crikey dave, you nearly had us going for a minute there!

It's official; the Laptop Loyal can once again start to form orderly queues to disappear up David Murray's rectum now that the man whose regal butt they were kissing a tearful farewell to a couple of years ago has stated his intention to return as hands-on Chairman at the Death Star.

Back in 2002, when Murray was checking out of Hotel Mordor, his reasons for setting up John McLelland as Patsy in Chief (surely 'worthy successor as chairman'? Ed) were dutifully trotted out by his simpering sycophants in the media. His departure was accompanied by grovelling tributes - from all bar a few at the broadsheets - to the man who had almost single-handedly brought Rangers to the brink of financial meltdown.

It was nothing to do with accountancy, we were reliably informed, but rather he was getting out before he became, in his own words, 'a dinosaur'. According to Rob McLean in his hopeless column in Masonsport, Murray had, 'grown tired of the predictability of the Scottish game', a predictability which presumably only started irritating him once it became utterly predictable that Celtic were going to win the league on a regular basis once again. He had 'given up on squabbling with the so-called decision makers at the other SPL clubs... having become exasperated at their failure to focus on the big picture he sees so clearly.'

No more of this mundane nonsense for Murray. He was off to his millionaire's paradise in his private jet, yet ready to land in the middle of Edmiston drive should big Eck ever need the odd couple of mill for a player or two.

Peter Jardine summed it up best when he wrote in the Daily Mail: 'Perthshire, Jersey and now France offer retreats from SPL rows, transfer speculation and sectarian arguments, with a private jet waiting on stand-by should Alex McLeish assemble another decent run in Europe.' Clearly Jardine was beginning to confuse Murray with fictional characters like James Bond, an easy mistake to make when the Ibrox tycoon obviously spends so much time hanging out with the big knobs.

Even Darrell King in the Evening Times, normally such a model of objectivity, began to get a bit carried away: 'The CV for the position should have included owning a private jet and having a former James Bond as one of your best friends. John McLelland has neither but he's now landed the position as David Murray's successor as chairman of Rangers, one of the most powerful and prestigious posts in European football... Lunch in Monaco with David Dein and his club manager Arsene Wenger, transfer talks with Juventus supremo Roberto Bettega and a blether with Barcelona president Joan Gaspart or 007 star Sean Connery are all regular occurrences in a Murray week. Murray has never pleased all of the Rangers support but when it came to pushing the boat out - or his private jet - then he very rarely failed to get his man.'

What on earth has changed to persuade such an international jet-setting plutocrat to put Sir Sean on hold while he deals with an extension to Bob Malcolm's contract or provide mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a fainting wee Burkey? What is it at this particular point in time that has made the SPL so unpredictable or the club chairmen so amenable?

Could it be that the big picture is now a three reel horror flick, starring Jack Nicholson as the scary receiver about to burst the door down with an axe with the cry, 'Here's KPMG!'?

the loss my father bore

The announcement of his imminent return was slipped out as everybody was looking the other way at the build up to the Celtic v Barcelona match and it coincided with the release of the latest set of Ibrox accounts. The bottom line was bad - a £5.9m loss - but in the Orwellian world of the Scottish media it was actually good. At least it was compared with the previous two years' figures of £35 million and £29 million.

Nobody really had the sense to point out that a major factor in this apparent upturn in Mordor's fortunes was the fact that they had sold £8 million worth of their first team and had actually managed to make the group stage of the Champions League. The real underlying loss for the year was £14.56m. Not quite such bad ... er... good... er... less bad news as reported.

Murray also announced a rights issue underwritten by his other companies in a move, we are told, designed to remove their debt and put them in a position to challenge Celtic, both on and off the field. As expected, a collective amnesia descended on the hacks and we were treated to articles in newspapers which really should know better, such as that which appeared in the Sunday Herald on September 12th by Martin Hannan, who begged the question, 'Could Murray yet be proved the genius who made many mistakes but who was ultimately proved ahead of his time?' There is a simple answer to this question, of course, but Hannan's case rested on UEFA's proposals to limit the number of foreign players in each member club - something, incidentally, rangers used to vehemently oppose when they could afford to buy expensive foreign players.

