Jabba's DR piece "DIFFICULT to know the best place to begin, what to say or which group to support. There are so many people whispering and cajoling and trying to gain backing for their ideas and plans which they claim would make Scottish football better. Sadly, we’ve heard it all before. A couple of years ago the phone rang and on the other end an influential club leader was inviting me to meet, on neutral territory, to discuss the “way forward”. He’d made contact with the blessing of a few other club chairmen in the hope this paper would promote his, their views on how the game could be rescued from the doldrums. “The status quo is not an option,” was the message given when we met, and others in the SPL repeated it in the weeks after. A bunch of them, hand picked by themselves, had strategic planning sessions in “secret locations” which, of course, we all knew about but took the view not to doorstep any of them because these were hardly meetings of minds. It wasn’t as though in among the usual suspects there was a Sir David Attenborough, Tony Benn, Richard Dawkins or a Robert Winston, not that he’d have been allowed in anyway. There’s room for only one bad moustache, and like a large, brooding caterpillar it lies there on Big Rod’s top lip. It’s not my place to do so but someone ought to tell Petrie he might not look quite so much like an undertaker if he were to get rid of the snot mop. Then again he is one of the men presiding over the game’s continuing decline. Don’t be fooled by the crowd at Tynecastle on Saturday when fans streamed towards their Gorgie shrine or at Pittodrie. Hearts fans were out in force to help save their stricken club and Aberdeen had a chance to go top of the SPL so, of course, their supporters were going to turn out. They’ll go missing again shortly. And don’t be fooled either by the commentators who get worked up because a match is exciting. Like schoolgirls at a One Direction gig they scream and shrill when a match is being closely fought, as though this is a new phenomenon. Mostly they are the ones who said nothing would change when the top flight lost one of its biggest draws and now they’re trying too hard to talk up a poor product. They are in denial and are not helping. They still fail to accept excitement does not equate to quality and can’t quite see either that TV audiences are switching off. They don’t understand there are still only two massive clubs in this country, even if they are leagues apart because of the financial misdeeds of one. Incidentally, it is widely believed the final verdict on Rangers’ EBT case will be revealed before this week is out and the army of self-appointed experts are still predicting a damning result. We will know for certain soon enough but unfortunately the issue of league reconstruction will drag on and on with the SPL and SFL pushing their own models and the SFA sitting in the middle unable to act because of protocol. Surely the fact red tape prevents the governing body in Scotland from intervening is proof enough changes must be made. However, it probably suits the SFA to sit and watch the two other administrations go head to head and then rubber stamp whatever comes out of the skirmish. That way they don’t get dragged into the mess when they should be right there in the centre of the brewing storm demanding commonsense prevail for the good of the game. If they were really bold they’d actually back the SFL proposal of three divisions of 16-10-16 rather than the SPL’s attempt which merely revisits an old idea. They want two divisions with 12 clubs in each and even though they’ll say they aren’t trying to form SPL 2 that’s exactly what they’re proposing even if there is an acknowledgement they’ll have to change the name of their little gang. Frankly, though, this is intellect at a bungalow level. It isn’t clever, it isn’t radical and it isn’t new. Instead of thinking about the greater good of the game this is just another shoddy attempt by a handful of clubs, who see themselves as bigger than the reality suggests, to protect what they have at the moment. But this is also about a stubborn refusal to accept there might be more intelligence within the SFL, that directors of smaller clubs can think on a grand scale. The attitude is insulting but if the SFL, who were left behind when the SPL was formed in 1998, remain united they can succeed with their proposal and bring an end to the SPL which has been shown to be shambolic and vindictive. This is not an attack on Neil Doncaster who is at the mercy of his members, some of whom behave as though they, and only they know, what is best for the game. They are not interested in providing a structure which allows clubs they believe are a waste of space to breath and thrive – and it is time they were brought down. They have failed the game and must be prevented from causing further damage. On the other hand the SFL, who have attracted sponsors in straitened times and who have won Government support for their initiatives, are entitled to think they can now lead the way and will by sticking together and resisting any offer to form a second tier run by another body. It is still my belief that three divisions each housing 14 clubs offers a structure best suited to providing movement between the divisions, play-offs and drama. It would also be an environment in which young players would have the chance and time to flourish and that would help enhance the quality. The divisions would split after each side had played all of their opponents home and away but these splits would make sure every team played the same number of home and away games. There would be no meaningless matches and the play-offs could be sold at a premium if they involved derbies. And just imagine the crowds if the final Edinburgh derby was for a place in Europe. Of course this is assuming Hearts survive beyond this season or that Vladimir Romanov doesn’t shut down and sell Tynecastle. He has been given until next month to settle the £475,000 tax bill but HMRC are also seeking a £1.75million payment relating to players loaned to the Tynecastle club from FBK Kaunas. Hearts are disputing this claim and their fans are rallying to the cause but it is difficult to see how the club can haul themselves out of trouble. Apart from what they do or don’t owe the tax man their debt is about £23m and rising. Also, Romanov is believed to have put more than £30m into the club since he bought it and it has been said he’s written off much of that. But what if he hasn’t? What if that amount has still to be settled? Hearts owe a huge bill to Romanov’s bank, which is hardly the largest in the world, and they couldn’t afford to write of such an amount. No bank could and that might mean Hearts can’t even be sold. Hearts, then, just might be another SPL experiment which went wrong and another reason why this lot shouldn’t be allowed to reshape the game. The SFL’s proposal isn’t perfect but it is more radical and more intelligent than anything the top flight have come up with and it addresses the needs of fans. Also weren’t the SPL clubs fond of telling everyone they had no choice but to listen to their supporters during the close season? Hopefully they’ll still be listening when the same fans tell them where to stick their SPL 2." Jabba talks about being approached by a club chairman in the past, where the chairman was hoping that Jabba would write favourably about his plans. After reading this, I can't help thinking that someone else has done the same and Jabba is complying this time. I really can't imagine why that might be.
