balls and honesty.
Many fans share Ms Budge’s belief that football can be its own worst enemy and the forced relegation of her club 5 years ago was disgraceful.
She really cared.
And I well know she tried influencing the game for the better from the inside and mostly failed but that’s another story.

As an afterthought, her wee victory of the re-signing of Mr Shankland this week says much about her club and maybe also that fiscal probity is maybe now in force in his main suitor where financial controls might even be a new arrival?

2. A Uefa Gem of a Tournament

I’m already hooked on the Women’s Euros.
Shame we’re not there and that should lead to serious thought and systematic changes North of the Wall.

Already crowds up to record levels in Switzerland and some great football.
Maybe the men’s game will see that comparatively more space and bigger goals is actually good for the game.
It’s a fact that the Victorian Lawmakers didn’t foresee the increase in the average height of players and levels of fitness that would come in less than 150 years.

And already the women are showing us football is better with less square passing and in box wrestling.
Great TV.

3. A Fifa Turkey Stuffed with Tacky Dollar Bills

Infantino’s obscene, egotistical waste of $1Billion.
Think what the prize and appearance money could do for grass roots in all Fifa nations instead of the obscene divvy up between just a few top clubs.
$125M to the winners is disgraceful.
And Man City, whose owners don’t need the money anyway, trousered £50M just for being there and going through some motions.
Everything about this tournament is wrong.
And that doesn’t include the excessive American heat, the kick off times, the lightning delays, the empty stands, the slashed admission prices, the over-tired players, the clubs not really caring, the lousy tv audiences and the awful Channel 5 presentation support.

4. Muito Jovem Diogo

So sad.

Sting is: Andy’s Nearly 5 Year Old Blog

This week it’s mostly about Succulent Lamb and the role it plays in all walks of life.
It’s writ large when you realise that most media is controlled by right wing billionaires and organisations with agendas.
My simple agenda is to do what I can to leave football in a better place.

The reality is football is hopelessly overrun by power, politics and money and a wee blog like ‘Sting’ is like a fart in a hurricane, but fart away I will, every Friday.
I’m an unpaid, non-influencer.

The deep-set reality that life teaches us all is ‘You Can’t Change People’.
And the psychological and sociological reality is most people only read and consume what they know will support their own existing beliefs.

That’s why I’ve always been proud to be a Keynesian.
– He was an open minded neo-scientist who saw the big picture and had no fear of change just a belief that we have to adapt to whatever.
I buy that John.

John Maynard once said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?”

And since 2012 when David Murray was still seen as a hero by most Rangers fans I’d say there has been a tsunami, of changed minds down Govan way.

As Abraham Lincoln once borrowed and said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”.

Andy’s Album of the week

Mark Knopfler: The Bagpicker’s Dream

An album inspired by the struggles of itinerant working class people and drawing from deep Irish, Scottish and American folk, blues and country.
I heard ‘Why Aye Man’ on the radio on Monday and it took me back 20 years so I looked out my cd.
I love it when genuine artists progress by digging backwards to find a way forward.
Mark’s storytelling and guitar work hit the mark on so many levels.
And don’t worry if it is a slow and gentle burn, not a bad way to enjoy life.
I’ve been playing it all week and remembering every time why I liked it so much in the first place.
Best tracks: Daddy’s Gone to Knoxville, The Bagpicker’s Dream and Why Aye Man

Andy’s Special Appendix

Succulent Lamb and Scottish Football Journalism

(The unintentionally seminal Daily Record article by Jim Traynor celebrating a memorable dinner with David Murray and Graham Spiers in La Capaninna in Jersey).

A Daily Record Special.

November 19, 1998

SECRET FEAR THAT DRIVES ME TO WIN 10 IN A ROW:

Rangers chairman David Murray opens up on the highs and lows of his decade in charge of Rangers and
promises that the best is still to come

