Rangers newco: Guessing game as 13 players return for pre-season
Rangers' future remains uncertain as start of new season is only weeks away. Picture: SNS
IF ANYTHING told of the drastically-changed times around Murray Park, it was the cry that so often rose up from the knot of assembled press yesterday morning once a player had driven through the gates of the Sevco consortium-owned training ground. “Who was that?” became a familiar refrain.
• Only 13 players turn up at Murray Park for pre-season training
• Lee McCulloch and Lee Wallace - who have both pledged their future to the Rangers newco - turned up
• Ally McCoist due to return from his holiday on Saturday
Maybe that speaks of ignorance on the part of us journos. But, let’s be honest, Andy Mitchell, Scott Gallacher, Kal Naismith and Chris Hegarty are not exactly well-known figures in the Scottish football world. Or even well-known figures in the old Rangers world.
In the new Rangers world, however, this band of boys represented around a quarter of the 13-player ‘squad’ that committed themselves to Charles Green’s Ibrox club by turning up for the fitness tests with which Rangers kicked off their pre-season programme...for a season playing who-knows-where. These lucky old, or rather new, 13, were the work colleagues from the previous Rangers that club ambassador Sandy Jardine – a bloke all instantly identified, even through a rain-smeared windscreen – will still be able to look in the eye. Not for them exercising rights under TUPE regulations to reject their contracts being switched from the soon-to-be-liquidated Rangers to the newco version. Steven Naismith, Steven Davis, Steven Whittaker, Allan McGregor, Sone Aluko, Kyle Lafferty, Rhys McCabe, John Fleck and Juan Manuel Ortiz did that to go and drive their cars to some other training grounds. And drive Jardine demented in the process. “Greedy” he called them.
Well, there wasn’t much sign of the greed and corpulence associated with the footballer fraternity among the vehicles that made their way into the Milngavie complex yesterday. Indeed, for those of a certain means, there was a novelty in their design. At no time since the complex opened in 2001 until yesterday would there have been a time that at least half the motors driven by the senior squad would have appeared in the price range of normal, hard-working folk. The new Rangers can’t afford high rollers. Modest little numbers will require to be the way of it on and off the field. Precisely why there was excitement and no “aw, only him” when the club’s third keeper of last year, Gallacher, became the first player to whizz up at just after half eight.
The 22-year-old could well be first-choice keeper at the club next season. Neil Alexander, who turned up 40 minutes later, may be the senior figure in that position now that McGregor hasn’t transferred his contract. But, on £12,000-a-week, Alexander is on a wage that makes him unaffordable to Green’s Rangers, irrespective of if they are playing in the First Division or Third Division next season. He is, though, under contract, unlike Salim Kerkar, Mitchell and Hegarty, who didn’t allow that to stop them making their way to Murray Park yesterday.
The same is true of Lee McCulloch, whose impressive big motor screeched up to the gates at five to nine. Indeed, with the salaries of Alexander, McCulloch and Kirk Broadfoot – last in four minutes before the gates swung closed at 9.40am – in the region of £2 million a year, Green might be wishing more senior players didn’t turn down the contract switch. That is one of the many disingenuous elements in all this saga. Even if his Rangers had been voted into the SPL, Green would have required to reduce significantly the wage bill. Some of the slashing work has been done for him with so many senior players choosing to becoming free agents. Granted, as Jardine acknowledged, Green would have sought to move them on for the reduced fees they agreed when they took wage cuts to keep the club running in administration four months ago. But knowing the perilous nature of Rangers’ plight, clubs would have waited till mid-August and made derisory bids.
That could still happen with such as Lee Wallace, who drove in with hoodie obscuring face, just after McCulloch. Indeed, if it is the Third Division for the new Rangers then even some of their youngsters may be too much of a drain on their finances. Players such as Darren Cole, who had his dad drive him in shortly after Gallacher had been joined by assistant manager Kenny McDowall. It was curious that McDowall was the most senior member of the coaching team to be there to greet the loyal members of the Rangers playing cause. A band completed by Kyle Hutton, Kane Hemmings, and Ross Perry, who said on the Rangers website yesterday he stayed because he felt he “owed it to the club”.
