Sack The Board?

It amazes me that in this year, the 20th anniversary of Fergus McCann rescuing Celtic from the brink, two decades since he had to prise the Club from the selfish hands of the Kelly regime that we have Celtic fans(albeit a minority) calling once more for the board to be sacked.

I am well aware that our current playing squad is in need of investment , this was proven by our recent games in qualifying for the Champions League against Legia Warsaw, if not in out 3-0 victory in the second leg (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) but if one thing can be learned from the demise of our former rivals it is surely that throwing countless millions at a playing squad in Scotland is just not sustainable. 

Surely then we should be grateful for the investment and prudent leadership at our club, not only during the McCann era but to the current day.

Peter Lawwell is currently a love/hate figure among our fans but as fans we must realise that in his job, being head of non-footballing activities at Celtic he has done a stellar job and to call for him to be sacked is nothing short of foolish when we look across at the comedy cavalcade of characters across Ibrox way in the last throws of the old club(1872) or in the 2 year struggles of the new club (2012) we need to be thankful for the people we have in charge of our club.

I'm sure the signings will arrive in the coming days and I'm sure our scouting team will unearth another gem or two as they have for the last few seasons.

And us, well we will continue to support the team. We will continue to be as fickle as all football fans and find someone to curse after every result but we will always be back, faithful through and through.

The Club, The Company... The Mythology.

My last blog concerned the claims of a "Celtic Newco" and my intention was to put that theory to bed, in this blog however I have no such illusions, since July 2012 the debate regarding Club & company and whether they are one and the same has raged pretty much non stop and I don't doubt they will continue to rage, emotions run too high on this subject to expect anything else. I merely intend to put forward some facts for consideration by people who would like to know the truth.

The source of the Screen Grabs in this blog will be the Memorandum and Incorporation Certificate of The Rangers Football Club (1899) a copy of which can be found at :
Rangers FC Memorandum & Incorporation Certificate

 
sent to me by @celticservant on Twitter who has been very supportive of my blog in helping it reach a far greater audience than it otherwise would have.

I'll start off with the kicker, the line which for me and for anyone of sound mind puts to bed the argument that Club and company are separate entities contained on page 8 of the said document: "The words 'Club' and 'Company' and also the words 'Member' and 'Share Holder' throughout the said Memorandum and Articles of Incorporation shall; where the context admits of it , be of synonymous meaning."  This is therefore to say that Club and Company are nearly or exactly the same.

I know some will find a way to wriggle around this statement which completely contradicts everything they have argued for over the last 2 years, but the fact remains that in black and white the people who ran "the club" and incorporated it as "the company" intended that they would indeed be one and the same, a single entity for all intents and purposes.

This notion that in modern football a "Club" can exist without a company or that a Company is somehow a disposable add on which has no effect on fabled "Club" is a non-sense.

Understandably some people have too much of an emotional investment in a football club to accept that club is simply no more but unfortunately for them, that is the case and what they have now is a cheap imitation run by money hungry businessmen who have no real interest in the success of the club but only the amount of profit they can squeeze before financial ruin approaches.

I best heard the position of a Rangers fan summed up by a friend in this anecdote: 

I had a jacket once, it was my favourite jacket. I wore it everywhere, I had my wallet with £50 in my jacket pocket. One day as I ripped my jacket when I was out, when I took it to be fixed I was told it was damaged beyond repair, I was devastated. The very next day I went to the shop where I bought my jacket and bought another. It was exactly the same: style, size, colour, identical. I took my old jacket and put it in the bin, took my wallet from the pocket and put it in my new jacket, I told everyone that it was the same jacket, my favourite jacket and most people believed me but deep down I knew that it wasn't the same. 

Lets be honest the vast majority of them know its a different club, they know its gone deep down. They are just to emotionally involved to admit it and to be honest it they would be fit for pity rather than ridicule........ if they weren't such pricks about it.

Obsessed is spelled S-C-H-A-D-E-N-F-R-E-U-D-E

Schadenfreude, a loanword from the German language with the literal translation "harm-joy" or to be more specific pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.  

Schadenfreude in a word sums up my interest in The Rangers International Football Club 2012. 

Who cares about them? Call them Rangers, Sevco, Newco whatever you will but to answer the question, I do. I should clarify that by care I don't mean I worry for their well-being but I am interested.

As I say new club or not the people who follow the team that currently play out of Ibrox stadium are the same people who followed the team who were our rivals or as I saw it elegantly put the other day, "same flies different sh*te". As a Celtic Fan growing up in the 90's I took my fair share of stick from them and it is now their misery from which I now derive pleasure.

So if I see a story about the "imminent demise" of this club or that they have been beaten by part-timers or spent almost £7million on footballing costs to win only third tier in Scottish football (a feat which cost Queen of the South only £650, 000 and they also won the Challenge cup) Yes, I will laugh and most likely share this story with other people who I think will laugh.

If this qualifies me as obsessed then guilty I am but to be honest I don't think it does and for me these stories are of interest to anyone who cares about Scottish football or who cares for the well being of any other club in Scotland because like it or not these people have a huge say in our game and will continue to do say while they last. Although that may not be long if they keep employing crooks and financial crack-pots as board members.

For people to comment on social media (mainly Facebook pages) "Who Cares?" on any post just because it is involves them is somewhat shallow and to be honest if I don't care about something I keep scrolling I don't take time out of my day to register my non-interest but I digress.

Regardless of this blog they will still call me obsessed, people will still ponder "Who cares?" on my posts and I, well I might have to stop and take a look at what I post but that of course would require that I stop laughing for long enough to notice.