“We owe no loyalty to the new club.
There is no history there for us.”
– Steven Naismith, 24th June 2012.
If ever a Rangers players went
from hero to anti-Christ in one fell swoop, Steven Naismith is him. No other
ex-Rangers player is held in the venomous contempt Naismith is, for an
overwhelming litany of offences against the Ibrox side, most notably the above
quote strongly suggesting, in his opinion, that Rangers FC are dead.
It is worth, however, looking
back to just before he joined Rangers to see a distinctly pre-emptive hint of
his ‘mercenary’ ways. His agent Andrew McCormick said of his protracted move
from Rugby Park to Ibrox:
“He is being denied an opportunity to
better himself and increase his earnings
10-fold. I defy anybody not to become frustrated in those circumstances. It’s like having a winning lottery ticket
in your hand but Kilmarnock’s chairman wants to rip it up and deny him the
chance to cash it in.”
The signs were there that Steven
Naismith had the loyalty of Judas, and the need for material wealth, but so
desperate for his services were Rangers fans that we completely ignored them.
Instead we lapped the forward up, and spent 4 years waiting for him to get off
the treatment table and onto the pitch, producing the kind of form we hoped he
was capable of. He did manage to become an integral part of the 2011/2012
season, from July to October and suffered ‘that’ injury which derailed Rangers’
season before taking the title away from Ibrox and into the hands of those at
Parkhead.
However, from being a hero whose
presence back on the pitch next season following said injury was so keenly-awaited,
Naismith turned into a back-stabbing turncoat following the acquisition of the
club by Charles Green’s Sevco company after administration. He and fellow
deserter Steven Whittaker called a press conference, and the following was one
of the many colourful quotes Naismith uttered:
“I am extremely proud of the actions we
took but I am disappointed and angry that Rangers Football Club no longer exists
in its original form.”
Now, let us keep context and a
cool head here. Naismith, like many others at Ibrox, took a whopping 3/4
paycut. No Rangers fan forgets that, including me. His actions, and that of his
fellow colleagues, helped stabilise the club through administration and delay
liquidation of the old company long enough that Green’s consortium could take
over and transfer assets. Herein is the problem, however, and it basically
erases that magnificent gesture entirely:
Steven Naismith not only failed
to do the proper thing and transfer his contract over to the new company which
fellow pros like Neil Alexander, Lee Wallace, Maurice Edu, Carlos Bocanegra and
Dorin Goian did, he not only committed the appalling crime of stating Rangers
were ‘dead’, but most egocentrically of all he made the whole ordeal about him.
Just like at Kilmarnock
it was all about Steven Naismith. Back then before his move to Govan how he could not sleep. How he was stressed out. How he was disillusioned with the treatment
he was receiving. Sound familiar?
Here at the press conference in 2012 it was all about Steven Naismith again.
How ‘I’ am proud and ‘I’ am disappointed and angry. On his
Twitter page he ignored/blocked any criticism and retweeted hundreds of fawning
tweets from supporters desperate for attention giving him sympathy. Because it was all about him. No apology to Ally McCoist for going behind his back and
betraying him and certainly no apology to the Rangers fans for deserting them.
Not a hint of any sympathy for the hell McCoist and the supporters were going
through, but instead a ‘me me me’ mentality which made Steven Naismith the
biggest victim at Ibrox.
No Rangers supporter would have
begrudged Naismith the move to Everton if he had done it with dignity. If he had transferred his deal
over so Rangers could get a couple of million for him. However, even Steven
Whittaker, Allan McGregor and Steven Davis do not attract the same level of ire
as Naismith because while they also
did not transfer their deals to the new company, none expressed such poisonous
opinions about Rangers as Naismith did.
Sadly, however, Naismith did not
leave with dignity. He left by the back door, his former club getting nothing
for the 4 years they had paid his wages and medical bills. He even had the gall
to say he had loyalty with Rangers, not Sevco.
We all know about TUPE, about the
rights of employment law. And many could argue Naismith did what was within his
right to do legally. The problem is morally it was corrupt – he might have had
the legal right to walk away but the morality of his actions raped Rangers of
millions of pounds after they had stood by him for 4 years of non-service.
Now, it must not be forgotten
Steven Naismith is not a complete monster. He does fund homeless charities both
in Glasgow and Liverpool.
The man is not without a heart. However, he does have an ego, and even his
blurb about his charity strikes as self-interested:
“I am an observant person and I tend to
notice things. It does not take long before you realise there are people who need help.”
He is absolutely right, and his
charitable actions are to be applauded, but his way with words will always be
his downfall – even this quote sounds a bit like a brag.
The final irony is his dream move
to Everton went sour and Toffee fans dislike him almost as much as Rangers fans
do. As I mentioned in my last entry, the official Everton club magazine
arranged an #AskNaismith hashtag on Twitter, for fans to tweet him questions to
be answered in print in the next issue. It took barely 10 minutes for this to
be completely over-run by Rangers fans slating Naismith. Amusingly, Everton
fans joined in.
I know this entire entry sounded
like a bit of a rant, and I accept it possibly was. It could also be deemed as
an irrelevant piece given how long the player has been away.
That said, with aforementioned
hashtag hilarity plus his brief appearance for Scotland yesterday night, it
brought up a lot of old memories which I feel a lot of fans want off their
chest.
Steven Naismith is not the
biggest bad guy out there, there are many far more malevolent people than he, but
his foolish, selfish, cruel and greed-filled comments at leaving Ibrox make him
quite possibly the most loathed ex-Rangers player of all.