18 years ago Martin O’Neill arrived at Celtic Park taking over from Kenny Dalglish. In his first season, Martin won the domestic treble.
Celtic won the first Glasgow derby of that treble-winning season with an emphatic 6 – 2 victory at Celtic Park.
Dave King was there that day, and he sat stern-faced in the Parkhead directors’ box as Martin O’Neill inflicted an experience upon him, and his club, which has given him nightmares to this day, even accounting for events last season and the one before.
One down inside 60 seconds, Rangers were 3-0 down within another ten minutes.
Up until that point in time, they had been the dominant force in Scottish football while Celtic had a particularly disastrous time under Jo Venglos, John Barnes and then Kenny Dalglish.
Martin O’Neill arrived and almost instantly turned Celtic into a force to be reckoned with. Domestic success and a very good run in European football followed.
It’s obvious that what Dave King expects is that Steven Gerrard can do the same for Sevco, and the club is dangerously overspending in the hope they can replicate what Martin O’Neill achieved. This is one massive gamble. It’s one last throw of the dice.
Poker faces all around. Sevco is spending the rent money trying to keep up.
In Grand Theft Auto there is a drug called Deludamol.
The next time someone asks you what the Sevconuts are on, that’s what to tell them.
Don’t pay attention to Gerrard or anyone else; it’s all about catching Celtic for these folk, and in spite of two seasons of total success they believe it will be easy. The clue came from King who said: “You just need the right management to do it.”
A quick look at Sevco’s annual financial report up to 30 June 2017 shows an operating loss of £6.2m up from a £2.4m loss the year before.
With great ambitions come greater financial costs.
The trend suggests that losses will continue to rise. At the end of this coming season, Sevco could be in an even more perilous financial position.
The cards have been dealt now and Dave King thinks he has 2 aces and as a consequence he’s put the chips all in. The aces are a domestic trophy and some modest European success. He needs that if he’s going to keep the lights burning.
The main source of income for Sevco and its subsidiaries are season ticket sales. Hence, reducing away fans allocation for home matches.
There are of course other sources of income and Dave King knows how to find them, and they are familiar to most of us, like desperately searching the back of the sofa for a quid to pay the delivery guy. As with the larger examples, you can only go there once.
Payday loans, shares issues, naming rights, increased parking fees, supporter investment from Club 1872 … The fans are being asked to cough up the dough like never before.
If we were to sit down and look at their finances over the past 3 seasons and project their loss for this season it would be sobering, That £4m payday loan could potentially be £12m by the end of this season.
I expect it will get much worse.
It has already been reported that, “The losses – revealed in the Rangers International Football Club plc annual accounts – are double that of the previous campaign when the club was in the Ladbrokes Championship.”
Unless of course, they win. And win big. I mean they need to win the league, Progrès in Europe and then secure even more funding.
One eye on the cards and one eye on the chips.
But as usual they’re so focused on their own game that they’ve forgotten there are other players at the table. Dave King does not hold all of the cards.
They need to achieve this success as part of a strong competitive league and against a very strong Celtic. They will also need to get past Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs and Kilmarnock first.
Dave King needs to be careful.
He might not have the best hand at the table. In fact, we know he doesn’t, and we know he’s not terribly good at playing those he does have. It’s arrogance that will break him, as much as anything else. In the meantime, those Deludamol tablets have been replaced with a drip feed fed directly to the heart.
Malcolm Whyte is a Celtic fan and admin on The CelticBlog Facebook Group.
This is his debut article for the site.