The half-yearly figures are due out soon - it was 4th March last year - so Stockbridge ‘leaves by mutual consent’, pockets £200,000 and provides a smokescreen for the current Board.
The current directors public attitude is ‘nothing to do with us guv’ as if they accepted their positions from the clean hands of a sainted virgin. In fact, the power bloc which selected them, appointed them pre-AGM and endorsed them in their roles at the AGM remains largely the same group which pulled the strings of “the previous regime” which has now proven to be so utterly toxic.
Well, toxic in public at least. Many supporters of Chico & Co remain in love with the great man and his great big Yorkshire hands. But now that is the love that dare not speak it’s name.
So that love has been transferred to the new regime (same as the old regime) as easily as they transferred it from Bill Ng, to Bill Miller, to a nameless German bidder, to Charlie. To anyone really, so long as they weren’t Rangers fans.
Which brings us back to Brian.
Stockbridge was not the mastermind of Charlie’s takeover, nor was he a mere office boy. The masterminds have vacated the building but remain in power. Stockers was too high profile to last for long - the current Board know the vast majority of fans are very wary of them. Despite the wait and see attitude to Graham Wallace they know that season ticket sales will be tricky - having tried the ‘your club will die’ routine and seeing it flop a bigger stunt was needed to calm the masses. So Brian had to go.
I always thought it was a tactical mistake on his part to have a high profile - he’d have been better off in the shadows but the filming of Malky, the £200,000 salary and same again as a bonus made him an obvious fall guy. It’s worth comparing his salary with the last Finance Director who was on £124,000 and no bonus even in the years when European football meant we could be turning over £60million.
Once the figures started to come out - one million in the piggy bank by Easter - the writing was on the wall for someone and Brian fitted the bill. He’s been presented as the last of the Zeus Capital boys and his departure as heralding a new era. Only it isn’t.
It may in fact be unfair on our current Board but their performance in terms of providing comfort to the fans or building trust has been negligible - they simply remain widely perceived as serving the same masters as the last lot.
Brian Stockbridge as a fig leaf simply doesn't work.