In the end, there was clearly no love lost between Ross Wilson and Rangers fans. Wilson’s departure tribute contained no mention of the supporters at all, with glowing warmth towards the club and board members, but absolutely zero hint of the fans:
“I would like to thank the players, led superbly by captain James Tavernier, and the manager Michael Beale, as well as all those who have come before them in the three and a half years I have spent at Rangers. I would like to thank Douglas Park, Stewart Robertson and the Board for their support. I wish John Bennett – a true Rangers man – a successful chairmanship. This is a great club, and there are so many reasons for Rangers to face the decades ahead with optimism and pride. Thank you for your support. I wish everyone associated with Rangers nothing but the best for the future.”
Can we blame him? Given the clear hate aimed towards Wilson with fans’ banners depicting their dissatisfaction towards him and now-former colleague Stewart Robertson, it’s not a shock that he deliberately omitted fans as a reference and had no words of thanks.
Thing is, his performance at the AGM encouraged the bulk of the criticism towards him – fans were already unhappy with his record, his performance, and instead of showing any responsibility towards errors or contrition over mistakes, Wilson doubled down and pontificated disgracefully, shaking his head in rage over questions he was fielding and making it clear he was ‘better’ than every member of the stakeholders.
And those banners while a bit OTT and a touch embarrassing, were provoked by that kind of superiority from Wilson, that kind of inability to address the concerns and admit that yes, there were failings.
Ross Wilson preached that he’d been quite frankly fantastic for three and a half years.
And then only dug his heels in by deliberately ignoring the fans of this club.
Don’t get Ibrox Noise wrong at all – we DO have a pretty ridiculous support at times, with some comical views and diabolical opinions. It’s worsened in the past year for sure. But Wilson was technically their employee, paid by them almost like the government is paid by the taxpayer, and so they had right to express their views, however bonkers.
Wilson, however, didn’t have the right to smear the fans back, because he was paid to do a job and not slaughter ‘his customers’.
And in the end, the pettiness remained as he left, with no grace to wish the fans the best.
It’s funny, one user on Ibrox Noise had the audacity to criticise us for suggesting few will miss Wilson, alleging we ‘lacked class’.
Apparently Wilson ignoring the supporters completely is ‘dignity personified’.
Football is a funny old game.