This morning, Andy Newport of the Daily Record published a piece about how next March will be the 10-year anniversary of the Dave King takeover at Ibrox. There was not a lot in it I disagreed with, but I read it and found myself scratching my head, trying to figure out the message behind it.
He seems to be asking if this Ibrox board, having played its role in removing “the spivs” is now on the brink of being seen by their fans as the villains. I think if you’re asking that question right now you’re probably too dumb to be contemplating this issue soberly; to me, it seems obvious that the Dave King revolution was an absolute failure on a level rarely seen in history.
As many of you know, I enjoy drawing historical analogies, and the one that comes to mind is something I’ve discussed many times before: the aftermath of the assassination of Julius Caesar, which took place on the Ides of March in 44 BC. The assassins called themselves the Liberators, but they were almost immediately outmanoeuvred by Mark Antony, who understood that they lacked something crucial—the support of the Roman mob.
Antony made peace with them initially, but at Caesar’s funeral, he gave a speech that incited a riot. The Liberators fled the city, and over the next few years, the armies of Antony and Octavian picked them off one by one until nothing was left. The Liberators had sought to defend the Republic, but in the end, they utterly destroyed it. Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate, which eventually collapsed into civil war. Octavian emerged victorious, founding the Julio-Claudian dynasty and ushering in the era of the emperors.
Such a tremendous story, and such a perfect analogy for what happens when you “kill the king” without having a strategy for winning the peace.
The Ibrox board which swept to power with Dave King at the helm didn’t have a plan either. They talked a good game, but a decade later what do we find? As Newport pointed out in his piece, it’s a club engulfed in chaos. The truth is, it always was, and it was King and his cohort who unleashed the chaos. That club has been a model of instability ever since.
Think about where this began for a minute, on the day that Dave King was deemed a “fit and proper person”; it will forever be to the shame of the SFA that he was allowed an executive role at a Scottish football club. He was no more legitimate than Richard III.
Let’s not forget that 10 years ago, King arrived on these shores fresh from a legal battle that branded him a criminal, a tax evader, a fraudster, and a liar. Regular readers will know my respect and admiration for Graham Spiers, but his columns at the time were disgraceful. He argued that as long as the Ibrox fans got the hero they wanted, most people in the game here be would be willing to overlook King’s litany of sins.
King did no more to protect Ibrox or make it strong than Richard III did for the Plantagenet dynasty. The things he ushered in have been disastrous for that club.
No amount of media spin can make his reign look any better. Nothing that Ibrox fans believe can counter the awful facts of what that 10 year spell has meant for them.
Why, just today, the Ibrox club is back in court for the final stage in the Elite Sports case, just one of the many lingering legacies of King’s disastrous leadership.
He and the people he swept to power with have been responsible for one of the darkest periods the Ibrox fanbase has ever known, culminating this season in a stadium closure brought about by their own incompetence. Celtic fans are more likely to commemorate this 10th anniversary than those King allegedly liberated from their terrible position.
And what was that terrible position anyway?
They had a genuine world-class businessman in Mike Ashley on the board, who brought to the table a world-class retailing operation that gave the club a greater reach than ever before. Ashley also offered a partnership with Newcastle United, which could have provided Ibrox with access to top academy players and loan deals from which they could have benefited for years.
Their only “crime” was wanting to run the club on a break-even basis. They were accused of much else, including profiteering, but most of that was a product of the dark arts unleashed by King and his people to discredit them as much as possible. Actually, the merchandising deal with Ashley was just as valuable as their current deal with Castore, and was just about in line with the industry average at the time; somehow it was weaponised against them.
Had that club learned to run on a break-even basis, it might not currently be in the dire situation it finds itself in. Those people were hounded out because they proposed a period of sanity. Nothing that has happened since can even remotely be called sane.
Just look at the number of legal problems that arose from their attempts to oust Ashley; some of them still haunt them to this day. The Elite Sports case is one of them; a direct consequence of King’s decision-making and his attempts to force Ashley away from the club.
King brought the same strong-arm tactics that he had tried—and failed—to use against the South African tax authorities into Scottish football.
Even the takeover itself was later investigated by the City of London and found to have breached the rules. All King did at Ibrox was create chaos and bring disgrace on them, and his board, with its own penchant for ripping up commercial deals and making pathetic attempts to overthrow the governing bodies on account of perceived bias have only created more of both.
