BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 27th June 2025
(Photo:@Homesoffootball)
It seems these wise words are a much older adage and the first UK use I could find came from a post-Culloden summary by a clan biographer back in 1889.
He said, sadly “We will never know how many of our clan died because it is the victor who writes the history and counts the dead”.
I’ve always said that one day someone will write an honest book about the rise, rise, rise and then steep fall of Glasgow Rangers est. 1872.
David Murray’s club.
It might ostensibly be a book about football but it would inevitably be about much more.
A dipstick into Scottish commerce about a business phenomenon coloured up by off-the-radar, destructive, personal ambition.
A business based on using other people’s money, (Bank of Scotland and others).
A Scottish institution caught on the wrong side of a needless fight to the death with a worthy but as history shows cleverer and deeper pocketed opponent, The Bunnet.
We all know that Craig Whyte then was able to buy what un-rewritten history will confirm was a terminally stricken club for £1.
But the Whyte Knight wasn’t any kind of rescue.
The corporate carpetbagger with alleged ‘Wealth off the radar’ was a 2 bit operator and couldn’t run it, couldn’t properly asset strip it either and after what was always going to be a failed administration attempt, the club was summarily despatched into a liquidation box in some accountant’s office.
We then saw a new off the shelf business hastily formed by one of Craig’s ‘rescue colleagues’.
Badness was afoot in a pre agreed carve up.
But a further and almost comic complication was the battle of the two ‘Sevcos’ when one ‘partner ‘reneged on the cosy ‘insider deal’ and went rogue.
What a bloody mess it was.
It’s all very painful to Rangers fans and further complicated by the forever old club/new club arguments and whether the history of a club can be bought by a Newco as an afterthought to try and convince the fans that it was one and the same thing.
I have many Rangers supporting pals and they are not idiots.
Rangers fans were shafted before, during and after.
I well remember the summer of angst, the cancelled pre-season testimonial game at Kelty Hearts and even the difficulty of producing legal players and team lines when Charlie’s new club were unseeded and playing Brechin in a nothing cup.
The best and most self-marketable players had already long walked away because that was their legal right and the Traynor-led North Korean style dialogue which the BBC and red tops somehow bought into agreed a consensus that ‘the club had been wronged by Rangers-Haters and somehow demoted/ relegated’.
Utter bollocks.
The club was wronged for sure but it came from within and well before ‘Carpet Bagger Craig and his pal Charlie’ came along.
The fans were the biggest victims, but I guess they always are and will be.
And 13 years on from Kelty and Brechin this will never go away.
It was a dirty, dirty chapter in Scottish football history clouded by big egos, loyalties, lies, subterfuge and smoothed over by an ever complicit media.
The real heroes behind the rescue never got the credit and once the club had a future that the fans could buy into the new entity seamlessly became one with the old in the fans minds.
Who were the heroes I mentioned above?
The SPFL and the SFA who somehow managed to facilitate a commercially-driven solution for the good of their commercial contracts and their members.
They went way beyond the call of duty.
Getting Your Retaliation in First?
David Murray is on the verge of launching what is said on the cover to be a self-penned book next Thursday.
It’s called ‘Mettle’.
The publisher’s blurb says, “Mettle is a truly remarkable tale of never say die over unimaginable adversity”.
I agree but I would give that accolade to Rangers fans, not Mr Murray.
The book costs £17.45, a number which ties in neatly with the Culloden quote I used above to confirm that ‘rewriting history’ is nothing new.
David Murray is just one of a long procession of powerful people trying to whitewash their past misdemeanours.
I don’t yet know who his ghost writer is but that kind of thing never stays hidden for long in our goldfish bowl. (It’s Bruce Waddell ex editor at Daily Record).
In the pre-arranged radio interview on GMS this morning Mr Murray apologised to the Ibrox fans for selling the club to Craig Whyte.
It sounded like the interviewer had been given the questions to ask on his press briefing notes.
What a waste of and opportunity and how patronising for Rangers fans.
So Cynical by the Previous Owner
A ‘look over there, not at me’, PR Gambit by the man who once tried to buy Ayr United.
A blatant sleight of hand to take the listeners’ and the fans’ attention away from what really rendered his club into being worth the same as a tube of Colgate in the Home Bargains Pound Shop.
So, in the new ‘gospel’ according to David, now that the club is finally on an even keel after years of turmoil is: it was all Craig’s fault.
Effectively, a bad boy did it and ran away.
The sad reality and David Murray’s real legacy is so many people have been fleeced by the decline and fall of what was the establishment team.
His establishment team.
In his radio interview today Mr Murray didn’t at any time mention that his own role might have been central to the very real collapse and did not apologise for running the club into the ground over a period of years.
There was also no apology to the Bank of Scotland staff for the turmoil he and his banker pal from north of the Forth caused.
And there was no apology of any kind to the general tax paying public for the industrial scale tax evasion by his club over a number of years.
Money that was needed for hospitals, schools and the Rangers fans beloved armed forces.
I hope ‘Mettle’ opens up an honest reaction and debate because this was a disgraceful period in Scottish business and life and while Craig Whyte and Charlie Green are without doubt rogues of the finest order they were just bit part players, mainly after the real event.
This Week’s Sting
1. A Fan Dilemma Looking For a Solution
2. Great Football Free on Telly
3. More Play-Off Nonsense
4. Iran vs USA and More
5. Celtic, Acqua Telecom and a New Fan Vision
6. Left Back from the Plans
1. No Wonder Fans Get Frustrated Angry
Callum Booth of the SPFL was on the BBC last week explaining the intricacy of the fixture list and came across really well.
I hope that this is part of the SPFL opening up and engaging with fans.
There will always be issues.
One thing that needs to have some discussion right away is the problems caused by the wonderful Friday night football on the BBC Scotland Channel.