Squads would be limited to 25 of whom a third would have to have been reared domestically. 'Youngsters would go to the clubs with the best facilities and development structures. And which club has by fat the best training ground in Scotland and is already beginning to hold their own in the first team?' In case you're thinking it must be Celtic, whose youth team and under 21s won their respective leagues last season and who have Marshall, Maloney, Kennedy (all Scotland full caps incidentally), Wallace, Beattie, McManus, McGovern, Cuthbert and McGeady all in the first team squad this season, then think again.

No, silly, Hannan is talking about Murray Park, that Xanadu among training complexes which, we were assured by Derek Johnstone, would ensure coachloads of continental stars falling over each other to sign up, a reduction in the number of serious long-term injuries and a conveyor belt of young talent. And it has surely been a resounding success... if by foreign stars you mean the likes of Vanoli, if you don't count the current crop of first teamers forming an orderly queue for the treatment tables and if by conveyor belt of talent you mean Maurice Ross, Stephen Hughes and Chris Burke, the only player in the history of the game to suffer from heat stroke in Aberdeen.

As another aside, hasn't the aforementioned conveyor belt been sold off to a consortium of businessmen and won't Rangers have to buy these players off them if they play 20 games in the first team? Or is it my memory that's playing tricks on me?

Far from being a panic measure designed to take the heat off, the rights issue has to be seen as just one part of a well thought out business strategy, the timing of which has nothing whatsoever to do with a dismal string of results at the start of this season. Why, only this January this appeared in the Sunday Herald: 'A rights issue would dilute the value of existing shares and would be interpreted by many in the business community as a sign that the club has run out of other financial ideas. Murray, though, insisted that such a move would go ahead only if the club's current three year plan was to run into unforeseen difficulties. 'The way the business plan is going I don't see it happening', he said.' (Michael Grant, January 18th).

fight for your rights issue to party

The rights issue is being portrayed as an assault on Rangers' debt, a subject which is proving difficult to ignore, despite the best efforts of the Laptop Loyal and one which is obviously causing some awkward questions to be asked. If so, it is not the recommended way of dealing with corporate debts.

Yet, despite Murray's propaganda campaign conducted through a pliant press, it hasn't convinced everyone, most notably this particular Rangers shareholder who took the trouble to voice his concerns through the letters pages of the Herald: YOUR article on the Rangers rights issue is notable in that it presents a very stark view of the motives and intentions of David Murray (September 2). However, the focus of your article remains on 'the debt' rather than on the root cause of this debt; the mismanagement which has meant that Rangers have not made a profit since 1996. It is here that the record of David Murray and his 'stewardship' of Rangers deserves more attention. Since 1996, Rangers have lost a total of £145,816,000. The £40m invested by ENIC and the £20m invested by David King have been squandered to the extent that, a couple of years ago, Rangers literally ran out of cash. Hence the 'revolving credit' (at commercial rates) from the Murray Group. Rangers would also be technically insolvent had it not been for the fortuitous revaluation of Ibrox Stadium. In the real world, it is unlikely that anyone would pay £100m for a second-hand stadium in Govan. Turning our attention to the Murray Group, the picture is not much rosier. The last set of published accounts (January 31, 2003) show net debt of £190.24m on a turnover of £266.49m with a loss of £8.96m for the year. In addition to this, there are contingent liabilities of £139.89m in respect of guarantees to the bank for the borrowings of certain subsidiaries. This picture would be even bleaker if certain assets, notably Loan Notes from Murray Sports, were held at the real value of the underlying security (Rangers shares). The 'estimated £450m fortune' is just that, an estimate, and not a very good one. In the light of this, it would be interesting to know where he is getting the money to underwrite the rights issue. In Wednesday's Ofex announcement, David Murray states: 'I feel it is my responsibility to take up the reins at Rangers once more.' Given his record, I have to say that this statement fills me with a deep sense of foreboding... no sane investor would give David Murray another penny. Indeed, if Glasgow Rangers were a public company with institutional shareholders, I suspect that he would have been fired well before the year 2000... unless the root causes of mismanagement and inability to make a profit are addressed, I fear that we will be back in the same position in just a few years.

