When a message needed to be communicated from the previous chairman to the wider support, the operation was carried out with a measure of spin and blatant propaganda that Alistair Campbell himself would be proud of.
Sadly, despite the few crumbs of information and discussion the previous chairman shared with us mostly being full of spin and nonsense, the problem of the club tuning its fans/customers into Radio Silence has only worsened under the tenure of Alistair Johnston. This change somewhat on Wednesday when our chairman finally stuck his head above the parapet via telephone interviews with the media. Johnston, holed up in his Ohio Bat-Cave as he has been for most of his tenure, addressed many of the concerns the Rangers support had, particularly whilst grilled by Real Radio's Ewen Cameron. Peter 'Maguire' Martin tip-toed around AJ and accepted Johnston's attempts to avoid confirming anything too damning, proving once and for all that journalistically speaking, he is about as solid as his beloved Sellick's defence.
First off, I'm finding that the reaction to AJ's interview appears to be mostly positive on the forums and if I'm honest, I don't entirely share that view. There undoubtedly were some positives to take from it, but despite his comments coming as close as Rangers ever have done this season to answering questions about Lloyds Bank and Donald Muir's involvement in the club, they inevitably raised further concerns.
DONALD MUIR
AJ confirmed that Donald Muir does not 'run the club', something I'm becoming more able to believe with each passing day. He did however allude to some tension between Muir and other board members in the Herald, claiming that some of Muir's ideas are good, whereas many others are not - I think we can all guess what the ones that aren't involve.
"Always Interesting" was how our US-based chairman referred to Muir, and one would be forgiven for assuming that Muir is about as welcome on the Rangers board as a reality-check on Kerrydale Street.
This still doesn't answer what Muir's role is precisely with Rangers. We know he is 'a fixer' who will no doubt assist the club in productively cutting costs, but how much of a say in what does and doesn't happen remains a concern.
Can Muir and Muir alone veto certain decisions? Can he alone make changes for the good of the club? Was he offering Steve Davis and other players to English clubs leading up to the January transfer window as suggested?
It might be becoming clearer that Muir really was appointed by Sir David Murray - what remains a concern however, is whether or not Mr Muir really is 'the enemy within'.
LLOYDS BANK AND THE BUSINESS PLAN
In isolation, all of our chairman's comments to all media outlets that have run them so far suggest that Rangers are fine financially. With a debt that is fairly high but manageable, with the only obligation in terms of reduction being for us to reduce said debt by £1 million per year.
The problem being, AJ also stresses the need for us to review our already-approved business plan towards the summer to allow for more flexibility.
So the concern remains that we will lose more players in the summer unless we're given further support from the bank.
So if there is no concern with our debt from the bank, and our relationship is good, then why on earth do we need to 'review' things in a couple of months? A contradiction in terms for me. Then again, I'm no financial whiz.
In fairness to Lloyds as well, Johnston strongly hinted on Real Radio that as a businessman, he'd fully expect the bank to be open to negotiation when it comes to paying off the club's debt during the process of a takeover.
MURRAY INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS AND THE GROUP'S EFFECT ON THE CLUB
Under some decent pressing from Ewen Cameron of Real Radio, AJ conceded that Rangers were part of the Murray International Holdings 'conundrum', but again refused to go into specifics over where the issues lie.
From his comments, it's now very much looking like there is a requirement for any new owner to not only pay-off the debt owed to Lloyds, but also to pay for the shares of Sir David Murray. The man who sold off the family silver us until there was literally nothing left (at least off-field) wants a wedge for bringing us to the brink for the second time in a decade.
You simply could not make-up it up - leave the club reliant on the good-will of the bank to keep it afloat and then demand to be compensated for risking our future.
CHAIRMAN'S COMMENTS ON PLAYER ACQUISITION DURING THE MURRAY ERA
Mr Johnston curiously made a comment about how, during the more fruitful days of Sir David Murray's reign, if the fans complained about the team, Minty would go out and buy a player to appease us and that simply can't happen now.
Whilst I get what he is trying to say, I would politely point out that the chairman was borrowing money to do much of this strengthening, borrowing which has slowly come back to bite both him and us in the backside.
Between ticket and merchandising sales, The Rangers support have contributed substantially more to the club's financial cause than David Murray did during his chairmanship, to suggest that we've made unreasonable demands in respect of players being brought in is ludicrous. One only needs to look at the attitude of Rangers fans to the current financial realities as compared to our East-End neighbours and their delusions of grandeur to see that we don't expect the club to be spending astronomical amounts of cash on new players.
Many of us have wanted a plan - ANY kind of plan. One that showed both prudence and forward thinking.
We also wouldn't mind an explanation as to why, during our most financially lucrative season ever in 2007-2008, our debt increased significantly and we then held off from strengthening the following close-season - leading in no small part to the Kaunas disaster that set us back financially even further.
Sir David Murray's stewardship, overall, has been a disaster which has twice brought the club to the brink of death. This cancels out the 9 in a row era for me. Many supporters have tried constantly to get the message of concern across about the concern many people have held for a decade about our financial future, but they were written off as 'not real Rangers fans'.
So perhaps Mr Johnston should consider the fact that the big signings that have cost us too much in the past were made to massage the ego of Sir David Murray as opposed to appeasing the support. The chairman only responded to personal criticism and not criticism of the Rangers team or support - something that should never be forgotten.
In summary, it appears that our former chairman still has a couple of hands to play in this particular game of poker.
What has changed this time though, is that collectively, the Rangers support could hold all the cards.
BdTS