Fair? Wanna Bet?

Following the Ian Black “betting” affair, Rangers fans quite rightly expressed concern at the apparent singling out of a Rangers player.

My first instinct when I heard the news was that Black should have been sacked, given that reports stated that he had betted against his own club, with the inference that it was Rangers he betted against.

As it has now transpired he betted for Rangers to draw in a match he played in, and scored in a convincing victory, at odds (pardon the pun) with his fixed odds coupon prediction, it was not as serious as has been made out.

What has happened since has been interesting.

Aside from the fact that Black is to date the only player identified and punished for “irregular betting” in Scotland, public boasts of betting from other players in Scotland on Twitter have been ignored completely.

It’s common knowledge that players enjoy a bet, and picking one player out, who just happens to be a Rangers player, may just turn out to be the last player to face just scrutiny

It just so happens that the SPFA have been visiting grounds across Scotland to advise players on betting.

Clearly, if it wasn’t a problem, they wouldn’t be talking to every player in Scotland about it.

Players have been told that a Ladbrokes employee “grassed” Black to the SFA, following him winning a bet via his telephone account, and them investigating his activity.

Any Rangers fan who still uses Ladbrokes, should take their business elsewhere.

The Nasty world of PR

In the last two weeks the Scottish public have been exposed to the brutal workings of the PR industry, with the machinations of Jack Irvine and Iain MacIver shocking a public who should be aware of how unprincipled a profession it really is.

For his part Irvine, who has spent many years allegedly acting for Rangers, but actually working for prospective owners, promoted a blog by arch Rangers hater Paul McConville, then added insult to injury by allowing himself to be interviewed by another Rangers hating Celtic supporter Andy Muirhead for Scotzine.

If Rangers fans needed any convincing how much of a lowlife Irvine was then this should have been the nail in the coffin.

Irvine, in rubbing various people up the wrong way, is doing the exact opposite of what a Rangers PR should be doing. Rangers can now count themselves victims once again in a week of negative propaganda led by The Scottish Sun, in two ridiculously ill-judged stories about Rangers, that would in normal circumstances be ripped to shreds in a libel court.

The timing is curious, and comes on the back of David Leggat leaking an email where Irvine personally slated Sun Editor Andy Harries as well as Record Editor Allan Rennie. While one can understand Leggat’s anger at Irvine’s hypocrisy and unsuitability for the Rangers job, the leak has been counter-productive, with Harries apparently being sensitive to criticism, and now on the attack. Sadly he’s not attacking Irvine, but attacking Rangers.

On the back of the PR gaffe by SNP MSP Bill Walker’s spokesman slating the victim of Walker’s physical abuse, it shone a light on a dark world That world of professional spin is at least now visible, but the dark arts have been at work in other less exposed places, also on Rangers business.

There have been three huge Rangers stories dominating the front pages of Scotland’s media this week, two of which are most definitely touched by the dark art of “spin”.

First up was the ridiculous story of a Celtic supporter complaining that his dog was the victim of sectarian abuse by two Rangers fans, on his word alone, and no evidence, nor any charges. The piece in the Sun covered 3 pages with photos of said mutt and owner resplendent in the colours of Glasgow’s second team.

One Rangers site pointed out that the complainant had questionable opinions on a number of matters, with some screenshots of his facebook, exposing him as a rabid bigot, republican and racist.

Strangely, the Sun chose to ignore the fact their “witness” was about as reliable as Craig Whyte’s cleaners, but just wished to spin the yarn that Rangers fans are bad eggs all round.

Next up was the one of the BBCs cast of Anti Rangers bigots, Jim Spence, who claimed on BBC that Rangers had died. I won’t use the exact quote, as I’m sick of seeing it. The result was 400 complaints to the BBC Trust to point out that their own ruling on the matter was being ignored by Spence. What happened next was remarkable. The BBC issued an odd statement that was interpreted by some as an apology. It was not. They said, and I quote “I am sorry if you were offended by this”.

I’m afraid, that is not an apology. Subsequent to this, Rhebel blogger Phil MacGiollaBhain claimed that Spence had offered voluntary redundancy in disgust at the BBCs lack of support for him. More propaganda was released that the BBC were now to back him, with input from NUJ Scotland chief Paul Holleran.

