A Celtic blogger calling himself Hostile Monkey obliterated the Sevco Survival Myth over the weekend, with a stunning, forensic dissection of the arguments in its favour, trashing each one with aplomb, in a manner which leaves little doubt about the conclusion.
Rangers are dead. Gone. Buried. No more.
This is known to all of us, of course, but large numbers of their fans continue to persist in the fantasy nonetheless, banging on about the continuation of history as if the concept of a bankrupt company selling that in its liquidation sale was not plainly ridiculous.
Of all the fantasies Sevco fans cling to, the Survival Myth is easily the daftest, but you have to fully explore it and the implications of it to truly see how mad it is.
Taken to its logical conclusion what Sevco fans believe is that the club and company are two separate things and that what happens to one does not affect the other at all.
It is the “club” that carries the history, is what they’d have us believe …. but what about the rest?
Well, the registration is held by the company.
We know that because Sevco had to be granted a “transfer of membership” from the old Rangers.
The player contracts are held by the company.
We know that because otherwise the TUPE regulations would not have allowed the whole of the Rangers first team squad to opt in or out of moving to the newco.
The property and commercial infrastructure is owned by the company.
We know this because this is traded on the stock market (when they are allowed there!) and can be used as collateral for loans and other things.
And, of course, any debts are held by the company.
This is the basis on which this fiction was first being spun.
Everything of consequence – everything that allows a football club to actually do what it’s set up for – is under the aegis of “the company.”
Only that ephemeral concept of history remains the province of the club … this is their argument, boiled down.
Yet as Hostile Monkey points out, the history itself doesn’t even come complete.
Take their first season in existence for example.
If Sevco and Rangers are, in fact, one in the same, if the club itself never went anywhere, why did they have to play qualifying rounds in the Scottish Cup? If the history is intact, they ought to have started in the Third Round, as Scottish Cup seeding is based on the previous year’s league position … when they’d have been second in the SPL.
Everyone involved in this knows, on some level, that this idea is ludicrous. They cling to it for dear life anyway, because not to would hurt too much.
Hostile Monkey takes apart those pretences one at a time, starting with the Lord Nimmo Smith verdict and what it actually says about the Sevco – Rangers link. It goes on to examine the ASA verdict, the BBC Trust decision, the European Club Association statement on the matter and a few other things besides.
Aside from being a total demolition job on the whole idea, what Hostile Monkey has demonstrated, in crystal clear terms, is just how little their club actually means to them except as a vehicle for their supremacist notions.
I have long argued that whether those trophies are represented in the history books as belonging to Rangers or Sevco or indeed both is irrelevant to the vast majority of us.
Days like Black Sunday happened regardless. The club that won those honours might be dead and gone but the fact of them remains, and those supporters who want to maintain the fiction that Sevco carries the flag are perfectly entitled to do so inside their own heads … because the history of a football club is in more than the bricks and mortar of the ground and the record in those books.
It is carried in the hearts and the minds of the fans themselves, and there it really can be passed on from generation to generation.
Take Seville, for example. It will remain part of the Celtic consciousness forever … although we left that magical city with nothing but warm memories. The “history” of it lies in what we tell others about those experiences. It is a collection of feelings, emotions, things of the heart.
To the Sevco fans though, history isn’t like that.
They’ve at once elevated it above what their club actually ought to be – an ideal, something truly immortal – and yet something less than that at the same time.
On the one hand, they have made the history more important than any other aspect of their existence, without which their club is nothing. Yet at the same time, they’ve demeaned that history by making it about nothing more than lines on a page, dry statistics written down somewhere.
They fail to see this, to understand that the history of a football club resides in something above and beyond that.
In making those things into the soul of Sevco they are saying simply that it has has no soul.
They’ve devalued what the history represents, turning it into nothing more than a plaque on the wall, something that can be “purchased” in an asset sale, like a piece of office furniture. That makes it worthless except in terms of what someone is willing to pay for it.
Could our European Cup triumph in 1967 be represented in such a way?
As something that can be bought and sold, and stuck on a shelf?
Why doesn’t the very idea of that sound loathsome to them?
Simple really; without the totem pole of the “history” to dance around, they’ve got nothing else.
With all this in mind, the article by Hostile Monkey is one of the most important to be written and published on this particular subject.
It should be used as a reference point whenever Sevco fans try to maintain the Survival Myth.
Check it out at the link below.
You won’t be disappointed.
To read the article itself, click here.
Typical septic fans obsessed wae a club that is not even in the spl lmao use would have a dangers v septic tomorrow so stop talking shit fifa ruled we r the same club same trophy’s,home,training facility’s Oh and packing ibrox every fortnight where r use couldn’t even get into European cup which would help others clubs all spl clubs lost 800,000 uero some champions haven’t played in the champions league proper for years n ronnald McDonald will be sacked by January a see a hard championship for your septic can’t wait till first old firm we r gonny do yous rtid
If you can buy history, then I will buy elvis”s records and his big hoose does that make me elvis,I rest my case????????ynwa
Elvis is dead , so by that logic he never made any records…
Old firm fans get a life and move on ,so sad you are the main reason Scottish football is a backwater gwo goldfish surrounded by minnows!
