Ally McCoist believes that Sevco’s troubles are over!
A fortnight in the North American sunshine playing against college kids seems to have convinced the tubby 51-year-old that the problems that have dogged the club for two years are in the past.
A 50% drop in season ticket sales seems to have escaped the club manager with no signs of investment since Mr Sandy Easdale warned in March that the financial position of the club was fragile.
Mr Brian Stockbridge’s discovery of a share option worth over £200,000 led to an embarrassing statement to the AIM and raised further questions about the competency of the men of dignity filling the blue room.
Despite all those issues the joy of seeing Kenny Miller and Kris Boyd in a blue shirt seems to have cleared away the troubles of a club that asked it’s players to take a pay cut in January and has still to repay the emergency loans taken out in February.
“For the first time, I feel like a football manager, that’s just a fact,” he smiled on his way back from Canada after being watched by an aggregate of 29,000 fans over four matches.
“‘Touch wood, a lot of the issues surrounding this club are away now. There are still smaller issues, of course, but nothing like on the scale of what they were in the past.
“And, for the first time in a long time, I am confident of just being able to focus on managing and coaching this football team. Also, this summer I was over in Portugal for a couple of weeks and it was the first holiday that I’ve had (since becoming Rangers manager) where I did not need to come home early. It was brilliant.
“Our pre-season tour of North America was a great success. But when I look back now at times in pre-season when we couldn’t play games, I just find it unbelievable.
“The worst part of it was not getting our licence to play in the Third Division until 36 hours before our first game against Brechin City. When you look back on that, you just think: “No way!” It was incredible!”
With his £800,000 salary and tranche of penny shares bought alongside Mr Stockbridge, Mr Green and Mr Ahmad McCoist’s financial future looks much more secure that that of the club he manages.