I hope readers will bear with me for this article - it¹s a little dry and a little more historical than what we're normally put out.
However, I think it's important that we understand the history of the club - how we started and how we ended up with what we have today.
I might be deluding myself but I genuinely believe a large number of fans are enjoying competing at the top of the league but not allowing themselves to be deluded about the dire financial state of the club and aren't prepared to believe the waffle 'the club' is putting out. We've given up hoping that they will change their ways by themselves and have started to look at ways to pressure them either to go or to amend their behaviour.
There are several key dates in the history of the club and how we moved from
being a genuine club to the present situation where we have one effective owner - 1899 when the first shares were issued to members, the Bowie/Struth coup just after the war, Gillespie's attempt to get on the Board, the Lawrence Group takeover, Murray's takeover and the effective post-Murray situation we are in now.
I feel people have to understand their history before they can even attempt to change the reality. We need to be clear of what we want rather than just howling at the moon.
What is needed - I feel at any rate - is a change in the culture around Ibrox so that whoever the major shareholders are they will not make decisions of major import before very carefully considering the fans reaction. Murray talked a lot about being a custodian before he took a back seat - we need to look at ways of forcing him.
Effectively we need to look at how to turn the tables on the club functionaries in power - at the moment they hand down decisions for us with not even the pretence of consultation. Every decision should be informed by consideration of the fact that we are a club and that the distribution of shares is merely an accident of history rather than any sign that the owners have a miraculous monopoly on good sense or any appreciation of Rangers' history and culture.
I also want to convey the idea (in fact the reality) that we are in a new era where many of the people with their hands on the day to day levers of power at Ibrox don't give a Castlemaine Four X - they are functionaries in the truest sense of the word - they would put us in gas chambers if Murray told them to.
Recent examples show us we are facing another crossroads in the history of
the club - one takes us down the road to the continued Disneyfication of sport - the other road leads to a club which is special, different and makes us all part of the the Rangers Family.
Because of the culture of the club and the share holdings change at the top has always been slow.
EARLY DAYS
Rangers started as a wee local club - young lads organised themselves for kickabouts and eventually formed a committee to get things on an even keel.
Much the same way most golf or rugby clubs are run today. You paid a subscription and you were able to take part in games, use club facilities for training and the membership card got you into the games like a season ticket does today.
As Rangers grew you had a growing number of fans who were not playing for the club but who were just spectators. In today's world you could compare this with say the West of Scotland rugby club where you have two forms of membership - playing and non-playing - but each 'member' can get into the stand upon production of the membership card and has one vote at the AGM.
THE FIRST SHARES
By the turn of the century - May 1899 to be exact - the size of the club in terms of members, spectators and the state of the facilities meant Rangers had to issue shares - to raise money to develop Ibrox and to protect the members from the risk of personal bankruptcy should things go wrong by accepting the limited liability registering as a company provides you with.
Shares were issued to the members of the club - it was to take 86 years before those shares were finally consolidated in the hands of one man who could then, by himself, vote through those measures he wanted. As the years rolled by shares changed hands and new shares were issued as funds needed to be raised - but always on a scale which meant there were no sudden major changes in the shareholding base.
THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD
Things changed in 1947 when Bill Struth assisted by major shareholders took over the club by ousting the regime headed by Jimmy Bowie. It was felt the club was in a rut and needed change - but it also marked a change in the way things were done - until then the Board usually contained men who had previously played for the club. After that date the major players off the field tended to be supporters - often allying themselves with a figurehead former player when jockeying for position.
HOW THINGS USED TO WORK
Between the end of the War and the coming of the Lawrence Group under Lawrence Marlborough (as opposed to the regime of John Lawrence) the directors essentially ran the club as their own private club in a social sense.
How it worked was this:-
You made money and you bought shares - this showed you were competent in the commercial world.
It wasn't the done thing to be pushy so you held your shares and attended the games and as you got older and wealthier the directors would invite you to lunch before the games either at Ibrox or the old St Enoch's hotel and you gradually became part of the 'magic circle' at the top of the club.
