News broke yesterday of a
significant development in the history of Rangers. Surprisingly it did not
really cause tremors, never mind an earthquake, among the support, but its
importance was vast.
Rangers, after the ‘Ready to
Listen’ campaign designed to give fans a bigger say in the running of the Club
and a chance to have their views heard, finally announced the inception of a
fans’ board within the Club.
Two notable names have been
installed as part of an independent committee that will review fan applications
for suitability with regards to potential nominations, and those two are
Scottish rugby player Alastair Kellock and former Rangers captain and hero
David Weir.
The ground-breaking nature of
these two steps cannot be overstated:
Rangers will now have something
the Club has never had before – a new fan-run board which will be endowed with
democratically-elected board members, voted in by their peers among the wider
fanbase.
In simple terms, fans (and not
shareholders) are getting an exclusive vote on who they wish to represent them
on this new board. And, of course, they can apply themselves.
The purpose of Weir and Kellock
is to ‘weed out’ unsuitable candidates, and I hate to say it but Craig Houston
and Chris Graham will be among those discarded without second thought. The
reason I ‘hate’ to say it is that I am all for democratically voted fan
members, and even if those two were voted on I would support them given I want
unity among supporters and progress overall.
Alas, without even mentioning their
recent march from Kinning
Park, they have done the
Club only harm and as a result they will be unlikely to be considered, should
they apply.
The second step is the fact that
the judgement of Weir in particular is something fans respect. He might not be
held in quite the esteem of someone
like Walter Smith, but it is pretty close, and he is a man with integrity and
credibility. So if he bins an application, it is with good reason and Rangers
fans need to trust his opinion on that decision.
Rangers fans have been chanting
‘sack the board’ for some considerable time, well now they will have their very
own board with which to have influence.
It is a risky and unprecedented
step, but I applaud the board for taking it and bringing in Weir to help vet
candidates. This is the kind of interaction fans have been crying out for, and
it is the first stage in a long process of bringing harmony back to the Club.
By no means is it going to please
everyone, but at the end of the day it is a step in the right direction and
goes some way to reconstituting trust between fans and board.