"There Are More Questions than Answers.² So sang Johnny Nash or the owner of a similar Afro type barnet in the 1970s. And really that song title is quite appropriate when it comes to discussing David Murray stepping down as Chairman of Rangers FC. As earth shakings go, I have to confess that Mr M's taking a back seat and propelling John McClelland into the limelight at Ibrox leaves me as excited as the latest declaration of intent from Michael Mols.
The bottom line here is. Mr M still owns two-thirds of the club and anyone out there who is of the opinion that he is still not in charge of the good ship Rangers is truly off their rocker.
But how do we try to judge David Murray's time as Chairman? Do we just look at league titles won, NIAR and all that and say "he was dead brill², or should we look a wee bit closer at all facets of his stewardship. Like his record as "Custodian of the club² for example? Believe me, if we go down the latter route - and I fully intend to do so - then it makes for quite uncomfortable reading.
I'll apologise in advance here as I would prefer to discuss some of the aspects of DM's stewardship on a seasonal basis and as they happened in reality as opposed to keeping strictly to an on field, then off field, then his dealings with the press, etc. I feel it is probably better, where possible, to keep everything in as much of a chronological order as the grey matter allows.
So we'll start as always, at the very beginning. I think it is no exaggeration to say that the reaction of most of us on learning that we had a new owner in the autumn of 1988, would have been "David Who?² Still after a leisurely, unobtrusive and successful easing in period, within 10 months of becoming Chairman, David Murray had made an impact the likes of which no one could have visualised. And life was never to be the same for any of us.
In many ways, David Murray's first full season at the helm was a benchmark and did set the tone for just about the rest of his time in charge. And as you start to look back it is quite astonishing to reflect that season 89/90 saw a very real pattern emerge, which has caused much anguish for the Rangers support right through to the present day.
We'll start with the coming of Mojo. I still look back on that signing with mixed feelings. OK, so we had to move on as a club. But did it have to be a cretin who had spat at a Rangers player in a cup final and do the hand jive to the Rangers support as he slinked off the park? Did we have to go that far just to appease the Scottish Press?
Whether these feelings mattered or not at the time of the signing though, they were totally forgotten round about 4:38pm on Saturday November 4th 1989, when Johnston sank a 20 yard belter behind Paddy the Maddy, and at the same time stuck a dagger into the heart of the Septic-minded, everywhere. We didn't know it at the time, but that goal would play havoc with the yahoo psyche for years and still does to this day.
But just two months before that historic and fateful day, the Rangers fans had suffered from a Murray decision, which was to have an equally demoralising, effect on the club and the support for the foreseeable future. I refer of course to the decision by the Club to put ticket prices for our European Cup first Rd tie v Bayern Munich up by what was considered a very unreasonable amount for the time.
History will show that even from the outset, David Murray never saw Europe in terms other than trying to make a killing out of the fans, a fast buck. History will also show that it had; A -an adverse effect on the club on the park, and B - also an equally adverse effect on how the punters eventually viewed David Murray. To be honest, the writing was on the wall from the off and Mr Murray, like all egomaniacs refused to see the signs.
What more needs to be said. Rangers attracted more to a Scottish Cup tie v Stranraer than an EC match against Bayern, in 1989. The die had been cast within the first twelve months of his becoming Chairman and this contempt for the Rangers support was to have a dreadful effect on the club every time the subject of Europe was to rear its ugly head.
The league was won comfortably that season although a mid season blip saw us baulked out of the Scottish at the piggery and more sinisterly The SFA started flexing their muscles against the club. Lest we forget, Feb 17th 1990 saw Hearts visit the Stadium and play out a drab no score draw. Behind the scenes however, The SFA decided to use TV evidence to put the boot into Souness, who was caught by STV's cameras in the Ibrox tunnel.
Even now, it is scarcely believable that Murray should have capitulated to the authorities at the time. If memory serves correct, the refereeing Supervisor didn't report on Souness being in the tunnel, because it would have been a physical impossibility to do so. So here we had a situation where The SFA had clearly broken their own rules and David Murray lay down and accepted the consequences.
I cannot let season 1989/90 go by without mentioning the article by Ian Archer for the Evenin Tims on Friday May 4th, when he told deliberate lies about the young men who formed our club. The bottom line here is, David Murray's negligence on the subject led to these untruths being published as fact a few years later in a World Club magazine.
