Found this prime cut and thought it worth posting, feel free to post your own examples, the more sycophantic the better. MURRAY EYES 20TH PRIZE AND THEN THE WORLD IT IS a measure of David Murray's continued success at Rangers, that should the Ibrox side taste victory in the Scottish Cup final tomorrow, a fifth of the trophies the club has won in over 127 years of history will have been collected during his 11-year spell as chairman. Indeed, Saturday may prove a milestone for a club for whom records - they have just completed a league season an unprecedented 21 points ahead of their nearest title challengers - are becoming commonplace. Victory over Aberdeen will ensure the Ibrox trophy room of its 100th hunk of silver, and Murray of his 20th. This bald fact - more so than the recently announced 53 million pounds share rights investment, and the soon-to-be revealed major media deal - gives the Ibrox chairman utmost pleasure, as does the statistic that shows his manager and friend, Dick Advocaat has won five of six possible domestic trophies since his arrival here two years ago. Their relationship has given Rangers a level of dynamism every Scottish club is struggling to cope with. Such synergy perhaps emphasises where indeed they are going wrong. Scour other club boardrooms, and you will not find a chairman-manager bond so strong. Certainly not at Celtic, where you sometimes wonder if chief executive Allan MacDonald, the Parkhead board and Director of Football/Interim head coach Kenny Dalglish have ever been in the same room together. And, at Dens Park you would not expect to find the Marr brothers and Jocky Scott engaged in banter -tossing over a bottle of Chianti, or Hearts pair Chris Robinson and Jim Jefferies plotting a caravan tour of the Highlands together. While Advocaat and Murray are close socially, their relationship at Ibrox is never less than business-like. Advocaat targets the players, Murray signs the cheques. Or doesn't, as the case may be. The chairman recounts a favourite story involving Advocaat, one that underlines his 'Little General' sobriquet. He and Advocaat have many discussions regarding players, and some talks are allowed to progress further than others. Murray recalled entertaining a potential purchase - a striker - in his Edinburgh office this time last year: "We had agreed on everything. Then suddenly Dick phones me up, and says 'I have decided he is not good enough!' I asked him if he was sure, because he is sitting in front of me. I had to sit there with this player and his representatives, and bring them round to thinking it was their idea not to come. That is what Dick is like. He is very intense. He does his homework." Such is Advocaat and his Dutch brethren's influence at the club, that Murray can see no harm in the controversial idea for fans to wear orange at Hampden tomorrow, despite the nefarious connections people will make and have done already. These "Dutch" strips are not being produced fast enough to meet the demand, and Hampden won't have seen anything like it since Dundee United last trundled into town. Murray believes it akin to Manchester United fans arriving at Old Trafford during the Eric Cantona era waving French tricolours. "I don't think there is anything wrong in it and I will tell you why. We are clearly a Scottish club, and it is an orange strip with a lion rampant. If we had not put that on it, then I could accept people going 'what's the story here?' "If people still want to interpret it any other way then that is their problem. Why are there Irish strips at Celtic matches? Has there ever been a bigger contingent of players from one foreign country at a club in Britain? Half the team will be Dutch next season, as well as the manager and his assistant. There is bound to be some association." Murray may not court controversy, but won't baulk from stirring it. His refusal to let Ibrox host the forthcoming Mike Tyson-Lou Saverese fight, now to be staged at Hampden, does not stem from any principled stand. The financial package offered was not acceptable. "What Tyson did was wrong, but does that mean that any person of any celebrity status who has done something wrong won't be allowed into this country? Where do you draw the line? It's just people jumping on a bandwagon again. The government agreed to it. Who are we to sit and judge someone's morals?" Celtic - who refused on ethical grounds to host the fight - clearly believe such a responsibility is theirs, though fans of the club might wish they would concentrate on occupying the footballing high-ground. Murray, an obviously competitive man, must have some qualms regarding the ease with which Rangers claimed their tenth title in eleven years? "It is not my concern," he replied, abruptly. "But what I would say is it is a bloody tough job running a football club. "I've had defeat in Europe as other chairmen have had defeat by us in Scotland. It's not a nice feeling. It's bloody horrible. "Stewart Milne has not gone into Aberdeen to get rich quick, he's there because he loves the club. Allan MacDonald is getting a hard time and he doesn't even own Celtic. He's just a hired hand and he's getting pelters. So I do have some sympathy, but with the greatest respect my job is to beat Celtic, just as it is to beat Hibs and Hearts." Murray conceded there is not 21 points between Rangers and Celtic this year: "It should have been closer. But we got the breaks when we needed them. We are the better team, but I know Dick is not being complacent. We are further ahead than anybody in strengthening the team for next year." Rangers have already signed Fernando Ricksen and Allan Johnston and hope to add Feyenoord's Bert Konterman and Bolton's Paul Ritchie next week. A striker is also being sought from a short-leet of seven. Celtic, meanwhile, have still to name a head coach who can then only begin such scouting. Yet you sense Murray's sights extend far beyond putting one over the east end of Glasgow. He rails against the parochialism of Scotland - "we used to be such an expansive nation, but parochialism mixed with bigotry has been the downfall of this country" - and now aims to take Rangers to the world, in a broadening of horizons such as Manchester United have achieved. His son, also David, has masterminded a takeover of Australian club Northern Spirit. It is only the beginning. "There is nothing to stop us hopefully having three or four clubs, with our own world TV channel, playing in the same strip, with the same sponsor." The thought of there being four "Rangers'" in the world might be enough to send many to the brink, but Murray is adamant each club will retain its own identity, and own name. Meanwhile at HQ Ibrox you can imagine the chairman and Advocaat, with white furry cats on laps, drinking a toast to the global march. Indeed, Holland, as Hampden will prove tomorrow, has already been taken. Alan Patullo The Scotsman
Yes Dick did his homework so well that the guy he identified (and then did not actually fancy) had gone to the trouble of coming in with his agent for signing talks. If Dick had done his homework properly surely the mystery player would have never been there ?
