The old poker aphorism goes something like this;
“If you can’t spot the sucker in your first ten minutes at the card table, then you are the sucker.” This has never been more true than of the Sevco support, and especially those who put their “faith” in Club 1872.
Everything at that club is a con-job, and whilst the fans are watching one thing there’s a sleight of hand change in the game going on somewhere else. All the focus at the coming AGM will be on the lack of a manager, when, in fact, it should be elsewhere.
One of my favourite rainy-day movies is Lucky Number Sleven, a complex little twister about a guy who’s seemingly in the (very) wrong place at the (very) wrong time, but which actually spins into something so much bigger and better.
At the centre of the plot is a scam called The Kansas City Shuffle. It’s a well-known game amongst confidence tricksters.
What makes the Kansas City Shuffle almost unique amongst stings is that the marks know they are involved in a crooked game; they know, in fact, that they are being conned. But the point of the exercise is to make them believe they’ve figured out what the con is … and “whilst everybody is looking left … you go right.”
Sevco fans know there’s going to be some misdirection at the AGM; they know what King is like and that the man can’t be trusted at all. They are wholly aware that he will pull some kind of rabbit out of the hat, something that will be designed to appease them.
And it won’t start with him asking for their trust; he will say that he trusts them, and that, as you know, is the basis of any great confidence trick. He trusts them to put the club first, and the only way they can do that, of course, is with cold hard cash.
You have to hand it to this guy, he’s as brazen as they come.
The real scam of course is the share issue itself. It will put money in his pocket and the pockets of the other directors whilst reducing the value of all the shares to the level of bog roll. And Club 1872 are going right along with that, knowing full well that they’ll have to buy even more shares just to get back to the voting percentage they currently have.
They’ve already announced that they’ll be voting in favour of Resolution 11; that, of course, has nothing to do with the same person being on their board and the club board both. That’s a mere coincidence and not evidence that they are nobbled.
Everything at Ibrox is hopelessly incoherent. Everything, I’d suggest, except this. On this one, the directors are clear-sighted and keen. They know exactly what they are doing here, and this is one plan they are following to the letter.
Quite what the main supporter’s shareholder organisation is up to advising its members to vote for this I do not know. That club is rancid to the core; fans can’t even trust each other to be looking out for the greater good. Self-interest and greed trumps all. Some of their “reps” have already wormed their way into soft seats near the director’s boss, one almost crawled onto the board itself before his past caught up with him, and others are now doing PR on its behalf.
Chaos reigns there.
The club is in freefall … and the fans are about to turn their own shares into confetti.
It is incredible.
It is Sevco.