Hey folks
First up, let me say it's good to be back on the site, after a long haitus. I often find myself working on a hundred projects at a time and I don't have the flexibility to devote to all of them as much as I would want to. This site is important, because it was set up for an important reason, with an important ideal. It remains important, and those who've carried it through its early inception, they should have everyone's gratitude.
We are a Family, and we're a diverse and complex Family. We will not always see eye to eye.
To be frank, I'm glad of that. Because I think debating each other - when it's kept sensible and doesn't become personal - is good for us. It makes us think faster, it makes us sharper, it makes us more capable of holding our own. The next 12 - 24 months will be the most difficult we've ever experienced because of what's at stake, and we all know - all of us - what's at stake.
A lot of us grew up in a different country, in a different world. A club at Ibrox lorded it over us for years. Politics looked different too. At the time I was a die-hard Labourite as sick of Tories winning elections as I was of Rangers winning titles. The years 1997 and 1998 were transformative. But they were also, as it turned out, a huge disappointment because instead of ushering in a grand and glorious future for Celtic they ushered in Advocaat and the height of Murray's spending and a time I thought would never end. To call us a shambles would have been too kind.
And Labour? What a clusterfeck that turned out to be. Blairism, and deceit on a grand scale. PFI. Student fees. Finally illegal war.
Today there is no Rangers, just a husk that crawled out of their grave. The Tory Party is ripping itself to shreds and might never form a majority government again. Labour, God love us, is led by a die-hard socialist like me ... and I don't vote them for any more far less post leaflets and man phone banks and write speeches. In 2013 I went pro-independence and will be that until the day we take a big saw to this island and cut it into its constitutent parts again.
In the interim, everything changed.
The collapse of Rangers was years in the making. The culture than underpins that club is being eroded and its dying out. This scares those who are wedded to it. They will do whatever they can to maintain what little of it is left. Organisations are springing up like cancer cells; Scottish Protestants Against Discrimination is but one such mindless grouping, and there are many, many more.
You see, they believe there is a literral connection between what's happening to their culture and what happened to their club, and they are correct of course because there is. Their culture is a backward relic. Their club's connection to it was the reason civic Scotland sat on its hands and why nobody came to their rescue in 2012. The NewCo that crawled out of the grave - Sevco - is a shadow of what Rangers was ... but even Rangers was a shadow of what it thought it was.
Every little victory counts over this lot. Every little victory hammers them further into the next grave.
Some people think I'm crazy for predicting the demise of the NewCo ... they were the same people who said myself and the other Cassandras of Rangers' doom were crazy the last time. I'll say to those people what I said at the time; just you wait. Got a watch on? Look at the way the wee big hand goes round. That's all its about, the steady passage of time. Can I put a date on it? No, because as long as somebody is willing to pay the bills to keep the light on over there then the lights over there will stay on. How long can that continue? How long's a piece of string?
But not forever, my friends. Not forever.
Because the truth - as hard as this is for some people to understand - is this; no organisation can go on indefinitely making losses without crashing. And the only antitode which can prevent it short of making more money - and that is impossible because they, like Celtic, are opeating at nearly peak performance - is to cut what you currently spend ... and because of how far ahead we are right now, with their debt bubble expanding, that course of action guarantees Celtic dominance which will be near permanent in our lifetimes. Permanent.
Their hope is to spend enough to catch us and halt the juggernaught ... but even that plan leads to the grave because catching us once doesn't bridge the gap, and doing so from a standing start is a project which will take years. If they were going to do it, the birth of the NewCo was the moment to start. It's not that they wasted seven years, it's much worse than that. They pissed it all away and are worse on than before.
Nine in a row will break them. They know it, and yet can't muster a transfer kitty to help Gerrard stop it.
Ten in a row might end them. Where's the money to stop that coming from?
Never think we're not winning. I might have issues with our board at times, but mark this; this season to come was always going to be decided based on what happened at Parkhead, not Ibrox. It was always in our own hands, and we've clearly decided to play strong. That's all she wrote. It's over before it even starts. Now all we're doing is enjoying the show and waiting for theirs to end.
Got the popcorn handy? Make sure there's plenty of ice cream.
wiz a fk