By now it was being reported that the legitimate complaints about Spence’s deliberate error were abuse, and that Spence was the victim of Rangers fans’ abuse Again this was with no evidence, but plenty of “support” from MacGiollaBhain, Celtic Minded’s Scott McMenemy, and Graham Spiers all expressing their concern over the treatment he was "getting". The concern and co-operation in turning a situation around was a remarkable lesson on how to manage the media in Scotland, although it has to be said being in the media to start with must help.

So, while the NUJ should be berating a member for deliberately ignoring legal guidance on the status of Rangers, and thereby deliberately being inaccurate when describing the club, they have done the opposite, and assisted him to engineer a situation where legitimate complaints about the disgraceful conduct of a journalist are ignored, and said journalist is perceived as a victim.

Unsurprisingly, Spence is now complaining that he has been abused in the street. Given that he has been in victim mode all week can he really be believed? The unofficial PR with Spence has been remarkable, and Irvine should take note as to how it can be done, and it is not done in isolation, it is done by co-ordinating with people with the same aims as you, not with the enemy.


The other story this week that the Sun printed (this morning) was that Frank Blin and Paul Murray had been appointed to the Rangers board, despite the club statement to the LSE yesterday saying no additional board members were to be accepted to the board.

Rangers reiterated the statement this morning, and it later transpired that Blin had in fact completely walked away from the Jim McColl requisitioning group.

How they completely called it wrong is for them to explain, but they have embarrassed themselves this week, and damaged their already decreasing credibility.

Who in their right mind can now believe anything in that paper?
Bill

Return

After a lengthy hiatus I have decided to return to my blog.


After following the Charlotte Fakes blog, I was intrigued to find out more about how the Twitter account was getting it’s information.

Most of the evidence pointed to the involvement of Craig Whyte and Imran Ahmad, but I was interested in finding out more, and started making tentative enquiries As soon as I started on this process I became aware that I was not alone, and that there were others working to the same objective, including one blogger, one writer for a Rangers site, and a dedicated Twitter account.

While in the past my sensitive ego would have had me trying in vein to get information first, to blog about it, this time my objective after some initial enquiries was to find out enough to pass information to one of the fellow bloggers and let them run with it.

As luck would have it, both the twitter account, and the blogger must have, between them, spooked Charlotte Fakes as they (Charlotte Fakes) have feverishly been covering their tracks, since one blog named an individual, and the Twitter account made some hints as to who it could be. It halted my bigger plans to investigate the network of leaks to Charlotte Fakes, but did rekindle my desire to blog again I have to thank both “themanthebheastscanttame” and “Charlotte Hunter” for (at least temporarily) silencing the Charlotte Fakes account You may wish to blame them for me deciding to blog again.

More Soon

Bill

All Archive Blogs Now online

http://www.williampoole.blogspot.co.uk/

WP Archives 19 Oct 2012: The BBC

As Phil Mac Giollabhain boasted on Tuesday night of an upcoming series of revelations from Craig Whyte set to damage Rangers, his lack of discipline, and his haste to break a story  made it crystal clear that he was being supplied information from the BBC in Scotland.

I had it confirmed to me early on Wednesday morning from a very good source that Whyte was set to appear on TV. Little was I to know that it would be the BBC.

When I did, and it appeared to be Chris McLaughlin, I noticed on various Rangers sites a broad assumption that he therefor was the leak to Mac Giollabhain

.

While that is not impossible, and indeed very likely, it could be any number of people, either from Whyte’s team, or from the BBC Production team who recorded the interview.

My understanding is that neither Whyte nor his team did anything other than accept an interview invitation from BBC Scotland.

It stands to reason therefor, that someone from the production team, or McLaughlin himself is and has been colluding with Mac Giollabhain

.

Of course many observers of Mac Giolla Bhain will remember his boasts on Real Radio following the Rangers versus Zenit UEFA Cup final, that he was involved in exposing rangers fans behaviour on the night with the BBC.

Quite how he could do that from his bolthole in Donegal is up for debate, and this raises the possibility that he was actually there.

If not, how could BBC Scotland work with him on their subsequent witch hunt?

I digress.

As I watched a very uncomfortable Whyte be interviewed by McLaughlin, it was evident that McLaughlin was well prepared, with a set of (sometimes leading) questions that have been the core of their agenda against Rangers since Whyte took over.