August 8th sees Saint Johnstone away to County in Dingwall.
125 miles and two and a half hours each way for Saints fans.
A real disincentive on a work day for most.
A situation where tv fans win and travelling fans lose out.
How to solve it?
The answer is to share the burden across the league and at the same time agree a compromise like maybe an agreed payment into the travelling club’s youth system.
2. Uefa v Fifa on the Box
The club world cup hasn’t taken off yet and the US public are not warming sufficiently to fill the grounds.
It might become competitive and worth watching when it stops being like pre-season friendlies.
Along the way so far Channel 5 commentary has been risible.
Infantino’s reworking of the old Toyota Cup is a badly thought through mess but in the future I believe it could become a big deal.
In the meantime Uefa’s under-hyped ‘Under 21’ competition has been wonderful.
Competitive, skillful and kids doing their best.
And with the Women’s Euros just about to kick off who needs the Club World Cup?
The ‘proxy war’ for money and power between Infantino and Uefa needs to be thought through from the point of view of the whole game and players welfare should be part of the solution.
3. It’s All About the Rich Getting Richer, Again
Hibs and Glasgow City have drawn tough games against Fortuna Hjorring and Austria Wien.
Both could qualify but I’d prefer if Uefa realised that all that happens is the bigger teams from more developed leagues qualify and get the revenues at the expense of the wee guys.
Good for the big guys.
Not good for football.
If you qualify it means you should qualify and not multiple clubs per country.
Not ever.
4. Politics and Football
There is a good chance Iran will qualify for Trump’s World Cup.
They could be in the same group as the USA when it gets drawn in December.
In the meantime King Donald of Mar y Lago, the host, is telling people from Fifa countries they are not welcome in his country, World Cup or not.
And still bubbling away on a back burner is the Israeli club sides playing on seized Palestinian land and Fifa using their Nelson telescope to look at the situation.
5. Celtic Mobile
A wee story in the quality football press caught my attention.
Celtic have partnered with Acqua Telecom to create a person-centred platform which will systematically build direct involvement between the club and the fan.
The one to one link between the club will bypass all other social media platforms and is a genuine two way relationship between the club and the fan and supply information both ways.
It’s a game changer.
A deep connection that will draw the fans in for life.
Other clubs will copy this.
6. Knowing When is Never Easy
Kieren Tierney and Andy Robertson deserve great credit for the professional way they have reacted to suddenly being unwanted at their parent clubs.
Football can be tough and heartless but both will flourish in pastures new.
Sting is:
Not the same as the 73 year old Geordie ex-teacher who played Bellahouston Park on Wednesday night.
Although I like him fine and have a few of his earlier albums.
Andy’s Sting is about football.
The game of football and what it can do for our communities, not specific games or silverware current and historic.
The game provides a living for so many, including hangers on feasting on the constant gossip that surrounds our game.
Call them Journos, pundits, commentators, whatever, I’d argue there are good people in the mix but we deserve so much more.
If even 5% of the air and media time was spent on thinking about how to leave the game in a better place then Scottish football would indeed be in a better place.
Sting is coming up to its 5th birthday and started when a younger Andy got grumpy at the SPFL clubs turning on Partick Thistle and Hearts in the Covid-affected league tidy up.
Not our clubs finest hour.
At the time I didn’t know there were as many like-minded fans who see the big picture and who get frustrated by the self-interest, the short termism and the lack of real scrutiny and insight by our constantly complicit 4th estate.
Andy’s Album of the Week
Neil Young: Decade
It’s Glastonbury week and Neil Young is one of the ‘Headline Acts’ so what’s better than a triple album of one of Glasgow’s most famous ever buskers.
Outside the Albany Hotel, a Doctor Who scarf fluttering in the wind, a deerstalker hiding his face the legend that is Neil was asking strangers for directions to ‘The Bank of Scotland’.
The grainy footage from the mid 70s is moody at best but his ‘Old Laughing Lady’ song, accompanied by himself on banjo and harmonica was indeed a happening.
Young shares an important anniversary with Glasto.
The year 1970.
It was the first Glastonbury and was mostly new-agers with Tyrannosaurus Rex as a late added ‘Headline Act’, just before Marc Feld became uber commercial.
It was also the year that Neil wrote ‘Ohio’ for Crosby Stills Nash &Young.
It was a protest song about May the 4th 1970, the day the Ohio National Guard opened fire on innocent Anti-Vietnam war protesters.
Four Dead in Ohio.
The right wing, pro-Nixon media ruled the US airwaves back then, (now they rule ours too), and collectively blamed the protestors and therefore so did the American public.
But Neil kept the truth alive.
The song was recorded, rush-released and his refusal to drop Nixon’s name from the “Tin Soldiers and Nixon’s Coming’ line was said to be both brave and foolish at the time.
And while this was all happening the best DJ ever, Stuart Henry, was booked to compere ‘The First Scottish Blues and Progressive Music Festival’ on 17th July at Caley Park.
I was a kid, it was forbidden fruit and cost 30 shillings!
But Caley park was less than a mile away from so we all congregated nearby, people watched and heard some very loud music from Rory Gallagher, Black Widow and more.
The festival started sharp at 2 pm and ended sharp at 9-45.
Inverness was a god fearing wee town back then and Sunday was the Sabbath.
I’ve read since Rory Gallagher stole the show with his band ‘Taste’, and Black Widow were forbidden from sacrificing a naked female.
Normal Saturday night fare in the Highland Capital in the pre-Wickerman days.
As for the Album ‘Decade’, any collection containing ‘After the Goldrush’, ‘Southern Man’, ‘Ohio’ and ‘Long May You Run’ is worth a listen.
Neil will blow Glasto apart this weekend and there will be no National Guard incidents to complain about.
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