As part of that group you essentially received tickets, lunches, admittance to the social circle by the grant of grace and favour by the existing directors.
Until Jack Gillespie and Tom Dawson tried to force their way onto the board genuine elections were unheard of - the list of candidates being decided beforehand.
Because no-one ever had more than about 10-15% of the shares everything had to be done by consensus and very few ever rocked the boat - certainly not in public.
Before Lawrence Marlborough got control virtually no-body on the Rangers Board wasn¹t a fan or former player - there were one or two exceptions - rugby fan Hugh Adam was on as his position as head of the money factory that was Rangers Pool made him indispensable.
BEING BLUE IS NOT ENOUGH BY ITSELF
I think it¹s important not to get too misty-eyed about how things used to be. The directors may have been Bluenoses but that didn¹t make them infallible or nice people. It was a Board full of Bluenoses who ran the club so badly and indifferently to the world around them that they allowed Celtic to do nine in a row and allowed the Ibrox Disaster to happen through their organisational sleep-walking.
HOW DID THE FANS 'JOIN THE CLUB'?
Once the club decided to conduct it¹s business through the vehicle of a limited liability company we had the start of the separation of power from support. Most shareholders for most of the last century were Bluenoses - their was no real financial return to be made (last dividend was paid out in the 1980s I think) and so no motivation for outsiders to buy.
As far as influencing events displays of fan frustration on the terraces came to replace organised voting for candidates at the AGM as had been the practice in the days when the club functioned under it¹s old constitution. Dissent was voiced at the AGM but it came to be more of a social event and a rallying of the troops than a genuine forum for discussion of club affairs.
Instead devotion to the club started to be shown by possession of a season ticket. There are two main things to bear in mind here went discussing how things used to be with season tickets as they are now so common these days.
1/ For most of the last century - certainly pre-1960 it was a fairly substantial investment to make. Football was not a cheap option for working men back then, most fans didn¹t go to every home game - hence there have been Saturday¹s in Glasgow when Rangers, Celtic and Thistle have all played at home in the Scottish Cup and Thistle got the biggest crowd because they had the most attractive fixture.
To pay for a season ticket was a major financial decision in most families.
2/ The scarcity factor. To have a season ticket was both a status symbol and in many cases a reward for loyalty. Until 1970 the number of season tickets was limited by Scottish Football League rules which meant that clubs shared their home games 50/50 with their visitors once expenses were taken out - and the home club was allowed to keep the revenue from the first thousand spectators. In practise most clubs limited their season tickets to 1,000.
For a club the size of Rangers this was a relatively small number and I can certainly recall as a kid having people discussed or pointed out as being a Rangers season ticket holder as this was a sign of real commitment to the club. Getting a season ticket meant either going on a waiting list whose operation was a Byzantine as the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, getting one kept in the family when the holder died or being rewarded for service to the club and being allowed to jump the queue on the say so of the directors or manager.
The holy of holies was the Members Section - introduced in the 1950s at a cost of £15 a season and featured a reserved seat for the first time ever. These were very much the preserve of Bluenosed businessmen.
In 1970 Willie Waddell - so often the innovator - decided to increase the number of season tickets to 6,000 and eased the pressure on them a bit. Even so - season ticket holding was very much a prized status and was to continue to be such until the three sides of the grounds were season-ticketed under the directions David Holmes in the 1980s. This, allied with the Lawrence Group getting a majority of shares essentially saw the final end of individual fans either as shareholders or as 'members' having much power.
THE SOUNESS YEARS
This changed when Gillespie sold enough shares to give Lawrence Marlborough and the Lawrence Group 51% - with control it then didn¹t matter a damn how wealthy anyone else was or how many shares they had - they could have had 49% but David Holmes made it clear that their influence from now on was nil - in fact more than a few realised their shares were now 'dead money' and took up the Lawrence Group offer which was obliged to be made to all shareholders and they ended up with over 60% of the shares.
Holmes may have had his faults as chairman but from then on he made sure no-one, absolutely no-one, got a free ride in terms of hospitality from then on - the old guard could stay on and have their wee perks but they had to pay top dollar for them.