So let us recap then on the club's progress in the first full season of David Murray's tenureship. We win the league. We go out of Europe early doors in a less than full Ibrox due to hefty ticket charges. The Club backs down against The SFA, even though we have the laws of the game on our side. And Mr Murray accepts press hatred and lies about the club. By any standards it was not a qualified success. But for those of us at Tannadice, who lapped up big Tel in his big daft, shiny topper set off by a pair of bulging eyes after clinching the title. We didn't care, did we?
The next few seasons under Mr M can only be described as somewhat busy, and probably the Chairman's greatest era. In the first of these "eventful years², Mr Murray managed to lose a world class defender after only one full game. Lose £20m on 6,800 seats and still find time to lose a manager towards the end of the season. I told you it was exhilarating, didn't I? Not that we were complaining though after Hateley's brace against the sheep in that last game thriller at Ibrox. The feeling was that day that we were in at the beginning of something good. And anyway, 20 million, 20 shmillion for the Club Deck. Who cares, after all it was a B listed building.
The following season would be significant on the park for a League and Scottish Cup double. The highlight of which was a ten-man victory over the great unwashed at Hampden. Oh, and lest we forget, the shattering of the Scottish transfer fee on a midfield man from Russia who was played out of position and who had settled early on, for the easy life on the sidelines and mega wages that would only be matched by the very top of the range achievers in the English Premiership. What did I say about the die being cast early doors?
A man who you could only describe as being "on the ball² once said you should choose your friends wisely. But the enduring image of DM from season 92/93 is of him sitting in the Main Stand with Bernard Tapie before the friendly match v Marseille at Ibrox. Some friend him. By the end of the season that same Gallic conman had helped chisel Rangers out of a possible European Cup final place.
Now I don't blame DM for pursuing new chums (And anything and anyone would be a step up from the trash he shared the city with in a footballing sense). But the bottom line is, history will show that Rangers were one of the prime movers in moving the European Cup away from its traditional format. Helped turn it into the grotesque being that is the Champions League at this moment in time. The really funny thing is, that it has been a competition that has been the undoing of Rangers and David Murray and our aspirations at that level. Only no-one of a Rangers disposition is laughing.
The following season 93/94 could easily be summed up thus. "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.² On the park, the untouchables from the previous season limped home a beleaguered lot and missed out on immortality to Dundee Utd in the Scottish Cup final. I'll be kind here and say that day at Hampden was ninety minutes too far, and leave it at that.
Off the park though, the apparent success of the Murray era resulted in the septic dynasties being forced out of power. Now the yahoos can argue all they want about this, they will no doubt in the foreseeable future try to rewrite history as they so often do. They can give it all the crap they like about "Not embracing the concept of inherited wealth' The bottom line is this. David Murray was the catalyst in the slum landlords at Celtic Park being forced out in ignominy and contempt.
Who of us who were there at the piggery on that beautiful Ne'erday in 1994, will ever forget when that third goal went in witnessing the TGFITW imploding and turning in on themselves? And what about the reaction of their slimy Chairman when asked by the press if he had apologised to David Murray for being hit by objects in the Sellik Directors Box during the half time intermission? "He nevir asked for one, so he never goat wan'. The Celtic way, right to the bitter end.
Yet from the amusement and delight at the events unfolding at the slop house, David Murray was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of ultimate victory. I don't think I need to dredge the whole issue up again. I think it is suffice to say that the undoing (gradual I know) of David Murray in the eyes of the Rangers support can be summed up in just two words. Duncan Ferguson.
Getting back to that fateful April day. Yes Ferguson acted like a tube, playing to the Rangers support. McStay play-acted to the point of cheating and yes the ref should have censured Ferguson. But the bottom line is quite simply this. In allowing Ferguson to be tried by a kangaroo court, even though the full weight of the law, concerning the rules governing Sub Judice, were on his side. David Murray proved that he couldn't care less about the rights of the club or the feelings of the supporters.
Of course this was amply demonstrated just a fortnight after the Raith game when after banning the yahoos from Ibrox for their behaviour in previous Ibrox encounters, he invited one of the most rabid Rangers haters on the planet, Michael Kelly, to sit as his guest in the Ibrox Directors box. Again this was another instance where defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory. And to think when he announced that Ibrox was a no go for the seat wreckers, I was starting to think of him as being the best thing since Struth.
Around this time some of the Chairman's statements were starting to jar on the senses, at least for this bear anyway. The oft-repeated figure of his spending £45m on stadium refurbishment, when all that had been added at that point was a 6,800-seater stand, the seating of the enclosure and all the seats in the Main Stand being changed to blue was a puzzler. And of course it was in 94 that he made a statement, which has now, came back to haunt him. I refer of course to his silly, "for every fiver Celtic spend, I'll spend a tenner.' remarks.