Exclusive James Traynor

RANGERS owner David Murray doesn’t often allow his true feelings to surface, but currently he is finding it difficult to disguise a pain which has been gnawing away inside since the end of last season.
After a period of almost total dominance of Scottish football during which Rangers racked up 17 trophies the club met with failure.
Celtic won the championship and the League Cup and Hearts beat Rangers in the Tennents Scottish Cup final, leaving Murray with nothing to show for a massive investment in time and money.
Even now he winces when he thinks of that season, but it is the vivid memory, and the pain of defeat with which he now suffers, that combine to drive him on.
Last night as he looked back on a decade as Rangers’ owner – come this Sunday, the 22nd, it will be 10 years since he paid Lawrence Marlborough £6 million for the club – Murray’s desire to avoid the miseries of another barren season could not be disputed.
To hear him speak was to listen to a man who believes himself to be charged with some kind of great and mighty mission.
Murray, who chose to talk only to the Record about his dreams and ambitions for Rangers, said: “No one should doubt that Rangers are the biggest club in the country, but I know that talk is cheap in this business and that we will have to prove just how big we are.
“That doesn’t really bother me because as long as I am able to influence this club we will be the biggest and we will be the best.
“I have spent 10 years of my life, and I know that sometimes I gave up too much of myself to Rangers, but I am not about to give up now.
“Neither am I willing to stand aside and allow another club to overtake Rangers. The failure of last season hurt me a lot and that pain was something I didn’t need nor want.
“It is also a pain which I never want to suffer again, but by God that sort of thing just makes me even more determined to succeed. I am still as driven, still as enthusiastic and I will
welcome the challenge of anyone out there.”
Murray was referring not only to the Kenny Dalglish/Jim Kerr consortium who are stalking Celtic, but also the as yet uncovered groups who are bound to make bids to buy out
Fergus McCann.
If the past 10 years have taught Murray, who is one of Britain’s wealthiest individuals, anything it is how to win and he believes
Rangers will continue to grow and prosper.
“I look upon these last 10 years as a having been a great era, but it is over and Rangers are about to head on into a new era,” he said over a glass of the finest red.
He was about to take in another mouthful of the most succulent lamb – anyone who knows Murray shouldn’t be surprised to learn he is a full-blooded, unashamed red meat eater – when he put down his knife and fork.
It was like a Statement of intent and looking directly across the table to make sure I hadn’t yet succumbed to the wine, he said:
“Bring on the next 10 years, there’s more to come for Rangers.
“Understand that I care passionately about what I’m doing with Rangers and believe that in 10 years’ time we will still be setting the pace.
“Too many of us have put too much into this club and we won’t let someone come along and take it all away.
“What I’m saying here is that no matter who buys Celtic from Fergus, they will need to have the deepest of pockets imaginable.
“The fresh challenge would be good for the Scottish game and lift the profile, but Celtic’s new owners had better be prepared to spend.
“In the past, Celtic’s people maybe just haven’t fancied trying to take Rangers on financially, but if I have to go in deeper to keep my club up there then I will. I have done it too many times to be frightened now.”
From anyone else such talk could be dismissed as no more than empty rhetoric, but with Murray you just feel it is more than bluster and besides, he does have a track record as a spender.
There have been times in his 10 years when he has taken
Rangers somewhere between £15m and £20m into debt and he knows that if this season goes belly up like the last one he could be looking at a potential debt of £20m.
However, having taken the value of Rangers from £6m to approximately £186m in 10 years he knows how far he can gamble in pursuit of success.
This season alone he has allowed his new manager Dick Advocaat to spend almost £30m, but he refuses to lose any sleep over it.
He said: “I don’t because I consider spending as much as £5million on someone like Andrei Kanchelskis as a necessity. If a club like ours doesn’t do that then we fall by the wayside.
“Look, I have many other businesses so I could find many other
things to worry about, but I love sport and I want Rangers to be
successful. I know this won’t be accepted by some people but
this isn’t about making money.

£56m has been invested in the stadium and in my time £200m has been turned over and after interest our trading
profit is minimal. Perhaps as much as £60m has been spent on players and I have even paid in about £1m in
hospitality but never taken a salary from the place.
“I get six complimentary tickets the same as everyone else and if I want extra I have to pay for them the same as everyone else.
“There are no free lunches for David Murray at Ibrox and I have never taken part or been at the centre of any of the numerous victory celebrations we have had.”
Murray disappears to celebrate success with a small group of close friends, leaving the roar of the crowd to wash over the players and management.
“Supporters don’t want chairmen hanging around, even though they look to people like me to provide some kind of direction and the new ways to keep moving the club on,” he said.
“I hope I can say that in my 10 years so far I’ve been fairly good at that, but the day I run out of ideas is the day I’ll know it’s over. I’m sure someone will tell me because I have good people around me, I always have.
“But I’m not ready yet to step back and I see enough fresh challenges, staying ahead at home and winning a place at the European table, ahead in the next 10 years to keep my own adrenaline flowing.”
He knows roughly how much it will cost him and he’s heard the rumours that ENIC, who have invested pounds 40m in Rangers, are uneasy at the club’s spending policies but Murray claims these backers have always been supportive of his methods.
He said: “They could kick up a fuss but they don’t. Besides, I am the owner of the club and so far most people seem to like what I’ve done.”

So that’s the origin of “Succulent Lamb”.

Uber sycophantic pee-heeing by our 4^th estate to the movers and shakers to fill pages and air time.
Not journalism, more collaborative fee-free sponsorship/advertorials.
But underpinned by a toxic quid pro quo that can get called in and always an unholy alliance.

Fans deserve better.