I’m a great believer in Dictatorships- Chick Young launches stirring defence of his hero Dave Murray

Chick Young has defended his long time friend Dave Murray claiming that he prefers dictators to committees!

The veteran broadcaster is one of the few surviving media commanders that lapped up and applied top spin to everything Murray told them without ever questioning the Rangers Chairman.

The lack of scrutiny played a major part in the administration, liquidation and death of Rangers as bemused fans looked around saying ‘but naebdy tellt us’.

Celtic bloggers, message boards and social media accounts lapped it all up, they sussed out Murray, EBTs and Craig Whyte while Young and his media colleagues insusted that all was punky dory, nothing to worry about here.

Following liquidation the favoured messengers were summoned to Murray’s office in Edinburgh and told that the great man had been duped by the billionaire from Edinburgh, they all scurried away and relayed that excuse to their audiences.

After 14 years in hiding Murray is back on the media circuit, telling a new generation how wonderful yet unlucky he was, spinning more than a decade worth of porkies to nodding dogs like Ewen Cameron after posing for selfies and getting merchandise autographed.

Murray delivered the greatest days of Young and Cameron’s lives, there is now a massive price to pay as they endure the consequences of non-stop success for Selik.

In December the glorious hoops overtook the combined trophy count of both Ibrox clubs, on August 3 they set out for their 56^th Scottish title to kill off another cherished lie.

Heartbroken Kenny Macintyre hosted Sportsound on Saturday, for comfort he invited Young in for his thoughts on the glorious dictator and his pathetic autobiography.

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34 minutes 30

I remember at one point Rangers were in debt to the tune of £31m, in 18 months they reduced that debt from £31m to £18m, the bank continued to pursue them.

Rangers were in £18m of debt which for an organisation the size of Rangers Football Club is a minimal mortgage. Relatively speaking it was nothing.

Having taken £13m off the debt in 18 months they were going in the right direction.

If that was the case surely you would switch banker or with the club in such good financial health you would get an offer of more than £1 for such a thriving business. While Whyte took six months to complete the purchase no wealthy blue-noses emerged with a counter bid.

There were a combination of factors, some were ill judged, some I think were going in the right way.

And I actually was with Walter Smith in Orkney, the night he took a call, he just looked at me and we had a bottle of wine in front of us and Walter said ‘keep pouring that wine’.

That was the time to invest in ice cream and jelly.

I will never forget the words, he came off the phone and he said to me ‘no matter how bad you think it is it is a thousand times worse’ and that was the first indication that Rangers were going downhill, pretty fast and in pretty spectacular fashion.

So, the story is complicated, I don’t think that we can blame David Murray for trying to explain, you don’t have to agree with everything that he says, it is his book, his points of view. Let history dictate, the referee is looking at his watch

48 minutes 35 seconds

Actually I’m a great believer that a dictatorship is better than things getting run by Committee. Did he have too much control? Well in the end given the way that it crashed and burned …. probably yes, but the time when they were bobbing a long singing a song (Young was interviewing Graeme Souness in the Tannadice dressing room when John Brown, Derek Ferguson and Jimmy Bell were leading the players through The Billy Boys without any comment or apology from BBC Scotland), nobody thought that.

He knew, he had a lot of control (with the media) because he knew when to stand off, he had a strong character in Graeme Souness as manager, so he knew when to stand back.

Possibly the control was over the top but he was headline news, he was showbiz, he was great for our business for a long time and of course for a Rangers team that went on to win nine championships in a row and recorded some fantastic adventures in Europe.

Young also revealed the hear-breaking moment when one of his Rangers supporting mates, while on his deathbed scribbled out a message to Murray thanking him for the best days of his life. Thousands of Celtic fans will agree with that sentiment- Thank You Sir Duped.

There was one area in which Young was concerned about the actions of his great Dictator.

30 minutes

In terms of the Craig Whyte thing I know David Murray very very well, he is a very clever individual and I cannot conceive that he was duped by Craig Whyte who I knew about, I hadn’t met but I was involved with people who knew him, who warned me about him and I find it difficult to believe that David Murray who knew everything about everybody didn’t know that Craig Whyte.

I need to watch what words I choose to use on this programme Kenny, er em er, was a curious individual in many ways. And I had heard stories about him, I just can’t believe that David Murray isn’t clever enough to see through a guy like Craig Whyte.

If only Young had decided to share those concerns through BBC Scotland, he will know why he chose to stay silent on what he knew about the billionaire from Motherwell.

BBC Scotland is entirely funded by TV licence payers.