The only thing that stopped Rangers fans from starting to ask serious questions about the road that the club was beginning to take in 94/95 was the form of Brian Laudrup. Davie Robertson claimed mid season the Great Dane would be worth 50 points alone to us. He wasn't far wrong.
Europe, the stage where David Murray asked to be judged in, saw us plumb to new depths as the non-entities from AEK Athens tore us apart in the qualifying round. This new fangled CL system, which we had helped to instigate, was not working out the way any of us would have liked. Searching questions, which were still just whispers at this point, were now starting to be asked of Walter Smith's abilities.
It was around about this time, possibly in an act of defiance, that Murray made another of his famous declarations. "I will never sack Walter because he is my friend.² As far as this fan was concerned, the club was now officially David Murray's toy. His own personal little plaything. I was well out of love with him by now.
Joy of joys in 95/96 as Rangers - with Paul Gascoigne now in the fold - made the CL sections and were promptly landed in the group of death alongside Juventus who were now about to show that they were the supreme team on the continent at that point. Borrussia Dortmund, who would contest the following season's CL final with Juventus and perennial Rumanian Euro challengers Steaua Bucharest.
It wasn't just the beatings at the hands of Juventus that still remain firmly fixed in the psyche. I remember coming home from work and there behind the letterbox was my letter giving me my CL ticket prices package. I can still remember standing there and thinking 69 quid for games that A – I might not get to see because of my shifts?, and B - I could watch on the telly for nowt. It wasn't a hard decision for me to make anyway. What with the extra money involved in going to the games and with Xmas just around the corner, when the CL section was finished? Murray's greed was now coming into its own.
However, Juventus in Turin was the beginning of the end for Walter Smith. Never again was he to enjoy the unanimous backing of the support tactically wise. What had started off as whispers of discontent had now grown into loud murmurs of disapproval. I think it was even our own Dowanhill Hack who said that FF51 was a turning point. From then on the manager's tactics were called into question at every turn. But what did it matter in the end, because whatever his shortcomings, he was there in the hot seat for as long as he wanted to be.
There was also the nauseating silence from the club after the press launched into the club because of Gazza's invisible flute playing during his debut in the sun v Steaua. This was another aspect of the Murray regime. It was almost as if the Club was frightened to say that big, bad word Protestant or acknowledge that quite a few of us came from that kind of background.
The following season saw the exact same sorry play re-enacted with regards to Murray's scandalous ticket pricing policy for games in the CL sections. By this time, everyone knew in advance what the prices would be and my letter for the three-game package was promptly thrown in the bin unopened. And I wasn't alone. Oh, and lest we forget, the club won NIAR.
The following season saw the Chairman hit rock bottom with his European pricing policy. Despite being three goals down to Gothenburg for the first leg, he still wanted to charge the fans the full whack for the second leg. With ticket sales going slowly he had to resort to emotional blackmail with a quite nauseating advert, in which Ally McCoist was roped in to do the dirty work. It was stomach churning in the extreme, but the aforementioned blackmail worked as Ibrox around just 5,000 less than capacity turned up to see us limp pathetically out of Europe's biggest stage yet again.
And it wasn't just the fact that we were so poor on the park that rankled. Those of us who had to live through this period will never forget the vast tracks of empty stands, images which were shown all over Europe. And for what? Because of one man's intransigence and greed. Since then there has been a truce of sorts with league prices being more the norm than before. But it is still a con. There are non season ticket punters still paying the best part of thirty quid for a one off game in Europe. Nothing is ever what it seems with David Murray.
October 97 was significant for the fact that Walter Smith had the good grace to resign after another disastrous double whammy in Europe. It then came out that he was thinking of retiring that summer basking in the afterglow of winning NIAR. Incredibly he changed his mind and decided to stay on for one last crack at immortality in the shape of the big ten. He was then immediately given something like £14m to spend in the transfer market. Before Xmas it was announced that the next manager would be Dutchman Dick Advocaat. But the second half of the season saw a complete collapse. And even though the side rallied, they lost out on the league on the last day of the season.
That summer saw record signing after record signing make their way through the main doors at Ibrox. The bottom line to all this is the fact that Murray knew he had messed up big time with his loyalty to Walter Smith. This record spending spree, which has came back to bite us big style, was not about putting the club on an even keel. It was about taking the punters' minds off the fact that it was his misplaced loyalty to Smith and bad management, which caused us to miss out on TIAR.
