During the week David Tanner got quite excited at the mention of a football club getting a sweetener.
The former Sky Sports anchor-man is fully tuned in with Ibrox paranoia and conspiracy theories which have been in overdrive since last months SPFL vote to award league titles based on average points won per game.
Rather than scan the Dundee website on a daily basis for pre-season friendly news Tanner and others could check out the strange circumstances of Richard Foster leaving Bristol City in 2013 with a year remaining on his contract. The full-back qickly found a new club and surprise surprise made his debut away to Bristol City!
On June 25 the Daily Record reported:
RANGERS boss Ally McCoist secured his seventh summer recruit this afternoon as former Aberdeen defender Richard Foster agreed a two-year contract at Ibrox.
The full-back has been released from his contract with Bristol City and will be registered with the Third Division champions on September 1.
Foster previously spent the 2010/11 campaign on loan at Ibrox while contracted to Aberdeen.
He becomes the latest player to pledge his future to Rangers, with Cammy Bell, Nicky Law, Jon Daly, Nicky Clark, Steven Smith and Arnold Peralta already on board.
A transfer embargo means the Light Blues must wait until September to register players, who must be free agents.
David did you ever look into Richard Foster joining the rangers when they were under a transfer ban? He was released by Bristol City and miraculously the rangers organised a friendly game with them, filling their ground. Now was that a sweetener?
— tony gordon (@gordon_tony) April 29, 2020
Foster had joined Bristol City on 10 January 2012 with the BBC reporting:
New Bristol City signing Richard Foster believes his move to the Championship will make him a better player.
The 26-year-old, who can play on both wings or at full-back, arrived at Ashton Gate last week on a two-and-a-half-year deal from SPL side Aberdeen.
“It was hard leaving Aberdeen but it was a move I definitely had to make,” he told BBC Radio Bristol. You always want to better yourself and a step up from the SPL is definitely the Championship.”
On 19 July 2013 the Daily Mail reported:
An uncomfortable meeting with a former employer will spur Richard Foster to show his true worth in the colours of Rangers.
Foster was released from the final 12 months of his contract at Bristol City last month, granting him the free agent status required to rejoin the Ibrox club following a loan spell three years previously.
He did not have to wait long before returning to Ashton Gate, but last Saturday’ s 1-0 friendly win for Ally McCoist’s side proved to be an awkward personal experience.
The 27-year-old right-back was jeered by a section of the home crowd throughout the match – in response to what had been a largely unsatisfying 18 months in the south-west of England. The fact Foster admits his own display fell below standard simply added to an afternoon he’d rather forget.
The former Aberdeen captain is adamant, however, that the taunts heard in Bristol will provide another layer of motivation in his bid to prove an important player in Rangers’ rise through the divisions.
“It wasn’t nice,’ said Foster. ‘You think you’ll maybe get it for the first 15 or 20 minutes. But it went on for the whole game. It didn’t help that my performance was terrible. I’d have thought they might have started cheering me at one point!”
Bristol City haven’t played any club from Ibrox since the 2013 friendly, a month after they released Foster. Maybe it is too obvious a sweetener for Tanner to investigate.