He was asked about his takeover, his financing of it, and the various pieces in the “takeover” jigsaw. Whyte looked unprepared, uncomfortable, and silly, as McLaughlin ran rings round him. Given that this takeover had already been the subject of a documentary, and that stakeholders David Murray, Duff and Phelps, and Charles Green had all issued statements to counter claims made in the programme, it was all a bit surreal, particularly as it seemed that the BBC simply wished the “right” answers to the questions that had been covered in that documentary.

Now that raises several other questions.

Why would Whyte agree to this? I think we all recognise that everything Whyte does is for Whyte, so why do the interview, why with the BBC, and why appear to go along with the line of questioning?

Could Whyte have been involved in the Documentary?

Strangely, Whyte seems a bit put out about something, and gives the impression he thinks he has been shafted.

Since this interview he has been ridiculed by the mainstream media, and lauded by Celtic supporters who spent 10 months slating him and digging dirt on him.

What concerns me is that if you set aside the fact that he’s a known liar, and that he made some statements and allegations without a shred of evidence, is that he felt compelled to make them. What could he possibly gain?

Is he jealous that Charles Green looks set to do what Whyte failed at, ie to buy the club at rock bottom, rebuild it, do a share issue, then swan off in to the sunset with a healthy profit and the kudos of rebuilding Scotland’s best known institution?

Did Duff and Phelps fuck him over?

Does he feel like the fall guy manipulated by David Murray and Duff and Phelps?

If so, that makes him dangerous

Do I feel sorry for him? Absolutely not.

Despite what he may claim, selling off such a high percentage of Rangers season tickets to Ticketus and thereby starving the club of future revenue for the period was not normal practice, particularly as he was increasing the cost base with new lucrative contracts for various senior players, with some of said players being rewarded with significant pay rises.

The transaction alone could actually have been an understandable a way to finance the club in the short term, providing his business plan could support the loss of revenue stream, by covering it with other revenue and also restructuring the club’s outgoings.

That he didn’t was this that was his real business failing, whether by accident or design.

Yes, we were led to believe that Whyte was a rich benefactor but we should have been more realistic, and should have heeded Alistair Johnston’s warnings to be vigilant.

Without dissecting every allegation from Whyte, his whole reasoning for the club becoming insolvent appears to be down to the club being knocked out of the Champions League, then the Europa Cup. Rangers were knocked out of Europe on 25 August 2011

.

McLaughlin questioned Whyte on a statement he made in 15 September of 2011 that the club had a strong balance sheet, in reference to Whyte being outraged at former CEO Martin Bain freezing club cash in a dispute with the club.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2037527/Craig-Whyte-goes-offensive-attack-Donald-Bain-declaring-Rangers-wont-bust.html

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/271328/Rangers-chairman-Craig-Whyte-lets-rip-at-Martin-Bain

Whyte’s response was to ramble that in early September that was true but by the end of September it wasn’t.

Frankly it doesn’t add up, and many of his other claims have been fairly easily quashed by both Charles Green and Duff & Phelps.

My concern though is not just that Whyte used (or was used by) the BBC, and fitted in to their agenda to cause damage to the forthcoming IPO, but that he feels hard done by.

Quite why he has such audacity is unclear, but he’ll need to do more that mumble his way through an interview with no evidence if he wishes any credibility.

To my knowledge, none of his allegations refer to anything illegal, so despite the efforts of the BBC or Whyte to damage Rangers, Green, or indeed Duff & Phelps or David Murray they haven’t and won’t impact the club.

What they will have done though is strengthen the resolve of those within the club to starve the BBC of anything from the club, so we will have a strange situation whereby the country’s biggest broadcaster cannot report anything on the biggest  football club.

Experience of recent developments should show them that Rangers ARE the news.

Rangers will grow and survive with or without the BBC, and it will be interesting to watch the BBC try and cope without the co-operation of the club.

If Charles Green remains in position, my money would be on the BBC to fold first.

I hope Green’s successor is as single minded and strong as he is.

Bill.

WP Archives 14 Oct 2012: Toxic Thomson - Evidence?

If I were even tempted to write an untruth or to deliberately lie in my blog, I would stop immediately, and delete my blog. Seriously.

Clearly I have higher standards than the average Celtic minded journalist.

Friday’s blog by Alex Thomson shames the trade of journalism and takes it to a very low place.

Clearly, with some perspective it is not on a par with the Sun’s lies around Hillsborough, or its sister newspaper’s penchant for hacking personal mobile phone accounts, but it is still an unbalanced rant of the highest order, chock full of “allegations” without any evidence to support them.