Apart from anything else, murray himself has said that supposing everything goes to plan (B) there will still be no real money available to bolster the playing side of the business, which renders everything else pretty meaningless. Unless they can continue to make draconian cuts elsewhere in order to employ better players and a better manager they will go on missing out on the Champions League money, cash which Celtic directors have recently admitted has become more of a necessity now than a bonus.

a stroll down amnesia lane

It shouldn't really be too much of a surprise that so many of the hacks allowed themselves to be deluded by the old smoke and mirrors routine, but maybe they should do what we do occasionally when we're on the verge of believing one of Dave's prognostications about how tomorrow belongs to him. We simply rewind the tape to March 2000 and read the following article by Ken Gallacher - then we can all relax safe in the knowledge that Dave's only having us on:

Just as promised, Rangers are moving on to another level from the rest of Scottish football, as Chairman David Murray announced a new investment of £53m for the Ibrox club, with a further massive cash boost soon to follow. The eventual cash injection could soar as high as £80m as Murray guides the club into what he believes will be a new, golden era for the Scottish champions.

The money involved, the biggest financial boost for any Scottish football club, will enable them to move into Europe's elite over the next few years. Yesterday, however, Murray maintained, as always, that he will not turn his back on Scottish football to play in any other league, and that while he remains in charge of the club, he will retain a responsibility to the domestic game. It is clear from this latest move, however, that the Glasgow giants are setting an agenda that no other Scottish club can match -and that appears to include their Old Firm rivals, Celtic, who are trailing by 15 points in the Premier League and are now looking at a financial gap which the Parkhead club might not be able to bridge.

There have been hints around Glasgow that Celtic could be ready to attempt a share flotation of their own, but it would seem unlikely they would be able to match the financial clout that Murray has put together. The Ibrox chairman promised his shareholders good news and a more prudent financial strategy at the last annual meeting of the club. He has now delivered this by taking on board several very heavy financial hitters, South African-based David King is worth around £300m - £20m of which he is investing in the club he followed as a young man in Glasgow. The Ibrox chairman has spent several months and many sleepless nights piecing together the plans which will eliminate Rangers' debt, currently sitting at around £40m, provide finance for the new training centre and the soccer academy which will be housed there, and still allow cash to invest in new players. He said: '

I want to make it clear from the outset that while our small shareholders, our supporters who have an interest in the club, will have the opportunity to invest again if they want, there is no pressure on them to do so. The bulk of the rights issue is being taken up by myself and David King and some other smaller investors, including Alastair Johnston, who is a long-time Rangers' supporter. We also have Trevor Hemmings coming in as an investor and Tom Hunter will join us some time in the future. Essentially, the investment we require is in place and we also have a major media deal in the pipeline which is very exciting and will bring in further serious investment to the club. I told you earlier this week that I had run the club up to now on a high-risk strategy which has involved carrying large debt. These days are over. The whole method of running the club is going to change, because we are in a situation right now where we do not need to take the risks we have had to take in the past. We don't have to spend the same money on players, for example, as we have had to do over the past two years when we were restructuring the team after the arrival of Dick Advocaat. At the moment, we have two new players set for next season, Allan Johnston and Fernando Ricksen, and Dick is looking for another quality striker.He is working hard on that right now. Dick and myself know what we are aiming for. We want to be in the Champions League every season. This is what we want for the club and this is what we have been working towards. However, we shall not be going on any wild spending sprees in the transfer market. We have a player or two to add to the squad - a top-class international front player, as I said, but we don't need to buy Numan, van Bronckhorst, Mols, Reyna, or McCann - because we have these lads in place already. Believe me when I tell you that we are going for it this time - we want to be successful in Europe, and the money we are raising now will take us there. This is the last part of the jigsaw for me, but we shall always be a part of Scottish football and we will take our domestic responsibilities seriously. We respect the other teams in the Premier League and we know this news will make them try even harder against us. But, so be it. Barcelona don't win every week. Bayern Munich don't win every week. Manchester United don't win every week. Yet, our supporters expect us to do so and we shall always try to do that. What we do know is that to be in the Champions League, we have to win the Scottish title, and that is our aim every season. We shall always be here with our roots.'

However, the mega-deals Murray has been working on are sure to carry Rangers out of the reach of their rivals here at home and unless Celtic can somehow find the means to strengthen their own financial standing even the age-old rivalry between the Glasgow giants will be threatened as the Ibrox men grow ever stronger. - Mar 31

Article by JB BANAL