Murray has a large but relatively unsalable share holding - it's an asset but the climate either in Rangers terms, football industry terms or general economic terms mean it¹s the wrong time to sell. In the last year we've seen a down-scaling of both spending and ambition as 'the club' (paid functionaries) realise the biggest asset we have is the fans.
If I can compare it with Maggie and the Poll Tax - Murray's got the power but has lost the argument and the credibility and now we're all standing around in a limbo waiting for change.
In that limbo time we need to develop new ideas and standards for the operation of the club.
HOW IT WORKS TODAY
Under David Holmes and David Murray the composition and power of the Rangers Board has changed. Being a Bluenose is no longer either a prerequisite or apparently even encouraged. Few Board members since the Lawrence Group
takeover have been genuinely independent men - in the past the weekly Board meetings brought together independently wealthy and successful mean to debate the way ahead.
Nowadays we have a Board where many of them owe everything they have in life to David Murray - there is no way Board members like Odam (2,000 shares), Peel (no shares), Bain (360 shares) or Ogilvie (2,990) are going to really dig their heels in on any issue Murray wants pushed through.
Other Board members like Donald Wilson may be Bluenoses but as he is
Murray¹s right-hand man in Murray Group (5,633 shares in Rangers) he¹s in a
position to advise but not demand.
Ian Skelly (105,260 shares) and John McClelland (36,000) are wealthy businessmen in their own right but even their shareholdings pale into insignificance with the 324,066 Murray holds in his own name and the 37,448,489 he controls through the vehicle of Murray Sports Ltd.
Essentially, we have a board (now meeting on average four times a year as opposed to weekly) most of whose members either do not support the club or who derive the vast bulk of their income as employees of the club. These men are not going to change the culture of the club of their own accord - if they had any intention of doing so we would have seen some sign of it before now. There are those who do have the best interests of the club at heart rather than just doing a job but they are isolated and unsupported at the moment.
THE FUTURE
The future for Rangers - if present policies go unchanged - is an increasing estrangement from the fans. Frankly, they regard us as customers, nothing more. Don¹t delude yourself otherwise.
You might have a vision for Rangers being a vast family which educates and nourishes the coming generations in the history and traditions of the club, which honours our heroes and uses their examples and marries that past to the best sporting, scientific and commercial practices each successive era throws up. Most of them don't.
This article is not intended to provide any particular solutions - merely to describe how things used to be and how we got to where we are today. The question those who try to close their ears and eyes to present reality have to answer is - what do you want to happen?
Let me leave you with an example of what is wrong. Obviously we at FF are completely pissed off with the fact that one of our directors, Martin Bain, has allied himself with Rangers-hating filth to attack FF. However, he's not a man without talent. But - my argument with people who know and respect him is not whether or not he's a Bluenose (he is) but when he's going to start acting like one.
Bain has come a long way in the last few years from writing press releases for hairdressing salons with Tony Meehan Associates to a position of incredible power inside Ibrox - on a day to day basis he now controls everything apart from the Retail Department.
Even the solid, safe, capable and diplomatic Campbell Ogilvie has been stripped of his powers as Club Secretary (now given to Douglas "I'm not really interested in football" Odam as he is totally a creature of Bain¹s) as Bain¹s control freakery has been allowed free reign by Murray.
The most powerful executive at Ibrox Stadium is now a man who has publicly stated that (The Herald 1st August 2001) he discriminates AGAINST employing Rangers fans. If you, dear reader, find that scenario acceptable I suggest that you have a lot of thinking to do about whether you are fit to call yourself a Ranger.
GRANDMASTER SUCK
"Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light."
--John Milton, Paradise Lost
(For an in-depth look at the sort of men who have been the Chairmen of the
club have a look at Volume 7 Number 10 of The Rangers Historian. £1 plus an
SAE envelope from True Blue Publications, PO Box 1872, Glasgow, G43 2WU.
Cheques and Postal Orders to be made payable to 'True Blue Publications.')