Unless Mr Thomson has evidence that he wishes to share (and why wouldn’t he include in his blog to give it some credibility) then he should be challenged by Rangers FC to substantiate many of his claims, or apologise, and be forced to resign by ITN

As with previous blogs, there are so many inconsistencies, and a common tactic he tries and fails to use is to appear “neutral”, by beginning with an apparent “compliment” to the Rangers support, before starting on a black propaganda campaign which completely contradicts his opening gambit.

Like fellow odious creep Graham Spiers, he believes that readers will fall for his tactic, believe him as neutral, and believe everything from that point forward.

Perhaps some are gullible.

He certainly thinks Rangers fans do not have the intellect to comprehend his agenda, which is rather odd, as we have been ridiculing his strange behaviour and his series of embarrassing faux pas.

I have blogged on Thomson on several occasions before

http://williampoole.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/toxic-tomos-tenious-tat/

http://williampoole.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/alex-thompson-the-nuj-corrupt-and-irresponsible-bullies/

http://williampoole.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/glasgow-the-toughest-gig/

http://williampoole.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/useful-idiots/

He will continue to be challenged and ridiculed, because his efforts to silence people by labelling anyone who challenges his lies and propaganda as intimidatory is exactly that; a silencing tactic to give anti Rangers propagandists a licence to attack.

I and many other Rangers fans are not fooled, and will not be silenced.

As I and others have blogged before, Thomson came to prominence in Scotland by bullying Hugh Adam the former Rangers director in to giving him the answers he wanted in an agenda driven interview, asking the same questions over and over of the 86 year old.

Charming.

“As I’ve said before my interest in Rangers stems purely from the standpoint of it being a spectacular example of a corporate omnishambles: British mismanagement so profound and bewildering it veers between performance art and social car-crash. With the loyal Rangers fans left mugged in the middle.”

Here we go with the soft soaping.

“It’s still happening. Past mismanagement matched by the odious behaviour of a no-doubt small minority of Rangers fans apparently hellbent on proving the new Rangers will be like the old.”

Still happening? How are Rangers being mismanaged, and how would Alex know about the Rangers “of old”, if he only started taking an interest in the club after we went in to Administration. Is this a slip up, or is Thomson listening to other Rangers haters?

An element of the Rangers customer base remains out of order and neither Rangers, nor Scotland’s football authorities, nor the police appear willing or able to do much about it.

“I’m talking intimidation.

Of the legal profession. Of football’s governing bodies. Of football club executives. Of publishing. Of bookshops. Of newspapers. Of TV stations.

Tellingly, in Glasgow this will come as news to nobody. Which should tell anybody half awake how sick things are in this singular aspect of that great city.

Outside Scotland people may legitimately wonder how or why this is tolerated? Or simply gawp in astonishment that such things go on almost daily this year.

And it is arguably getting worse.

Consider the following brief summary of just some of what’s happened in Glasgow since Rangers’ downfall began, not a year ago.”

THE LAWYERS

In April a 3 man Scottish FA Tribunal dared punish Rangers for bringing the game into disrepute (so seriously it was deemed just short of match-fixing).

Gary Allan QC, Raith Rovers director Eric Drysdale, and former commentator, Alastair Murning had their identities disclosed as well as private details with threats so serious the police advised all three on security measures.”

Oh dear oh dear.

This would be the panel who imposed an illegal punishment against Rangers FC, which was later overturned by Lord Glennie.

The report/propaganda that Police advised all three on security measures was somewhat shown up when it transpired that one of the 3 let slip that no threats had been made. No Rangers fan has ever been arrested or charged with any offence in relation to any intimidation of any of this group.

Who said facts were required?

“Their identities became public after the Rangers manager no less, Ally McCoist said: “Who are these people? I want to know who these people are.”

The Scottish FA was left, not for the first time, wringing its corporate hands, saying: “We are deeply concerned that the safety and security of judicial panel members has been compromised by a wholly irresponsible betrayal of confidential information.”

And: ” all three panel members have reported intrusion into their personal and work lives, including abusive and threatening communication”.

Yet the manager of Rangers itself, a man steeped in the ways of Glasgow football, was instrumental in this chain of events, knowingly, or not.

Hardly an episode of corporate social responsibility.”

