Rarely if ever has an advert created such a stir!
Without having read the newspaper I’d guess that there could have been 30 or more full page adverts in the Sunday Herald. Have any created the level of interest and reaction that has greeted the full page advert placed by a group of Celtic supporters laying out the facts about their League Cup semi-final opponents on Sunday?
So far the collective business brains of Alex McLeish, Bert Konterman, Ronald de Boer, Alex Rae, Neil Lennon and Kenny Dalglish have been asked for their opinion! None have contradicted a single line from the advert although it’s unknown how many of them are Sunday Herald readers.
If the purpose of the advert was to take online debate into the mainstream the advert has been a roaring success, rarely has money been so well spent with the actual fee believed to be well short of the £3,000 widely quoted.
There can be no doubt that at Hampden on Sunday the atmosphere will be similar to that created over the past 100 years when green has met blue at the national stadium.
Those in attendance will largely be made up of the same supporters that have been attending Hampden down the years.
For those not in the know about the in’s and out’s of Scottish football it will look very familiar but a little investigation will uncover that things aren’t quite as they seem.
One team has played continuously in the top flight all of it’s days, paid it’s bills, to the detriment of the team on the park and has European football to look forward to later in the month.
The other is somewhat different. On the surface they may look familiar, behind the scenes no-one could consider them giants in any way.
A cup history that includes recent defeats to Forfar Athletic, Queens of the South, Alloa and two heavy beatings from Dundee United is par for the course for a lower division side.
Being funded on a drip drip basis by a man that hasn’t watched the team in action and who are unable to offer loan security against their stadium is just the start of the problems facing the club. A caretaker manager who is serving his notice and a squad who are mostly out of contract in May is simply the consequences of gross mismanagement at every possible level.
The driving rage to compete with Celtic and avenge those ‘that kicked them when they were down’ has taken Rangers/Sevco to where they are today.
When Ally McCoist bought into the Charles Green plan, then backed up Craig Mather, Graham Wallace and Deek Llambias the club was doomed.
Rather than clap and cheer the latest messiah determined to take the club ‘back to their rightful place’ any attempt at debate into what went on in the summer of 2012 has been neutered and is now subject to Police Scotland charges.
Had a group of concerned Rangers supporters had the foresight to take out a newspaper advert in January 2012 questioning the going on at their club rather than demand the signing of Fran Sandanza the events of the last three years could have been very different.
Rolling out the red carpet for Mr Whyte followed by Mr Green has had dire consequences that shows no sign of ending with the latest Mr Ashley loan tightening things even further,
The reaction to a single advert and the reassurances that all is well from a collection of former footballers will provide little comfort as self harm ensures that ‘ a return to their rightful place’ remains as distant as at any point in the last three years.