So that's it, I don't think I need to recall everything, which has happened in the last four years. Y'all know what has happened since. Two league titles followed by two consecutive debacles have put the club back to where it was before Souness breezed into Ibrox.
So can David Murray be described as a success in his time as Chairman of the club, or even deserve to be? Well let's look at his overall record in different spheres. He asked to be judged on Rangers performances in Europe. Very well then, I'll do just that. I put it to you that he has been an unmitigated disaster for us. We have been for almost all his time in charge, a club that has underperformed both on and off the park. Minus marks here, I'm afraid.
The Chairman's supporters tell us that he is a financial genius. Well, yes and no. Yes I agree he is a genius in getting people to part with their readies and invest in the club. On the debit side, he is a spendthrift whose solution to every problem was to throw money at it. Walter Smith was tactically lacking, especially when it came to the bigger stage. Did he sack him, like he would have done to any manager in any other part of his business empire? No, he compounded the folly by giving him more and more money to spend.
The final total that DM claims we have spent on stadium refurbishment in his time in charge is a whopping £60m. This is a quite staggering amount of money spent on a stadium whose infrastructure and foundations were already in place when he took over. The only difference between my seat pre Murray and post? Is the colour, and that applies to the majority of punters sitting in the stadium. Also, I do not believe I'm nit-picking when I say that for £60m, a total increase of just 6,000 is full value for money. Another less than average grade here also.
There is also the uncomfortable issue whereby Rangers sold off the matchdays catering to a private company, whom David Murray just happens to be a major shareholder in. So after this one off payment has been concluded, we are now left with the rather unpalatable situation whereby Rangers somewhere down the line won't make hellish much of a profit from the catering side of revenue, but the Chairman continues to cash in?
Under no circumstance whatsoever should this man ever be allowed to hawk the family silver. I refer of course to the Club's merchandising rights. If nothing else, the last four years have surely proved beyond doubt that if you have fools in charge of the pursestrings (and fools with an arrogant attitude into the bargain) then money is easily lost.
But I digress. David Murray supporters now claim that Murray Park will be his greatest legacy to the club. I'm sorry but that one just doesn't wash. It could be argued that this man has hampered our progress in the area of youth development. Lest we forget it was this man Murray who told us that we didn't need to invest in youth set ups because of Bosman. And just remember, he made these statements when Man Utd were proving to the rest of the world that if you were good enough you were old enough. A success in this sphere? You have got to be kidding me.
Well, what about Mr M's dealings with the press then? His "custodianship' of the club, if you will? I suggest Murray fans should just put down the mag at this point and walk away and buy a burger. Not to put too fine a point on it, he has been a total, complete, miserable and absolute bloody disgrace.
Because of this man's negligence Archer's lies were allowed to prosper worldwide. In the Murray years the club has came under unprecedented attack from enemies who know they can say and do what they like because this man Murray doesn't give two hoots about the club or indeed the feelings of the fans.
The man's defence of the club truly is a joke. We have a Sunday Herald reporter making wee snideys about the Ibrox Disaster. What does the Chairman do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I repeat this is The Ibrox Disaster we're talking about. In the last few months we've had a journalistic liar telling a huge big fib about the Rangers support's relationship Mark Walters, one of our favourite modern day sons. We've had Bill Leckie referring to Rangers fans as "Orange Scum'.
It happens purely and simply because they know they can get away with it. David Murray simply couldn't care less about what is happening to the support day to day. He's inured to the dehumanising and the hatred. It doesn't reach his Edinburgh bunker. That's why he can make stupid statements about swapping the league title for a place in the second phase of the CL. I very much doubt there has ever been a Chairman in the history of football that disparages winning your national title. But hey, of all the football club Chairmen, in all of the leagues, in all of the world, we just have to have him!
Custodian of Rangers Football Club? You have got to be joking. The Kellys could have made a better fist of sticking up for Rangers than this man Murray ever has. The man is a complete joke. Though again, no one with Rangers at heart can see the funny side.
I am blaming him for the fact that his indifference and complete disregard for the club over the last decade has resulted in what is now the almost complete dehumanisation of the Rangers support in our own country. Please Mr Murray just go. If you have a shred of decency and integrity left, just cash in your chips and let those of us who love the club get on with the task of rebuilding the club. And by the way, take your leeches and incompetents with you.
Anyway, that was my wee, light-hearted look at the ex-Chairman's achievements. In my humble opinion, the present incumbent does not have all that much to live up to. If the owner allows him to have a say that is.
Yours in Rangers,
The Govanhill Gub