Spot on Dev. If that article was typical of Alan Patullo he must have been an insufferably twee excuse for a 'journalist'.
If Dick had done his homework he would have nothing to do with who Rangers were buying. He should have provided the finance legally and left the actual football decisions to those at the club who had a football brain. Murray deciding he could walk on air, instead of realising he couldn't walk at all was his downfall. wee t is still trying to get mixing with the elite, surely he knows by now he belongs to sewer class not the SPL elite.
Rangers to establish European football academy Graham Spiers - Scotland on Sunday "RANGERS are about to revolutionise their policy by setting up their own soccer academy. The Ibrox club will invest nearly £ 2m over the next five years handing out scholarships combining football with education to talented youngsters from Britain and Europe in order to "attract prime talent" according to the club's chairman, David Murray. The radical plan will largely replace the club's traditional youth policy. The scheme is the brainchild of Murray, together with Walter Smith, the Rangers manager, and John Chalmers, the club's youth development officer. The Rangers soccer scholarship will be open to any promising youngster who can also meet certain academic requirements. He will then be put through school in Scotland, organised and paid for by Ibrox, and eventually join Rangers on a three-year professional contract. Rangers say they are pursuing the idea because of two recent trends: the Bosman ruling, which casts fresh doubt on the issue of compensation, as well as a growing disenchantment with football's traditional "grooming" methods. The plan is to enrol six to eight boys starting from next season. With the same number being added year on year, the Rangers soccer academy would eventually have 30 to 40 teenagers. The cost to the club would be around £ 400,000 a year. "We believe this to be a fresh, radical alternative and the way ahead for football," says Murray. "We're already advanced in our planning and if we can get the go-ahead we think it will invigorate Scottish football. We would have Scottish kids and hopefully French, Dutch and Spanish boys as well, coming to Scotland to develop as footballers and also receive a first-class education." Murray has already spoken to educational authorities, as well as both state and private schools. A prominent Edinburgh private school has already acknowledged its support. "But there will be no elitism," says Murray. "Parents of boys being given the Rangers scholarship would have the choice of sending them through either public or private schooling. To be frank, I think combining football learning with educational learning in this way would also produce more rounded, level-headed lads." Rangers are awaiting final clarification from UEFA on the issue of clubs retaining their young talent. At the moment, a club investing in a boy's future can suddenly be hamstrung by his announcement at the age of 17 that he is off to join someone else. If the post-Bosman era gives clubs the right to retain, then Rangers will press ahead. "But we need the definitive word on this before we can start," says Murray. Both Murray and Smith are known to have become increasing disillusioned with football's time-worn youth system: young lads coming in for evenings, being haphazardly vetted and judged, with coaches and managers crossing their fingers and hoping the right ones come through. Rangers calculate they have spent exorbitant amounts on this without any commensurate reward. "We've had a relatively impressive youth system at Ibrox for years but what have we got out of it?" asks Murray. "We've had Derek Ferguson, Ian Durrant, Dave McPherson, Charlie Miller and John Spencer. After all that time, it's not been great. Also, we've at least been able to sell the Steven Pressleys to help costs, but that is not to be allowed any more. So it's time for fresh thinking. If the soccer academy gives us one good player every two years, that will be good business."
Keef Jackson Ibrox chairman David Murray is convinced that's the ideal background for his future stars. Murray unveiled his plans for the Rangers Soccer Academy at the weekend - a revolutionary scheme to grant scholarships to the cream of Europe's young talent. And Murray told me: "We will look after the education of the boys in the system and we will also give them an education in football. "We have been forced to rethink our youth policy because we have been putting in up to pounds 200,000 a year and the return - with the exception of John Spencer, Gary McSwegan and Charlie Miller - has not been good enough. "This new set-up may cost us around pounds 300,000 a year, but I have talked it through with Walter and we are certain it is the way ahead. "We will go ahead with it when we have one or two grey areas to come out of the Bosman ruling defined to us. "But we intend to bring these boys through the system and then they will go straight on to a three-year contract with us." Murray revealed: "I have already been contacted by several parents from abroad who have talented boys and are interested in sending them to our academy. "We are excited because we realise how important this could be to our future. "A club as big as Rangers would find it hard to sustain our gates if our youth policy meant filling the team with youngsters. "There are far too many prizes on the table to risk that kind of upheaval. But in this academy we believe we have found the best way forward for Rangers."
