Several Rangers figures from the past have hit out at the full page advert by Celtic fans pointing out that the club they played for no longer exists.
Crucially none of them said that the advert was inaccurate.
Some of the uncomfortable facts from the summer of 2012 concerning the ongoing liquidation were laid bare and got under the skin of those back in town for a benefit match for the Rangers charity.
The supporters advert has provoked lots of online debate over whether it will make any difference to the accepted norm which cushions the Ibrox story with phrases like ’emerging from liquidation’ or ‘financial meltdown’.
Perhaps if some of those truths had been aired by Alex McLeish or Alex Rae the supporters could have rallied to save their club rather than raising less than £1m for a feeble ‘fighting fund’ before swallowing the moonbeams of Charles Green.
Those truths could have saved fans shelling out for three lots of season tickets and a share issue only to find their club passing out the begging bowl in mid season and hawking off anything they can to Mickey Ashley. As Walter Smith said recently ‘somebodies going to have to do something’.
Reacting to the advert Alex McLeish, who received £1.7m of EBT payments according to the BBC, claimed: “For me Celtic are missing Rangers. You see empty spaces at Celtic Park. Back in the day when Martin O’Neill was there and they had a superb team, we did too. Stadiums were full every week.
“So Celtic are missing Rangers. A lot of people will probably be trolling me for that but I think a lot of people will agree.”
Using the favoured politicians line of deflection McLeish didn’t contradict anything in the advert which highlighted how the new club entered the League Cup and Scottish Cup at the earliest rounds as well as missing out on European football despite finishing the previous season second to Celtic.
Taking a similar line Rae, who received EBT payments totalling £569,000 added: “Listen, that’s just provoking things. If that’s what they get their kicks from on the day, maybe it will take away from their performance!
“Seriously, good luck to them, they can conduct themselves like that if they want.
“Rangers, over the years, have tried to conduct themselves in the right manner, with a bit of dignity.
“So it’s not important what they do. What is important is how we conduct ourselves.”
Rae’s use of dignity certainly seems to refer to a previous era, a time where there were no dawn raids or court charges on administrators or former directors.
An era when bills were paid, when Police Scotland, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Custom’s, newsagents, florists, taxi firms and local businesses had their invoices paid in time.
While the support may largely be the same, the shirts and tactics similar to pre-2012 the thousands of fans that held shares, and debentures, in Rangers Football Club know to their cost how the events of 2012 panned out.
CLICK HERE for BBC list of Ibrox EBT’s