However, Rangers NIAR was somewhat different and you could say more difficult to achieve. When 3 became 4 and four begat 5 and then hirpled into 6 there was a different pressure on the club. As my old man used to say to me, it is a far different thing playing catch up to nine, knowing that is what you have to achieve, compared to just keeping on winning and see where you will end up. Oh, and the amount of games played in our NIAR would have equated to more than ten titles in the 60s to mid 70s.
Walter’s domestic success, however, in no way correlated to his efforts on the continent. To put it bluntly: we were a shambles. We had three genuine world class talents in different areas of the park yet were almost always out-thought, outplayed, and shown up as being unfit. Season 92/93 and of course 07/08 must be viewed as oases in a desert of humiliation.
Yet for all that, Walter Smith has the look of a haunted man these days. There can only be one reason for it: he has known the gravity of the financial situation and has carried on regardless.
He was unfortunate two seasons ago when a shower of filth used a non-entity to get a game postponed - the same shower who manipulated the authorities to make sure Rangers played an unprecedented number of games in too short a period. I take that back. The same shower whose chairman exactly 40 years previous tried the same tactic, and it worked once again for them. Yet we’re all expected to be pals with this shower of Rangers haters?
It’s just a pity however that Walter felt the need to criticise a section of the Rangers support for having the temerity to feel unchuffed at the club actively trying to punt our only genuine goal scorer in mid season? Trust me on this one, some things will never be forgotten.
But if we can praise Walter for some things and criticise him for others, then what more is there left to be said for his pal at the top of the marble staircase. A financial genius, we were often told, who has systematically run Rangers FC into the ground.
People on the message boards are asking how history will judge David Murray. Well, surely the words Rangers and administration tell their own story. They say you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but tell you: what the club’s owner gave it his best shot. And it very damn near worked.
If that isn’t bad enough to be going on with, what truly nauseates me is that his record on the sectarian front makes his financial prowess look quite good. Now I don’t blame David Murray for all of society’s ills, and those weaklings-cum-simpletons in charge of The Church of Scotland really should come in for a lot closer scrutiny. However, when a situation has gradually been allowed to come about whereby a journalist (Jim Traynor) can come out openly and say he was glad Rangers fans got a beating from thugs in Spanish Police uniforms, and do so with impunity, then surely that low negates any of the highs in the Murray era?
Traynor wouldn’t dare speak about any other section of Scottish society like this. Or any of Murray’s other businesses for that matter. Just wouldn’t dare. That he is still allowed to come and go as he pleases at Ibrox tells you all we need to know about our absentee landlord.
But let’s get back to the financial acumen. Time was, we were courted by the real biggies in Adidas and Nike. Their contracts were then traded in for a gig with Diadora. We were told this was a good thing though, as all monies made were kept in-house. People blindly accepted it, went along for the ride.
Then this ‘good thing’ was papped and a fling with a third rate mob from Wigan was the order of the day. Again Murray’s apologists were out in force, getting three million smackers a year was good business sense. Oh really; last year we saw the greatest ever movement of people from one country to another to at least be part of a game of football. The stories of JJB selling us short once again tell their own story.
I haven’t worn a Rangers strip since 4th year, which is not yesterday. Tell you what, I would have easily spent over one hundred pounds in the run up to Manchester on UEFA Cup merchandise. Times that by how many thousands of punters up and down the country? And there would be plenty more out there prepared to spend more than me. Are people still convinced Murray’s financial genius has been a good thing for our club?
We could be here all day mind talking about Murray, money and sectarianism. But there is one thing matters more than any of that, and it has to do with eleven guys in blue jerseys kicking a ball. I'm talking about standards; Rangers standards and Rangers class.
If being eliminated from the Champions League by a bunch of Lithuanian or Latvian or wherever the hell they came from no marks can be deemed a sacking offence and no sackings came about, then consider the fact that the management team who delivered up to us our biggest European humiliation, bar none, last Tuesday are still in place at Ibrox, and have absolutely no intention of leaving.
Alan Morton, a legend on the park, a Director who saw wonderful times and our darkest days in the late 60s, once asked ‘What has happened to the spirit of Ibrox?’ Likewise I’ll ask what has happened to standards at Ibrox? I’ll also give you the answer. David Murray.
Yours, very much looking back in anger.
t_gg