At a time like this, before one of these games, there is always a little bit of fun to be had in seeing who the media manages to dredge up to promote the line that the Ibrox club are brilliant and can do no wrong. As I said in a piece yesterday, most of the hacks aren’t as confident as they have been making out, which is why they have to cast that net out wide for those who are.
Step forward one Alex McLeish, banging on about his favourite subject again; Black Sunday. And every time he does that, every time he talks about it, I feel a very big desire – even a need – to remind people that McLeish was at Ibrox throughout the EBT years. If he wants to bring that season, and his record, up then it’s only fair that it gets the scrutiny it deserves.
No manager in the history of Scottish football has won things by shadier means that Alex McLeish. His record elsewhere is just not that great. His two title wins were ridiculous; one he won by a single goal and the other by a single point.
It is impossible to argue, with a straight face, that he would have been able to do any of it without the industrial cheating that was going on in the background.
The claim that Rangers gained “no sporting advantage” by spending more money than they could afford, and at a time when they had to conceal that even from the SFA, and then won those titles by the flimsiest of margins is risible and nobody really believes it.
As we shall see, McLeish himself freely admits this.
McLeish should keep his mouth shut about the events for which he thinks he is famous.
The actual term is “notorious.”
A lot of those who have risen by dishonest means make the same mistake. If I was in his shoes, the less people who scrutinised that spell the happier I would be. Those results and trophies and titles aren’t just tainted, they are blackened by corruption.
This is yet another example of the Scottish media ignoring historical fact to push a preferred narrative.
But as much as they might want to ignore this, they cannot re-write it.
The facts are in the public domain and we all know that title stripping should have followed. I have never wanted those titles given to Celtic, but the idea that there wasn’t one point or one goal of a difference that can be laid at the door of the EBT’s is ludicrous and to mount an argument otherwise would be futile and an insult to our collective intelligence as fans.
“You seen how close it was,” he said on a documentary once upon a time (I am not tidying his grammar up, that’s his own problem) “in terms of winning the championship. There was a goal in it. We were so level it wasn’t true.” (Jesus, what a mess that statement is.) “It we hadn’t paid the same type of money Celtic paid for players we’d have been behind them.”
That’s a close to a confession as you can get; in fact, it is a confession. They broke the rules in order to match us, that’s the truth of it. Not only did they defraud the tax man but they cheated the rest of Scottish football.
Yeah, he got Black Sunday out of it and their other dodgy title win, and there were others under Smith … but you know what? In the end those titles cost them their club. Those trophies, and the means by which they won them, are what destroyed Rangers, because it was that tax bill that, combined with what Whyte did, which sent them to the grave.
So, he gets asked about it to this day; I daresay he does.
But the people who should most get in touch with him are Celtic fans, to remind him exactly what those tainted titles are worth and what was achieved by them.
They killed Rangers. Celebrate that.
Except they didn’t cost them their club did it? Not if you listen to every other cunt in the press. It cracks me whenever anyone bores on about this but they suffered NO penalties for cheating Scottish football for a decade and a half!
This wouldn’t stand in ANY country in the world but ours. Drives me feckin mad and it’s not a long drive.
Let me ask this question , as I believe it to be relevant ? If Celtic FC had been the club of EBT’s and side letters to accommodate cheating on an industrial scale , what would have been the attitude of the SMSM and every other establishment supporting outlet ? The anger , acrimony and aggravation would have been absolutely relentless and uncompromising…right up to the present day ! As opposed to a damage limitation exercise for the true perpetrators. Only in Scawlin !
Lay that one at our door. We are complicit in the survival myth.
It is still going on , sevco up to their eyeballs in debt, the SFA don’t have nor want financial fair play instigated as it shows they wouldn’t be allowed to play in this league, hopefully UEFA/FIFA insist that changes and sevco get their comeuppance, cheated before liquidation, continue to cheat after crawling out of the grave.
That’s as angry a post as I have read from you and no wonder. M’Cleish sums that mob up to a tee, what is a bit alarming is that the guy has obvious cognitive issues but that doesn’t seem to bother the scum who are desperate for a quote. His family should step in and say no more, good chance they are all bigoted cvnts as well. This has the feeling things are coming to a head regardless of result tomorrow .
Alcoholic fantasists, cheats and bad grammarians untie. HH
I genuinely used to like McLeish as a player, and thought he was an OK
manager at Hibs and at Scotland [first time].
However, in the absence of a recruitment process,
McLeish was given the Scotland job for a second time,
– and when it seemed to be an open secret
that he just wasn’t physically fit for the job?
Towards the end of his shambolic second tenure, the SFA misspoke
about his fitness – and he then screwed them for his pay-off.
McLeish is an absolute scumbag.
Simple as that.
…and that’s even before you consider his shameful, EBT / cheating years! 🙁
As Bob intimates, ( and it’s maybe not public knowledge,) McLeish appeared ( only speculation) to be in the early stages of neurological illness, in his second stint as Scotland boss. If that is, indeed the case, then we can only sympathise or chasten those that continually press him nowadays, for quotes!!!
The corrupt EBT years are a non erasable stain on our game, and a reflection on where we where then, and are today, with the SFA. The culture within their walls has been favouring one ( now two) club(s) for decades. Alex McLeish, one of Aberdeen’s most famous sons, will unfortunately be remembered most, for his part in Scottish football’s biggest scandal, and their subsequent demise!
Too the best of my knowledge didn’t rangers actually win the court action taken against them?