“It has continued. In the past few weeks Scottish Law Lord and former Supreme Court Judge Lord Nimmo-Smith actually had to put out a statement pleading for his independence to be recognised as he embarks on yet another investigation of the fallen club.

Again – the sheer weirdness of this to outsiders, passes almost without comment in Glasgow.”

Nimmo Smith does not mention any intimidation or any threat. Quite rightly, Rangers CEO has challenged the SPL and SFA over their predetermined agenda to strip Rangers of titles and trophies. He categorically did not question Nimmo Smith’s impartiality but stated that the process was flawed if Nimmo Smith was working on behalf of his client who had a pre determined agenda.  Rangers fans recognise that. We are not silly, we know that the driving force is not Nimmo Smith, but his client the SPL.

When Green challenged the process, Nimmo Smith felt compelled to justify his position. While Green and the Rangers support had been respectful of Nimmo Smith’s position, his statement which mentioned “match fixing” in context to the allegations against Rangers were unhelpful, but have been largely missed by both the media, and the Rangers support

“THE FOOTBALL AUTHORITIES

Like anybody prepared to challenge or ask questions or charged with passing judgement on Rangers, both Scottish Football Association and Scottish Premier League directors have had a torrid time of it.

In the case of SFA boss Stewart Regan, there were death threats.”

The SFA have said publicly this year that private details of SFA directors have been published online.”

Where?

The details of Ally McCoist have been published online.

“The SFA Chief Executive Stewart Regan has said:

” At times, that does make you wonder whether it is going to impact on your family and your personal life.

But it’s never once made me think about walking from the job.”

Incredibly, to those outside the Clyde Cauldron, the SFA boss said he’d had to speak to Counter-Terrorism officers over the nature of the threats and the security response.

Yes – Counter-Terrorism police officers.”

There is absolutely no evidence of any such threats, nor any arrests, nor any charges relating to any such offence.

There is not even any evidence online of anything resembling a threat.

What a wonderful piece of evidence free Propaganda. It seems that Thomson is a paid up member of the “keep repeating it and it’ll become true” club.

Of course Stewart Regan has a brass neck. While he had an account on Twitter, he retweeted a death threat from a Celtic fan about Rangers Lee McCulloch, which he was forced to apologise for.

Strangely, Thomson fails to mention that.

This revolting behaviour from a minority continues to spike in activity when those running the game are forced to take action to try and clear up the Ibrox mess.

Nobody, but nobody, should have to put up with this in the course of doing their job. But in Glasgow football it is dangerously close to being accepted as part of the job.

What revolting behaviour? Clearly the fact that Rangers fans no longer sit back and take torrents of abuse, lies and propaganda doesn’t

“THE PUBLISHER

There has been just one book published on the Rangers. As you’d expect it’s gone through several print runs in the few weeks it has been out. But for daring to print a factual account of the Ibrox meltdown, the publisher, Bob Smith of Frontline Noir speaks of having to deal with a catalogue of abuse.

It had a potentially serious affect on customers and shops buying the book ‘Downfall’ he says:

“There was definitely pressure applied and there were certainly some wobbles along the way from shops and customers. But we got through and in the end people were supportive.”

Material was published online to identify where at least one person lived who worked on the production of ‘Downfall’.

The abuse I received for simply writing the forward to this factual account of the Ibrox debacle was routine for me – for publishers unused to it, the experience was frightening.

THE BOOKSELLERS

Those outside Scotland will find this hard to credit, but several shops including major chains like Waterstones and WHS were unable to display the book openly in some shops because of reported threats and actual abuse of staff.

For selling a work of non-fiction and journalistic enterprise!

In at least one store copies were ripped up. In another Glasgow shop an angry individual wearing a Union Jack repeatedly entered the bookshop to scream at staff to send the offending tome back to the publishers.”

Once again, Thomson fails to provide a shred of evidence. Anyone see a pattern here?

Why does he fail to mention the author?

The “book” was written by notorious author Phil Mac Giollabhain, who was the co founder of IRA Fanzine “TALFanzine”, and former columnist for Sinn Fein IRA Publication An Poblacht.

This is the “writer” whose book serialisation was dropped by The Sun after they were made aware of a number of hate filled bigoted sectarian rants. They stated that Mac Giolla Bhain was “tarred with a sectarian brush”. The Foreward for the book was written by Thomson, who also contributed to the C4 documentary on Bloody Sunday. It is believed Thomson met with MacGiolla Bhain while in Belfast, many years ago.