It was during King’s term of office when the club earned its modern reputation as one with no respect for written contracts, no regard for regulations, and no trustworthiness in even the smallest matters. Let’s not forget that King came to Scotland branded a “glib and shameless liar” by the South African tax courts, and when that’s the man at the top of your organization, you might as well have a king who murdered his way to the throne.
The reputational damage Dave King inflicted on that club can be measured in court cases, millions of pounds in fees and fines, with the largest potentially coming with Elite Sports claims for lost earnings. It can be measured in the type of people who were part of his coup and who still sit on the Ibrox board to this day—the very people who can’t manage a simple stadium renovation and seek to blame others for their own mistakes.
The club’s financial situation is also largely the responsibility of decisions taken during Dave King’s tenure. He was the one, as I mentioned in a piece last week, who said during Steven Gerrard’s time in charge that they “front-loaded” signings and spent more money than they had available. This incurred directors’ debts and the so-called “equity confetti,” which we still laugh about, joking that an Ibrox share certificate isn’t worth the toilet paper it’s printed on.
But the legacy of those directors’ loans and debts is that those who gave their money at the time to fund Gerrard are no longer capable or willing to do so. This means that when the manager needs to sign players, he first has to sell those in the first team squad.
Front-loading spending is all well and good when it’s happening, but you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. Eventually, Peter’s going to want his money back, and even if you can push repayments down the road, what happens when you run out of road? That’s the situation at Ibrox now, both in terms of directors’ patience and tolerance for carrying the club’s debts, and in UEFA regulations, which don’t permit clubs to spend more than they earn.
Dave King was initially greeted as a hero for moving out the “spivs.” His tub-thumping presser in the aftermath reminded me a lot of Margaret Thatcher, quoting St Francis Of Assisi on the steps of Downing Street; “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.” She brought precious little of any of that … and neither did King.
Still, he might have gotten away with unleashing chaos if not for one other thing—the one thing that was guaranteed to turn the people against him, the one thing that was guaranteed to whip up anger and usher in the current revolutionary mood.
He utterly failed to counter the rise and dominance of Celtic.
That was the only reason they ever trusted him with the keys to the kingdom in the first place. Dave King, the “great white hope,” the “saviour,” took power and then watched as Celtic began the greatest period of one-club dominance in Scottish football history.
In the ten years since he and his board launched their “glorious coup,” Celtic has won the treble five times, the double twice and secured 22 trophies out of the 30 that have been up for grabs. Two of the others were won by St Johnstone. So, what has Dave King’s 10-year revolution actually accomplished? One domestic title and two domestic cups.
Until Dave King took control at Ibrox, Celtic had won three domestic trebles in our history. We now have eight. Accounting for the Survival Lie tainted trophy count, they had a substantial lead on major honours won. Both clubs currently sit level, and that is due in no small part to that man’s decade of disaster and poor decision-making.
Of course, King wasn’t even around for all of it.
On the back of the City of London Takeover Panel verdict, he fled Scotland and Scottish football like a thief in the night, with Celtic having just secured its fourth consecutive treble.
No one has ever fled this country’s football landscape so thoroughly beaten and humiliated.
He even missed what would have been his swan song when COVID saw an entire campaign played in front of empty stands. Gerrard’s team won its title, stopping Celtic’s 10-in-a-row, but in the aftermath what? Another Celtic double, a treble, and another double with seven trophies in the last nine, to make it abundantly clear that the COVID campaign was a fluke—more the result of circumstances than any strategy worked out at Ibrox.
No one can honestly claim that the club would have worse off than this with the Spivs in charge, can they? How could they defend that assertion knowing what we know today?
If that man had just left well enough alone and allowed things to take their course with Ashley and the so-called spivs at the helm, I cannot believe they would have presided over such a complete collapse. You cannot have been in charge through such a period of dominance for your closest rival, and call that a success in any way, shape, or form.
The Liberatores assassinated Julius Caesar, but it did not secure the Republic. It destroyed it instead. Richard III, in an effort to counter the power of a rival family that probably could not have threatened the throne in any significant way, committed acts of historic barbarity that branded him a tyrant to this day and brought down his entire family line.
You could call those revolutions a success if you wanted, but no one really believes it, and history bears out a very different verdict.
The only people who benefited from Dave King sweeping to power were at Celtic Park. We have enjoyed the last 10 years probably more than any since the late ’60s and early ’70s, when we were a formidable force in Europe and brought the big cup home.
