June 2012. The end of the season.
The beginning of a new era for Rangers, with Charles Green’s tenure and the
continuation of Ally McCoist in charge flanked by McDowall and Durrant.
Fans were dispirited by the
exodus of players who decided to pack their bags and get out of Govan for the
lure of filthy lucre elsewhere, but started to look with hope at the younger
players in Rangers’ ranks – players like Kyle McAusland, Fraser Aird, Barrie
McKay, Calum Gallagher, Lewis Macleod, Luca Gasparotto and Chris Hegarty.
With the entire first team as
good as gone, and only Lee Wallace, McCulloch, Alexander, Andrew Little and
Ross Perry remaining on board, the seeds for growth were in a very tempting
packet.
This was Ally McCoist’s chance to
rebuild Rangers, to blend the best of the youth, with the experience which
remained, while making some choice signings to enhance the team.
But look how we ended up. McCoist
simply abandoned the notion of youth after a few months despite McKay and
Macleod’s excellent displays especially, and proceeded to ditch the majority of
young players on loans instead relying on turgid SPL players who simply did not
produce.
It is true to say Rangers won the
Third Division at a canter, in points anyway, but look at the price Ally
McCoist has made us pay to achieve that.
We now have an absolutely
disgusting first team, with the only glimmer of hope being sold to Brentford, while
utter dross such as Foster, Shiels, McCulloch, Simonsen, Law, Black, Hutton,
Templeton, Boyd, Miller, Smith and Daly remain on the Club payroll.
This is a football team without
footballers – only Lee Wallace, Nicky Clark and Darren McGregor can hold their
heads up with dignity and say they give everything to the team and have a fair
bit of ability about them with which to do so.
The rest, put simply, are
absolute garbage and that is the real legacy of Ally McCoist. His absolute
refusal to give promising young players any real chance at this Club has cost
us the ability to rebuild a decent first team.
He has said we would not have won
the Third Division with youth. He is right. But then, no one asked us to. We
wanted a blend, an amalgamation of the better quality SPL players we had and
could afford, with the best youth. Maybe 3-5 senior pros in concert with the
best young players, being tutored along the way by the veterans.
But nope. McCoist sacrificed all
that, the Faures, the McKays, the McAuslands, the Gasparottos in order his pals
like Black, Foster & McCulloch would play every match.
Look what we are left with – a
disinterested rabble of a team, an empty stadium, and management in the form of
McDowall who is not interested in cultivating the best of the youth – he has
made that clear with the dropping of Aird and the refusal to use the returned
loanees such as McAusland & Gallagher, while leaving Gasparotto and McKay
out on loan.
McDowall, or ‘Clipboard Kenny’ as
he really is, has no interest in change – he is McCoist’s puppet, and Ally
remains manager by-proxy it seems.
All that nonsense from Durie
about bringing back the youth, about giving them a chance, and the only one who
ends up getting one is arguably the worst young player at Ibrox – Kyle Hutton.
Things are starting to improve
off the pitch – Three Bears bought out Laxey, and Dave King finally put his money
in at long last to give those four a real chance of restoring the soul of the
Club. I still have massive reservations about King, given how long it took him
to do this, and I remain wary of his intentions, given his recent history, but
I am willing to afford him a chance – he and his money are better on our side
than warring with us.
But on the pitch nothing changes.
Not until this disgusting McCoist regime is finally removed in the shape of all
his pals currently running the team – and a new system brought in with new
ideas, and no airs or graces about dropping worthless mercenaries who have no
place at Ibrox.
And that includes Lee McCulloch.