Phil is a notorious liar, and many of these accounts of alleged vandalism and threats were posted by members on the website “Celtic Minded”, and various other Celtic forums, with not a shred of evidence.

“THE BROADCASTERS

As I write a colleague at STV in Glasgow has received threats for successfully doing his job. This person wishes to keep a low profile on police advice and is constrained to say nothing at all about it.

NUJ officials say currently around 25 journalists have been threatened recently for attempting to tell the truth about Rangers.

Understandably most feel they cannot discuss it openly. As one told me in a Glasgow hotel this summer: “I’m not paid enough and I don’t feel I have bosses who’d back me up if it came to it.”

Silence…hoping it will all go away…totally understandable when you live in Glasgow. But it isn’t going away, is it?”

Prove it.

“THE FOOTBALL CLUB

Enter Raith Rovers and their redoubtable chairman Turnbull Hutton. For Turnbull it was who was somewhat thrown into the limelight this summer as a champion of sporting integrity. As the SPL set about making itself a laughing stock in its tangled efforts to defy fairness, reason and morality to try and keep Rangers up in the Premier League, it was club chairmen like Mr Hutton who said no, Rangers must be treated like any other club.

But why, exactly? Yesterday Turnbull Hutton told me: “We had to circle our wagons at Raith given what had been done to us by Rangers fans.”

And he listed the endless abusive phone calls – some from Belfast – to Raith staff, theats, heavy-breathing, silent calls and so forth.

The day Fife police passed on credible information from the Strathclyde force that two men has been paid to burn down Raith’s stadium is a day Mr Turnbull and Raith Rovers will remember.”

Yet still no arrests? No Charges? No media coverage? Seriously? Is anyone supposed to believe this claptrap?

“And all of it because that Raith man Eric Drysdale had dared sit on that SFA Tribunal and pass judgement and sanction upon Rangers’ gross mismanagement.

After all that Raith and Turnbull Hutton would lead the charge to stop Rangers remaining anywhere near the SPL, whatever it took.

The would-be intimidators didn’t tame Turnbull, their cowardice only making the club bide its time and help Rangers down into the fourth tier of Scottish football.”

The fact is that Rangers fans wished to go to Division 3 in order that the SPL’s vindictive campaign to punish Rangers, but keep them in a new SPL2 (in order to still have their bargaining power with Sky TV and sponsors) would fail. Turnbull Hutton may have gained some kind of hero status amongst some extremist Celtic supporters who wished Rangers in Division 3 despite the impact it would have on their own club, but he really is an irrelevance to Rangers supporters, whose only issue has been with the SPL and SFA boards.

In fact Rangers fans applauded Hutton when he refused to buckle under the pressure from the SPL and SFA to place Rangers in SPL2 in order to support the finances of the remaining SPL clubs.

But hey, why let propaganda get in the way of the truth?

“THE NEWSPAPER

It seems an entire newspaper can be got at, when it’s Glasgow and it’s Rangers.

Recent weeks saw one of the more bizarre editorial u-turns of recent newspaper history in the UK when a Scottish Sun double-page splash promoting the author of ‘Downfall’ prior to serialising the book – suddenly became a non-serialisation.

In a somewhat embarrassed editorial The Sun admitted to receiving a large number of complaints about promoting the book, from Rangers fans.

The paper denied it was bowing to threats. Yet the publisher of the book says the threat of a Hillsborough-style boycott was real and instrumental”

Frankly, if the Sun had serialised this book from a notorious Irish Republican bigot, then it would have deserved a Hillsborough style boycott.

The suggestion that there were “real threats” to the newspaper, ie threats of violence, or anything other than a boycott is ridiculous and completely without foundation. Had it happened, it would have gifted the Sun an even better story and helped them publicise the serialisation and the book.

They didn’t because the author was and is a sectarian bigot.

Did I mention they also slated Thomson for writing the foreward?

It’s widely known the threats were real, nasty and yet again Strathclyde police were involved.

Many – including the book’s publisher – express real sympathy with The Scottish Sun’s dilemma. It editor and staff are known to have been shocked at the level and fury of complaints.

The difficulty here is that, whatever the paper’s reasons, in the end the mob got their way. The serialisation of a fast-selling factual book on Rangers never happened.