Andy Newport is quoting Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy when he asks if this Ibrox board will hang around long enough to go from being heroes to villains.
Who exactly are these people heroes to? What’s their legacy, except for Celtic’s well stocked trophy cabinet? What did they accomplish except to ensure a decade of near-total dominance by one club—and not their club, but ours?
A well-considered article, James.
Under Ashley’s regime, the Ibrox club was within three to six months of attaining break even, after which he would no doubt have maintained the erstwhile Sevco 5088 Limited in stable and solvent mode. But who’s complaining? Not me!
However, your attribution of ‘Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace’ is inaccurate. The prayer doesn’t appear in any collection of Saint Francis’ works and it was most likely written by a French priest, Le Père Bouquerel, around 1911 or 1912.
Your attribution of Sevco 5088 as the former name is also inaccurate mate – that was the Craig Whyte-affiliated company intended as the newco, but his chosen frontman Charles Green double-crossed him and used his own company, Sevco Scotland Ltd, to buy the assets instead.
Not only did he cut Whyte out of the picture, but he also had the cheek to use cash put up by Whyte’s backers to fund the purchase. After Green and then the Easdales, the involvement of King was more in keeping with the founding principles of the new club rather than any sort of deviation from the norm!
Good article but I thought someone that writes about Celtic as much as you would know yiur facts, we had won 3 trebles before king and now have 8 quite the school boy error
Point taken 🙂 I do know the numbers but I write fast sometimes and don’t always proof read!
And what 4 domestic cups have they won need to sharpen up mate
First off. I am loving the historical analogies. Rome and King Richard III. Two of my favourite subjects. If you haven’t already, I suggest you watch a 2013 documentary on Prime Video called Richard III: The King In The Car Park. It will, perhaps, calm your harsh views on him. Possibly not. Probably not. But it’s a great watch anyway, in my view.
As for Squint Eastwood. That crook benefited as much as Lenny was tainted from falsehoods printed by the gutter press. Oh how I am laughing as the chickens have now come home to roost. For as long as I can remember, the media has been telling us how much we need them. From the comments about civil unrest in a Rangersless World to the power of the blue pound – we have had to endure pro Sevco fantasy and fiction for far too long.
This year it’s different for some reason. The huns aint drinking the Kool Aid. I don’t particularly care why. I’m just loving the outcome. And that we can put so much of this down to that squint eyed prick just makes it all the more sweet.
As much as their milk has curdled, I stil have a feeling they will try to pull a rabbit out the hat a la St Aaron of Seville. They’re addicted to the tawdry glitter coated turd back page headline grabbers. Regardless. We’ll do them a week on Sunday. Again. I cannot wait for the aftermath.
I remember the glib and shameless liar walking from his car to begin his takeover at the Crumbledome. A brain donor among the adoring mob shouted to him, “Dae us proud, Dave!” Where do you start?
King screwed sevco. Not in the way Chuckie Green was screwing them, but because he never quite got a handle on what was required. As a result he spent most of his time putting out fires. Fires which he had started, and consequently burned his way through millions and millions of, mainly other people’s, pounds on useless acquisitions, managerial pay offs and of course the court cases. My only issue with your article is, that unless you count the Scottish Championship title, won at their second attempt, (Stop laughing at the back) Sevco have won only three top tier trophies since their inception. They have won the league, the Scottish cup and the league cup once each. Under the current regime it may be quite some time before they win another.
Aye, but apart from all that, King’s alright…
he’s helped put sevco where it belongs, in the gutter. 🙂
And in the absence of a CEO, Bennett is trying to hold it
all together – somehow.
If the bears were to chase Bennett away, the club might just
be at risk of attracting another ‘Billionaire from Motherwell’ type?
Rangers FC died in shame.
Today, sevco is paying the unavoidable price for trying to live above its means,
in a futile effort to try and pretend it really was Rangers – and in its EBT years!
Karma.
Their performance is even bleaker than you’ve indicated. They’ve won 2 domestic cups in the past 10 years, not 4. It’s easily verified – just check James Tavernier’s medal count.
God you’re right too lol 🙂
That record is so, so unbelievably awful 🙂
Every member of the subsequent sevco boards have found the legacy of the past failures and death of Glasgow Rangers too difficult to overcome. The struggle to maintain the continuation lie proves beyond them in spite of all the press and media manipulations. But all said and done that front loading and a disasterous failure of our own board is what helped them win the most important one or prevented us winning it, TIAR, albeit after the King had passed and with the help from the institutional red hands.
