Murray back to rule the world again

WORLD EXCLUSIVE
By Archie McBooze

DAVID MURRAY yesterday produced arguably the most polished performance witnessed at Ibrox so far this season when he cruised unscathed through his first Rangers annual general meeting as chairman for three years.

Murray was given a largely rapturous welcome back by an audience of around 1,500 shareholders clearly delighted with his handling of the cash-strapped Ibrox club's finances and his appointment of Alex McLeish as manager, although it later turned out that most of those cheering and clapping were actually Celtic fans who had come along for a laugh.

"My intention is to wipe out the club's debt completely within the next 12 months," said Murray. Although he was vague on the details, his general strategy seemed to meet with the approval of the majority of the shareholders. "By waving this wand at the accounts and chanting the magic spell 'salabim, salabom, slabam' we should see a dramatic improvement in our fiscal performance within a very short period of time."

Pulling a peeled onion from his pocket and holding it up to his eyes, a clearly emotional Chairman continued, "I'm prepared to take my share of the blame for the debt, even though it was all Dick Advocaat's fault."

As a Negro spiritual choir appeared behind him to sing BA Robertson's official Scotland World Cup song "I Have A Dream" Murray went on, "Everybody bought into the dream, except, unfortunately, all of our European opponents.

"But I have plans and schemes in place which hopefully will alleviate the problem. Only this morning I received an e-mail from Mrs. Jessica Savimbi of the Benin Republic, wife of the late Angolan Leader Jonas Savimbi, who has access to 10.5 million US dollars which she has agreed to split with us 50/50 as soon as we have paid some money into her confidential Swiss bank account.

"I am confident that with these measures in place we will soon be in a financially healthy state again and we might even be able to afford chocolate biscuits for the press conferences again.

"As a result of deals like this I intend to have this club a debt free zone by next year. We'll also probably be a trophy-free zone as well and, more than a likely, a supporter-free zone the season after that."

The returning Chairman rounded off the meeting by stressing that it was important for Rangers to regain their stature in the country. "As far as institutions are concerned, we're second only to Charlotte Church".

Ms. Church was unavailable for comment last night.