It was Fleetwood Mac who sang “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.” Bon Jovi sang “If you don’t love me, lie to me.”
Since time immemorial people have wanted to be spoon-fed the worst sort of garbage to spare their own feelings.
The phrase “ignorance is bliss” is one they understand, from a personal perspective.
Me, I’ll take knowing any day. Knowledge might occasionally come with a sting, but it empowers and enables. It helps you set out your choices and options. It is necessary for any course of action that steers you from the darkness into the light.
Last night, Club 1872 responded to Dave King’s little showdown with the Takeover Panel. Their single paragraph statement would have been recognised by Jon Bon in an instant, from another song of his; they were begging “Say It Isn’t So.”
In essence, they are “withholding judgement” until they hear from King himself. What nonsense. What is there to hear? They are just begging to be lied to. He was found guilty of acting in a concert party, and given an explicit instruction by a regulator; he has ignored that.
What possible explanation is there that they’d be alright with?
“I had prepared the share prospectus but my dog ate it …”
“I sent the share prospectuses out, but the postman must have lost them … all ten thousand of them ….”
“I had so much on my mind that I just forgot …”
Come on guys. Seriously? You’re kidding yourselves here.
If you caught your better half in bed with someone else would you stand in the door and say “I hope you’ve got a good explanation for this …”?
Would you Hell … or at least I’d hope not.
How many more times is this guy going to graft these people?
How many more lies will they swallow before they suss him out?
His behaviour here has been deplorable, but no more than usual, except this time he can’t blame people who hate the club, Mike Ashley or even the Unseen Hand. He knew the potential consequences of ignoring this order … to the club as much as to himself … and he still did it.
This suggests that either he’s extraordinarily cavalier with the security and safety of the club, that he doesn’t actually give a toss or, worse, that he’s actually now looking for a way out even if it’s enormously damaging to everyone else.
When he came over here earlier in the month he made it clear that this is not his favourite place in the world; he’d much sooner be back home, chancing his arm in his continuing dance with death with the tax authorities, and other regulators, who will have watched, with enormous interest, the way this whole thing has unravelled for him.
Everyone at Ibrox knows the right move here; cut this guy loose, as soon as possible.
I know that this is the end of the dream for their fans, who had hoped he might yet produce transfer war-chests and pots of gold … but that was always a ridiculous idea in the first place, as we’ve told them over and over again. The charade is finished. So is King.
For Houston and his people, this is a reversal for more than just the club. Under King, these people had their feet inside the boardroom, if not actually around the table; that went by the boards when the irredeemably idiotic Chris Graham’s twitter feed wrecked it for all of them. Even King is wary of handing out more seats to fans when so many of them have dangled their feet in the sectarian swamp over time. What an own goal that was.
Club 1872’s directors enjoyed their privileges and their access though. They enjoy being seen as leaders. But all of it flowed from their proximity to Chairman Dave, the tax crook, who has, for too long, enjoyed playing Russian Roulette with the gun pointed in their direction.
This week they ran out of luck, and even now, with time slowed to a crawl, and the bullet heading in their direction they don’t have the sense to get out of the way and point the finger of blame in his direction. Instead they’re standing, waiting, allowing the valuable micro-seconds to slip away as they await his “explanation” for why he’s done this to them.
These people are mugs, absolute mugs.
Woe to those Sevco fans who do realise how bad this is, and need leadership more than ever. This is not it. These people are so self-interested and tied up with this guy they appear ready to sacrifice the whole thing to go down with him.