They couldn’t get Turnbull Hutton, Lord Nimmo-Smith, Eric Drysdale, STV and many, many more – but many believe they did get the Scottish Sun.

That should give us all pause for thought. Is this the reason why not a single Scottish newspaper has reviewed a book selling way beyond its publisher’s estimates?

The book is not “fast selling”, and selling way beyond its publisher’s estimates means nothing, if it’s estimates were to sell 50 copies.

The book by the bigot is currently at number 553 in the Amazon chart, which is based on hourly sales. It has peaked today because of the publicity of Thomson’s blog.

On Book Depositary it is ranked at a more realistic 20,895.

“What kind of power does the Ibrox mob have still, in today’s Scotland?

So against all this catalogue of attempted (and mostly failed) intimidation, the new Rangers owner Charles Green must surely take a stand and trying to kick this poison out of Ibrox and some of its support for good?

Already in his short ownership Mr Green’s referred to the football authorities as ‘the enemy’ at fans’ meeting on many occasions and he faced formal disciplinary action for saying other clubs were motivated by ‘bigotry’ towards Rangers.

Mr Green must lead from the top because if he fails to do so what chance has anyone got to stop the moronic element at the bottom of the Rangers food chain from lashing out with threats against anyone who dares speak truth unto Ibrox?”

Let’s be honest, Thomsons’s various lies and cobbled together propaganda are all about silencing a support and a club that are not standing for being bullied and lied about any more, and bullys like Thomson just can’t stand it.

Of course, Thomson has previous for lying about “intimidation” when he claimed he had been threatened by journalist David Leggat. As I blogged previously, this was utter bunkum, and the Police believed his claim was laughable, while it was proven that an online “threat” came from  a Celtic supporter posing on a fake twitter account.

Both Thomson and the perpetrator of the fake threat should count themselves lucky they didn’t get charges with wasting police time, particularly as said perpetrator boasted about it on the site that Phil Mac Giollabhain is an influential member of.

This week he has already backed a MacGiollabhain piece of propaganda stating that up to 25 journalists have been threatened by Rangers fans.

Yet, still no one has been arrested or charged.

With every passing blog, Thomson is smashing his own credibility further. I didn’t think it possible, but it is.

I hope whatever he stands to gain from this is worth it.

Bill.

WP Archives 14 Oct 2012: "Still Driven by Hate"

One of the most refreshing aspects of Rangers new adventure in division 3 has been the "loss" of the Old Firm hostilities.

Speaking for both myself and many fellow bears, we have enjoyed this journey, even if the results have not been at a level we would naturally expect.

The liberation of not having any distraction from across the city has more than softened the blow.

Most of the Rangers fans I know have lost all interest in the SPL.

The only remaining interest for many is the dwindling crowds in the largely forgotten league.

You'd have thought, therefor, that Celtic fans would be enjoying the SPL without Rangers, and their first season in the Champions League for a number of years. Sadly not.

As their crowds dwindle, and their officials release false crowd figures, it becomes apparent that up to 10,000 season ticket holders who paid their money up front cannot be bothered to support their team.

While the money men will be less concerned, the crowds of 31-35,000 must be a huge disappointment to the players and football management.

Why these fans have lost interest is pretty clear. Their "support" of their own club is motivated more by an obsession and hatred of Rangers than it is by a love of their own club.

This is not only evident at the stadium of green seats, but all over the web sites polluted by these haters.

The hatred as been oh so evident this week from usual suspects  Phil Macgiollabhain and his useful idiot Alex Thompson, but this expanding world of hatred online has spawned a couple more haters this week on two seperate blogs.

One one called "fields of green" the writer displayed a level of obsession that has to be seen to be believed (just once) to see just how poisonous a mind can get.

His basic tenet was that we (the Rangers support) are too emotional and would be angered by him telling us what all our "faults" are.

The problem was that about two pages in to his rant it becomes clear that the only person consumed with emotion and hatred is the writer.

It's not a healthy level of disdain either, it's a pathological hatred of Rangers, and our support from someone who is disturbed.

I actually find it disconcerting that there are such damaged individuals out there in our midst.

It's something all Rangers fans should be aware of, in order that we understand the type of people we may be dealing with.

We as a support should be clear with each other, and with the club.

We should not compromise and should not give an inch at all, as some of our enemies (and they are enemies, make no mistake) will never be happy and will never stop demonising us and trying to damage our club.

Take note.

Bill.