“The Return of the McConville” and Thanks for Some Remarkable Figures

Hi! I’m back! Did I miss anything?

Contrary to the non-existent rumours, I have not spent the last week locked in a store cupboard in Murray Park, or imprisoned in one of the Ibrox Towers – nor have I been detained within the offices of the Rangers lawyers (although I did have occasion to visit them on entirely unrelated business).

No – real life and work have been intervening and I seem to have spent the last week or so on trains to courts here and there and have written professionally around 100,000 words on various exciting topics.

And therefore I wish to mark my reappearance with “The Return of the Mack”Conville!

And now time to say thank you!

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Rangers and Armed Forces Day – Whataboutery and Bad Judgement

I think it is fair to say that there will not be a repetition, at least in the same format, of the “Armed Forces Day” held at the Rangers game on Saturday. What is alleged to have happened at Ibrox on Saturday has resurrected concerns about “succulent lamb” press coverage; has brought back into fashion “whataboutery”; and has shown that in both the Army/Mod and Rangers nobody learned the lessons from last year and opened themselves up to criticism by ignoring them.

You would have thought that, after last year’s Remembrance Event there would have been some consideration given by Rangers and the Ministry of Defence to the format for Saturday’s festivities.

In case you have forgotten last November’s event resulted in the following, as reported by the Daily Record:-

It’s Free Speech Jim (Spence), But Not As We Know It – Rangers v BBC – Guest Post By JohnBhoy

An event has occurred that should prove a second watershed in the history of Rangers FC. The first turning point introduced the lexicon of business insolvency into the sporting arena, under the tombstone headed LIQUIDATION; the second pivotal moment is no less seismic. The orchestrated campaign by The Rangers and their fans to formally complain about Jim Spence of BBC Scotland Sportsound ought to have but one ending: the formal announcement by a pillar of the establishment – the BBC – on the status of Rangers FC.

Let us recap. Jim Spence had the temerity on BBC Scotland Sportsound to voice a view, not necessarily his own, that the current club plying its trade at Ibrox is not the same club pre and post liquidation. On the 4th September Jim uttered the immortal line: “John McClelland who was the chairman OF THE OLD CLUB, some people will tell you the club, well, THE CLUB THAT DIED, possibly coming back in terms of the new chairman…” This caused outrage amongst Rangers fans who, encouraged by Chris Graham, immediately complained to the BBC. The Rangers website issued a “Club Statement”, wherein they disclosed that they have instructed “Rangers’ lawyers to write to the BBC Trust” to ensure that “uses of the terms ‘new’ and ‘old'” are not used when referring to Rangers.

Who Will Break the Silence on “Charlotte Fakes”? Step Forward David Leggat!

The “Charlotte Fakes” phenomenon is something which could only have existed now – in an age where teh Interwebz allows people with an obsession interest in a subject to discuss and share information outwith the normal strictures of the media.

Professor Greg Philo, of the Glasgow University Media Group, believes that the problem with the media is not so much the differing stances it takes on issues but rather the refusal to cover certain topics at all, with this being a trait across the industry.

I wrote about Professor Philo and his thesis following a talk he gave to the Scottish Press Club and I applied his thoughts to coverage at that time (back in early 2012) of the Rangers story by the Scottish media. You can read the piece here.

We now have, in the Charlotte Fakes story, a perfect example, in a post-modern or meta way, of the subject.

A QUESTION OF BALANCE – a Guest Post by JohnBhoy

JohnBhoy posted this as a comment on an earlier thread. I thought it worth a “guest post” slot.

Thanks JohnBhoy!

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The old Rangers understood the theory of balance. If all competing influences have parity – similar club size, domestic fan base, financial clout etc. – then this could present the dangerously unpredictable fiasco of a level playing field, leading to ludicrously unfair equal competition between two city rivals, namely Celtic and Rangers. Thankfully, EBTs came to the rescue and redressed the balance in Rangers’ favour. That is the kind of equilibrium that appealed to the old Rangers. For every fiver that you pay in tax, we’ll pay ten less.

The new Rangers likes balance too, in a variety of contexts: financial balance (no debt, courtesy of unpaid creditors), football balance (leapfrogging The Spartans FC to gain entry to the SFL without the need to follow the same rigorous, competitive application process), social balance (march on Hampden, boycott etc.) and msm balance (James Traynor, writing for The Daily Record while seeking, and finally securing, employment with Rangers).