Black Gate

Mick · Sep 17, 2013

He's a public service, I don't have to go seeking out negative stories concerning Rangers - they come to me.

RebelBhoy · Sep 17, 2013

Mind The Duck said: ↑

I love your threads
Click to expand...

I have no opinion on his sartorial stylings.

Albatross · Sep 17, 2013

DevAdvocate said: ↑

IT IS unlikely that Ian Black is going to sit down any time soon â if at all â and explain what he was thinking about that day he struck a bet on East Stirlingshire to get a draw against his own team, Rangers, at Ochilview on April 27.
Thatâs the first question youâd like to ask him. Not about the 159 other bets he placed that contravened the SFAâs betting rules, but that one wager, as part of an accumulator, on Scottish footballâs most hopeless senior club getting a draw against the newly crowned Third Division champions with Black himself at the heart of their midfield on the day

If you leave to one side the fact that any such betting on football was against the SFA rules, how did Black come to the conclusion that that was the wager he wanted to place? What weird rationale made him opt for a draw?

East Stirlingshire were not only bottom of the league but they hadnât had a draw â not to mind a win â in any of their previous eight games.
In fact, they ended up losing their last ten games of the season conceding 39 goals in the process. In the games leading up to Blackâs bet on a stalemate, East Stirlingshire had lost 5-1 to Queenâs Park (the week before the Rangers match), lost 2-1 to Annan, lost 6-0 to Peterhead, lost 2-0 to Clyde, lost 2-1 to Montrose, lost 2-0 to Berwick and lost 9-1, yes, 9-1 â to Stirling Albion.

Where was the form-line that suggested they were capable of holding Rangers?
East Stirlingshire had conceded 101 goals in their 41 games leading up to Rangers match. Black had already played against them three times that season. On none of those occasions was there the slightest bit of evidence that the worst team in Scottish senior football was capable of getting a draw against Ally McCoistâs side. In the first match, Rangers beat them 5-1. In the second, Rangers won 6-2. In the third, Blackâs team won 3-1. Three games and an aggregate score of 14-4 and then Black goes for a draw?

Does that make sense?

Black has been found guilty of betting on football, and betting against his own team, but is there no suggestion of anything more sinister, such as deliberately underperforming in that East Stirlingshire game in order to make the draw a little more likely.
Black scored the goal that put Rangers 3-2 ahead, thereby helping to sink his own bet. In that regard, he was a bookmakersâ dream. A punter who deliberately stymied his own wager? Thatâs nirvana for a bookie.

All of this is weird and demands explanation but we wonât get it because Black wonât talk (not for a while at any rate, youâd have to imagine) and the judicial panel wonât publish their findings.

None of this is helpful. Here is a footballer who has admitted to betting against his own team and yet, effectively, he will serve the same suspension as a player found guilty of a bad challenge.

On Friday, Rangers manager Ally McCoist said that he had no issue with Black or his betting and that, too, is unsatisfactory. How could the Rangers manager not have an issue with one of his players taking the field having had a bet on his team not to win the match he was playing in?
McCoistâs words are actually a betrayal of sorts. Imagine McCoist trying to explain himself to a Bill Struth or a Scot Symon? Imagine those gentlemen trying to get their head around this business of Black betting on Rangers drawing with East Stirlingshire before going out to play against them?
Amid all the hoopla surrounding the Black case, there was one point on which nearly everybody was agreed and that was that a player should never bet against his own team. Black has admitted to doing precisely that at the end of last season. The Rangers man has been fined, in essence, little more than a weekâs wages and is banned, in effect, for three games, the same punishment doled out to Dundee Unitedâs Gavin Gunning a few weeks ago for having a sneaky kick at Virgil van Dijk of Celtic.

At times like this the easy thing to do is to give the SFA a shoeing for a verdict that makes little sense to most people but what has to be remembered is that it was their judicial panel which handed down this sanction on Black and that that panel is independent. It stands alone but it is the SFA that must deal with the fallout.

Three matches, with seven more suspended, does not amount to zero tolerance of playersâ gambling on football.
Players gambling isnât really the nub of the Black affair, of course. Players have a punt. Managers have a punt. Many people in the game have a punt on football even though they are not supposed to. But they donât bet on their own team not winning. Thatâs crossing the line.
Quite frankly, you wonât stop players betting.

Itâs instructive to note that Blackâs punishment only relates to betting on games involving the club he was registered with at the time. For more than a hundred other breaches, all admitted by the player, he received nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
What is the point of a rule if there is no sanction when it is broken multiple times?

From the outset of this case, the major question was whether Black had bet against his own team in a match in which he was playing. He did and he deserved a bigger sanction than the one he got. He certainly deserved harsher words than his manager was prepared to offer in public.
McCoist didnât have to sack Black, although Rangers fired Fran Sandaza for a lot less under the pretence of disloyalty. Isnât betting against your team the very essence of disloyalty?

We still donât know why he did it. Thatâs the truly mystifying part.

The panel discounted match-fixing and ruled out any notion that he tried in any sinister way to influence the game to bring up his bet. Once he stops breathing his sighs of relief at such a lenient punishment and the undeserved support of his employers which followed in its wake, Black might want to explain what he was thinking.

The bet, as part of the accumulator, flew in the face of form and logic and integrity, it was against the rules of the game and against the spirit of the dressing room.

For breaking the one rule that most football people (McCoist excluded, it seems) say cannot be broken, Black will serve a three-game ban.
Hard to fathom, just like his bizarre wager at Ochilview that day.

Tom English
Click to expand...

Transparency. We are told that this was the bet by an organisation which struck up a secret agreement with SEVCO in the five way agreement not to punish or strike off titles, then went ahead and set up the LNS Inquiry.

The Scottish Law Reporter has the article calling for an inquiry into the LNS decision. Will never happen just as the call by Charles Kennedy to have an inquiry into the Skye Toll Bridge affair was blocked by.........

Lord Nimmo Smith.

He seems to appear in controversial inquiries.

Mind The Duck · Sep 18, 2013

VenomPD:5357420 said:

Mind The Duck said: ↑

I was expecting images of Mordor :'(
Click to expand...

That's The Black Gate.
Click to expand...

Was it resurrected from liquidation?

Black Gate

Mick Probably won't answer PMs
Staff Member

RebelBhoy Moderator
Staff Member

Albatross Well-Known Member

Mind The Duck Well-Known Member

Share This Page

About Us

Quick Navigation

Like us on Facebook

Buy us a beer!

Useful Searches

Black Gate

Mick Probably won't answer PMs Staff Member

RebelBhoy Moderator Staff Member

Albatross Well-Known Member

Mind The Duck Well-Known Member

Share This Page

Mick Probably won't answer PMs
Staff Member

RebelBhoy Moderator
Staff Member