I read to the part where he openly insults Petrie for his appearance, and decided i couldn't be ****ed with the rest of it. He's an embarrassment.
That reads like a forum post What a detestable orc he is. Murray's cheerleader gets a national platform to preach from still - defies belief.
What an embarrassment. The league's been short on quality for years and it never bothered him. Fat prick.
Is this real? Must be a joke surely? either that or Chuck Green has got hold of a truckload of succulent lamb to dole out amongst the boys who toe his party line.
I'm gonna add Jabba to the list of Ranger's blogs I refuse to read on the grounds that they're so biased and mental that it's not good for my mental health to read them.
He is just a bitter, bitter man. 'Let the best of the memories rush and keep the worst locked away' he said. Then he spends half of his farewell piece slating others. Speirs gets it, as does the RTC. Snidey stuff from someone desperate to get the last word. The most telling phrase in the piece was this: 'The journalism needed by the country, never mind sport, no longer exists in enough of the other media outlets.' You are absolutely right there Jim. This is the type of journalism we don't need: Daily Record – 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 £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." In spite of all the work he wanted to regale us with in his grand finale, this is the piece that defined his career and him as a man - sycophant to ra peepil. Finally, there is one bit that makes me laugh more than even the 'unashamed red meat eater' bit and it's this: '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.' I just have a picture of Minty doing a bit of Jedi-style mind games and Jim starts saying 'I understand that you care passionately.....'
I wouldn't think so. That surely is the wholly vindicated, never been guilty of anything Mark 'Everyone else is wrong, especially the McGwire Drugs Case blog' McGwire.
“Just when did they become consumed by such eye-popping rage? Was it always there, a dormant fury against Rangers and their fans, who deserve enormous credit for having saved their club, just waiting for the catalyst?”
McMurdo on Traynor. I am hearing on the grapevine that Jim Traynor and the Daily Record are about to part company. My information is it concerns Editor in Chief Allan Rennie’s decision not to run the Anthony Stokes attending a RIRA fundraiser story on the Record front page. (Hmm, do tell, sounds interesting) Apparently the Stokes story was set to be the lead but Rennie intervened and switched the Stokes piece with the complete non-story about some guy with a criminal record interested in buying shares in The Rangers. (and the Stokes story was worthy of front page coverage how exactly? He is Irish after all) Traynor was apparently livid at this decision and it was the final straw in what I am led to believe has been a stormy and unhappy time for him at the Record. Although by no means universally liked by the Rangers support, Jim Traynor has won a lot of admiration from many in the light blue legions in recent times for his withering attacks on the bigots and bozos who are ruining the game here in Scotland by pursuing a virulent anti-Rangers agenda. (In other words it’s become blindingly obvious that Traynor is a Rangers fan?) It seemed to me that JT started off believing that Rangers were in some way guilty of wrongdoing and should man up to any punishments dished out but he became more aware as time went on that what was supposed to be a just and fair response by the football authorities to the Rangers situation was, in fact, a hate-driven witch hunt with sinister roots. (Voodoo?) My own opinion of Jim Traynor is that he is our best football journalist by a country mile, though not always right and often spectacularly wrong.He is the one journo with the guts to speak his mind, or at least try to, given the shackles so many in our media now work under. The truth is that Jim Traynor knows the score about how the media functions in Scotland and it is evident he chafes against the restraints imposed by political and external influences. Given that print media is collapsing in Scotland, JT might just find that blogging is a good outlet for his considerable talents. (And given that in his last article today he absolutely lambasts ‘bloggers’ he would be a bit of a hypocrite if he did so, naturally though he is better than the rest of these faceless Anti Rangers bigots?) I used to like to chide him for his remark that he would never work for a tabloid and I wouldn’t be surprised if he has made the same comment about blogging. But a Jim Traynor blog with no restraints would be good fare, I am sure, for those who like the fitba’ in Scotland. It is my understanding that Traynor will continue in his stint with the BBC. This is ironic, given that the BBC in Scotland is regarded by many to be the most bias and agenda-driven media outlet around. (Many? You leggo, and the other nutters you mean?) Maybe JT will decide he has had enough of the Beeb if they continue their own anti-Rangers agenda. (Or maybe he’ll need some means of income and will be content to take the money on offer even if he does hate the bigots at the BBC) That’s not to say that Traynor is a “Rangers man.” What I believe him to be is someone who dislikes injustice and partisan dealings. (Like all good Rangers men no doubt?) One thing is for sure. We could use plenty more like that in our media pack up here in Scotland. As well as editors with balls that are not afraid to cross the powerful anti-Rangers lobby that has an iron grip on football and the media. You can take something else to the bank – Scottish football will be hearing from Jim Traynor for a long while to come.