Proper football fans should always call them Rangers2012, Wee Diddy Rangers or any name to reflect the fact they died because of cheating and everyone laughed in there bitter faces. Hail Hail
Would not like to buy your history you scumbags.
You couldn’t afford our history anyhow ya shipwreck.
Not worth dime
???????
I think we should also debunk the myth that gers fans hold onto that paedophilia happened at Celtic Park and was hidden by Jock Stein. They just can’t get over a protestant snubbing them for the mighty green and white. Wash those filthy rumours from that manky mob over at bigot dome. HH
Fuck Off you’ve shown how good you lot are without us…no fuckin good..not even one treble…history…our history is real and not goin away…canny believe your jealousy that the big team RFC have won more titles /tropies etc than any other team in the world..The history is real and it’s ours..and here to stay.. the people who matter recognise this and that’s all that matters…so continue your banter with all the other scumbags that voted us down…Rangers are here and coming to get you lot soon WATP
My own thoughts as Rangers fan of fifty odd years. How do you think the Struths of this world would react if they knew that their club had left a mire of debt behind them.
They would be spinning in their graves.
We are anew club but I have some treasured memories of players and games from our past.
But new club we are and although in the championship are playing attractive attacking football the likes of which we haven’t seen for a long time. Let’s rejoice in that and next season start challenging again for the big trophies .
We will still have our history imprinted d for ever in our minds albeit no longer being added to.
It’s a newdawn its a new day
Honestly, do Ceptic fans have nothing better to do than talk about Rangers. Maybe you should all consentrate on your own team rather than ours, maybe then you can have more than a half full stadium every 2nd week but never mind we will he back next year & you can get used to playing in front of big crowds again.
We need to constantly remind people that we will not accept whatever fantasy the Scottish media and the Ibrox fans want to continue to present as fact.
That is why articles like this need to be written to remind everybody and ourselves what the Establishment and the biased media will do anything to restore this disgraced Club to it’s former position of absolute right in Scotland.
Never forget to remind Scotland of this most disgraceful event in Scottish Football history .
Shame on them!
Headbangers lol so funny these obsessed nutters… Hey bhoysies We are theee most successfull club in the world, and see soon we will be back taking ur trophies away!! …. very soon xxx
…emmm….
ok, if Rangers were a new club …..
why would Pacific Shelf punters, like yerrsel, be absolutely so addicted, so nothing else to talk about, just about every one of your blogs, so consumed, and so obsessed about everything an’ anything about a bran’ new team – Sevco … that has absolutely nothing to do with the team – Rangers which you have a history of hate with for over 100 years?
so … emmm …. who do you think your foolin’ – us or yourself?
unfortunately for you, either answer make you look like a numptie!
I will say one thing for the Sevcovites they certainly are as bitter as the original entity were. Your deid now lie doon.
You not got the sense you scumbag
Another Celtic blog focussing on Rangers. The easy question to ask is: do UEFA, FIFA, the SFA et all regard Rangers as the same club? A tiny bit of research (I know Celtic fans find research hard, but try it) and you will find that the answer is yes. Now I know that you think Celtic blogs are the absolute truth, but maybe open your mind to the real world for once. I know you like to try and rewrite history, especially with you murky past, but just look at the facts for once Bhoys.
Facts – Sevco HAD to to apply for a new membership after Rangers proceeded into luquidation, and it was only agreed that a TRANSFER of a membership if Sevco accepted all debts of Rangers (IL), which they did and still have not paid.
More Facts – Celtic fans on numerous blogs warned of Green & Whyte being shysters but oh no…. Sevco fans embraced them as as saviours LOL.
Final Fact – Sevco fans are obsessed with Celtic blogs to either see some slip up on our FACTS or just try and shout us down.
Hail Hail…..!!
What is this murky past he clings on to?
I was talking to a sevco supporter at work about Woolworths and how you could still buy online from them, he kept saying it was not really woolworths, just a company who had bought the name and the real Woolworths had been wound up years ago, eventually I had to say to him about the comparison with his club, his face was a picture.
Did year, aye? Not like a Celtic fan to post a blatantly made up story. You’re not even clever enough to make it sound half real! 😀
Roll on the big tax case then shut the that shite down for good
Instead of worrying about the bears history yous should be worrying about the decline of your own club… Four unchallenged leagues, no trbles two years at least without champions league money, 10 million lost a year without the gers, half a stadium full player standards falling due to no competition and self obsessed with the teddy bears… Lol hail hail that lol
The big Cup we’ve got that bankrupt the real rangers
After reading that blog from Cheeky Monkey, the only conclusion I can draw is that the SFA and SPL where complicit in the Craig Whyte original ‘switcheroo’, THEN Charles Greens double switcheroo. I look forward to seeing them in court, witnesses or not. I also notice not one of the sevcoites here have even mentioned the article, funny that. But they are only too happy to believe level5 PR pish. And the freak show continues. HH
The only people this whole topic seems to matter to is Celtic fans? Why not simply concentrate on your own team, and club. Who cares either way?
Fuck off Celtic people we have no intentions of hurting use so why bother doing it to us.