Always in this triumph a slave stood in the chariot behind the victorious general. Over the generals head he held a garland of laurel, signifying victory. Into the generals ear the slave repeatedly whispered the three-word caveat "Sic Transit Gloria."
It's literal English translation reads "All glory is fleeting"
Fast forward a couple of thousand years, substitute Rome with Ibrox, (Be honest, you've never heard that suggestion before, have you?), and replace Roman general with Sir David Murray.
No one can deny that the first 10 years of SDMs reign at Ibrox was littered with triumphant procession after triumphant procession, but now you've got to ask the question, "Did someone forget to provide the Roman slave?"
Clearly the answer is "yes", as we've spent the next (last) 10 years paying for those processions; ok, we've still found time now and again to dust down the party togas and celebrate the odd league win, CIS or Scottish cup success, Hell, Manchester was nearly witness to the triumphant procession to end them all, but all in all, they've papered over the cracks.
What has been more apparent in the 2nd half of The Emperor's reign at Rangers, is us stumbling from one disaster to another. We've seen the Club records debts of somewhere in the region of £90m, we've seen the sanctioning of a £12m transfer for a players, merely three weeks or so before we announced that our debts were hitting £36m, and not to mention, almost ten years of attack after attack on the club by those who seek to do her harm. All of them to remain unpunished by the higher echelons within the club.
We're now faced with the prospect of having to sell one (or more) of our 'better' players in order to 'balance the books'. Not sure how that's going to work though, as the last time I watched Rangers, we didn't appear to have anyone worth the £30m it would require in order for the books to balance, so how will knocking £3m off a £30m debt keep our heads above water?
The sad truth of the matter now is that, in order to raise more cash into the Clubs coffers, the only revenue stream now left open to us is flogging the players that may actually be worth seeing, being that the Emperor has sold everything else off (merchandise, catering etc). We've been witness to a Club that seems in terminal decline under the present regime whose sole defense against errors made seems to be "We've made mistakes in the past, but we're still the right men for the job", then go on to carry out the same mistakes again.
One of the lines that's constantly trotted out by the Emperor is that he's willing to sell: in fact he 'won't be difficult to deal with, but no one has come forward'. One of the reasons given for this, is the current economic climate. I'm more than prepared to agree with him on that point, however, the club was up for sale for years before the world economy went tits up, and we still couldn't find a buyer, surely that's got nothing to do with the financial mismanagement that's went on at the Club for over ten years?
Incidentally Sir David, I think I've found a way to save about half a million a year, and you only need to lose ONE employee. Can you guess who he is?
Quite clearly, the Club is at best, stagnating, under the current regime, we will NEVER recapture the glory days, we will never stand up for the Club and it's support and we will NEVER further the name of Rangers Football Club and with that in mind, if we can't get a whispering tounged slave onto the chariot, can we have a new general?
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