Thoughtful well written, most certainly never agree with what you normally put in writing, but credit where it’s due.
A up, I’m struggling to make sense of why you’ve such respect and admiration for someone who wrote those, in your own words, disgraceful articles.
Well written bullshit is still bullshit, it’s worse coming from him cos he doesn’t have the excuse of being a feckin idiot.
That was brilliant. Honest to God man what a time to be alive ?
Cherish these times Bhoys HH
‘Whose exactly are these people heroes to’ ?
Well to an extent me if they continue to only lift three trophies outta thirty in their stewardship of Sevco…
So it’s currently Celtic 118 trophies v Sevco 3 –
If things stay the same in the next decade then the cumulative totals will be…
Celtic 140 trophies v Sevco 6 trophies…
PLEASE ‘PEEPIL’ – PLEASE ACTUALLY STAY AT LIEBROX !!!
Guaranteed you’ve rattled a few bears cages with this piece James, brilliant, keep up the good work mate.
Great article James. “Take my dough or it’s ten in a row” what a pity we didn’t ram those words down his throat. Still, what’s done is done. I remember being a bit fearful when King came back in in March 2015. I read an article by Phil Mac which basically put my nerves at ease. I think that was the one where he coined the phrase, “if you like your shadenfraude Ibrox flavoured”. Phil predicted the ensuing shit show and the reasons why it would unfold and he was wrong. It was actually worse than his predictions. The whole cold shouldering scenario was off the scale. That’s why we say, the gift that keeps on giving. Just like all great comedy or drama series, and Sevco is tragicomic, you just can’t wait for the next installment to find out how much more comical or tragic it can possibly get. I’m sure that there’s plenty more to come.
Maybe a follow on piece from your earlier bog James around the type of people the Klan must see at the klub and the implications and limitations that brings.
King used that Klanism well when he lambasted Ashley and cohorts, the rats, those who would abuse the klub when we all knew as you described in this piece Ashley could have made a very significant difference to where the rangers find themselves now.
All in all they have gotten themselves into this position all by themselves by listening to those who want their snout in the trough.
The Scottish football landscape over the past decade could have been radically different if the Klan were not persuaded to see Ashley as the enemy. Similarly their best manager in the past 12 years GVB been ditched for going off the Blue Narrative.
The front loading thing If I recall was King’s plan to use OPM, other people’s money up front to invest in players. The reason, well success would bring more attention to the Klub and their biggest shareholder could walk away with a big profit after selling his shareholding.
Didn’t happen and Dodgy Dave got his marching orders.
Dave the man who got caught a tax chief trying to buy high end goods, lost the paintings, the plane, the wine. Bought his way out of a jail sentence.
Another thing I recall is big Mike asking to meet Dave to lend him some investment capital only for Mike’s man to wait his tough down to serve him court papers.
It has genuinely been an absolute laugh seeing this charade through the past 15 years. There has got to be a netflix film there somewhere.
Where is the Dave statue I ask?
Have the boats landed yet Mr Bennett??
One thing that I have nevr been able to answer about King and there must be personal gain behind this.
Few yeas back he made a comment about bringing oldco (in liquidation) and the rangers back as one entity. Anyone know why he wanted to do that?
Could never work that out.
BBC website- King in Court.
…but King said he could not make an offer to four shareholders because of their claimed criminal links.
He said that a Rangers board meeting last Monday concluded that the four could not transfer their stakes, adding that one of them was “engaged in criminal activities in the USA”.
Nothing to see here -Ed
Not really related to this article James but briefly mentioned.
Is there anything in the reports of Ibrox being open after the international break?
It seems other than the one report that everything else has been silent. I haven’t seen anything confirming it.
Seems strange that Celtic release a statement that they were given no guarantees that the game might not be played there in January but then a week later it’s reported it’ll be open in a month potentially. Seems strange to me but would lvoe to read a piece with your thoughts on it.
Well if there are any lurkers let it be known that at some point down the line someone is going to put the record straight . Judging by the people on here and their recollections there is a gold mine of information just waiting to be written up . Oh and this is only one site there are others out there who have there contributions and individuals who have loads of information on the demise of Sevco formally known as rangers fc. So to those Lurkers this will never be forgotten and you will always be reminded of your part in the demise of your Klingon.