Rangers find man to fight their corner in Alastair Johnston By Jim Traynor Alastair Johnston should have been wearing a gumshield. His fists ought to have been wrapped in bandages as he sat inside Ibrox like a man ready and willing to go one last round. There was only one option left. Rangers had been boxed into a corner and someone had to stand up and fight. Yesterday their chairman got off the stool and landed heavy, crunching blows and sharp, cutting jabs. These are desperate days for Rangers and the time for fancy footwork and business-speak had come and gone. So the golf and Orlando's Lake Windermere were left behind. Rangers ' interim figures were being announced and although decent - the debt is hovering around £24million - they were never going to disguise bleak reality should Craig Whyte's bid to buy out Sir David Murray fail. Rangers are reeling. They needed a champion and so Johnston set aside his usual weapons, dilplomacy and protocol. It was time to come out swinging. And for a dapper figure, who'd probably fall into the welterweight division, his was a bludgeoning performance. Johnston didn't miss. He picked off his targets one by one. Donald Muir, the man who sits on the Ibrox board as a representative of Lloyds Banking Group, but not for much longer having been removed from the Murray Group board on Thursday, was shredded. The bank, who have been squeezing the life out of Rangers , were battered and the people responsible for an unexpected £2.8m bill lying over from more than a decade ago were thumped. At times it appeared as though Johnston was struggling so much to control his anger that if he had been wearing a gumshield he'd have bitten right through it. But he remained focused and delivered an impressive performance as chairman. Rangers fans were told Muir was on the board as a representative of the Murray Group but yesterday he was dramatically and finally unmasked as a Lloyds man. Johnston said: "It has been denied by a lot of people but I'm telling you what the issue is right now. I have decided that I might as well come out and say it. "Let's be very clear on the subject of Donald Muir. It is a condition of our credit facility agreement that Donald Muir is a representative of the bank on the board. "It has been terribly compromising to have a situation like this. It is very tough to engage in conversations at board level in terms of strategies with the bank when we know the bank guy is sitting there." Muir remains on the board but Johnston added: "He doesn't have an ongoing role." At that moment there could have been a slight din from another room. A cheer from the boardroom perhaps? Surely not. And Lloyds themselves? The question was barely out before Johnston had the bank recoiling. He said: "The bank look upon us as a short-term project to the extent that, at every opportunity, they are not willing to concede that there isn't an occasion or a transaction where they might want to participate. "We've been engaging them for a while and asking them things like, if we sell players is there any certainty that we would get all the money back to spend, 90 per cent of it or even 80 per cent of it? "It makes our management very difficult. How can we plan for selling players when we don't know how much we will get to keep? "It also creates an environment where the management team are reluctant to sell players because they don't know if they'll get money to replace them. "So the bank is compromising our ability to plan in three-year cycles. They are never going to give us the carte blanche to make our own decisions with our own money. If we make it into the Champions League, they want a part of it. We are never very sure what's going to happen in the future." If this had been a fight the Windermere Windmill's cornermen would have been telling him to slow down and save energy but he was straight into the tax issue. No, not The Tax Issue but another one. Only a few weeks ago Rangers were hit with a tax bill for almost £3m - it is believed this relates to the signings of two or three players brought in during Dick Advocaat's reign - and Johnston was livid. The much-publicised court battle with HMRC over alleged unpaid taxes is looming but neither Johnston nor any of the directors had a clue about this new bill. He said: "Our numbers today would be £2.8m better today if it wasn't for the fact we had to take this charge.”As the Americans say this one came from left-field. And if you can see my teeth gritting a little more then you will know it is really frustrating because no one knew about it a couple of months ago. "And let me put on record that if we had known about it we would have had to put it in our annual report and taken a liability in the accounts." That brought him around to the man who would be king. Whyte's bid to buy the club could be signed and sealed by the middle of next week but it's not clear who will pick up the tab for the new tax bill. Johnston said: "It's a cash-flow issue someone has to pay for and as far as I'm concerned we don't have it in our budget." By this point a man who had just flown in from the more sedate world of the American golf circuit and who spends as much time as he can at his Orlando home should have been exhausted but Johnston's adrenalin was flowing. The bank, he insists, have squeezed the very last drops of revenue from the club and now they must rethink a strategy which will choke the life from Ibrox if Whyte's takeover fails. Johnston was fighting for his club's survival. Someone had to and at the final bell he stepped forward to prove he and Rangers remain defiant.