Rangers manager Ally McCoist didn’t feel he owed it to those who appear to be willing to honour old contracts in troubling circumstances to cut short his holidays for their first day under new employment. McCoist returns on Saturday and will be at Murray Park for the start of pre-season training proper next Monday. Others such as Maurice Edu, Carlos Bocanegra, Dorin Goian and Alejandro Bedoya are not scheduled to appear until later. There is, though, no great expectation that the Murray Park gates ever whirr open again for any of these players.
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Comments
There are 29 comments to this article
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Thatsasmaybebut
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 04:46 PMSorry my figure at #25 inaccurate .. Now 99% (because EEN doesn't do decimal points) 18848 for 3rd div.....133 for higher...that is 99.299%...Even A.S. must hear this and comment!
Drewsels
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 04:11 PM11. you welcomed cw as a saviour...now he's a criminal of course!
Drewsels
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 04:03 PM'half the motors'....'big motor' etc....what kind of under educated heathen is this local rag employing these days? next minute it'll be 'gallus', 'pure dead brilliant, 'intit' etcetera etcetara, etcetera.....
4019775
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 11:57 AM#23 'we could use this daft 1st division as a training ground for our B team next season' You really do not get it. You only have 13 players turning up for training. This is barely an A team. As for #22 where do you think the senior Rangers team will be playing? The multi billion pound bussiness that is English football will not have anything to do with you and your backward, ignorant, hate filled bigots. The world has moved on (see the queen's handshake) and you belong to a different age.
Thatsasmaybebut
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 11:12 AM94% of votes for newco in 3rd Division (and there is not an "Applying for entry to 3rd Division option) Alec Salmond will see this and make statement when he is sure what the majority want him to say. I have voted . Please do the same
Loanhead Jambo
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 10:43 AMI thought they didn't do "walking away" ????
Big Kenny Mac
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 10:40 AM22 - Good point Big man - 100% right. We could use this daft 1st division as a training ground for our B team next season. Once they see the crowds the Rangers bring to their wee grounds, they will be desperate not to lose us. A Rangers youth team in the first division from 2013 would be a good marker to put down to some of the so-called 'big clubs' treading water in the spl. Great Idea! ------------------- Big Kenny Bluenose
Magnum
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 10:29 AM#18BKM In years to come it will only be the Rangers reserves or youth team that plays in the Scottish Leagues this will be a good reconnaissance exercise.
donsmalc
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 10:25 AMBreaking news, a deal has been worked out to release all Rangers supporting prisoners from Scottish prisons with immediate effect,they are to be pardoned and issued with Newco season tickets at the tax payers expense and given financial assistance for travel, booze and pies to away games again at the tax payers expense. Their access to toilet facilities has yet to be worked out.Meanwhile Celtic are to start the new season with a 50 point penalty for what an SFA spokesman called "Excessive gloating" They are also not permitted to sign any player scoring more than 4 points in a 1-10 scale judged by a panel of Walter Smith, Gordon Smith and Morrisey. You could not make it up.................or maybe you can.
LostinSweden
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 10:25 AMhello?
LostinSweden
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 10:24 AM11, Allthe9s: I understand that you feel betrayed and angry about what has happened to your club, but I think you should be asking yourself what the board of your club, and its supporters, were doing when the criminals who ran it into the ground with money that didn't belong to them, in pursuit of all those trophies you were so proud of, were in charge. Did no one ever stop to wonder where all that money was coming from? The function of a board of a business is not to sit back and quaff champagne while successive chairmen break the law and bend every available rule they can under their noses. And responsible shareholdersstakeholders (ie fans) should have been asking, every time Rangers ran up ever more stupendous debts in pursuit of short term glory, whether it was really affordable, or whether, in fact they were never further than a few bad results from catastrophe. As for the SFA and SPL not protecting your club, how much more protection do you think you need? They invented a lesser punishment, because they considered the only ones on offer to them too harsh, and you took them to court, pissing FIFA off in the process. They have spent the past few weeks doing everything in their power to gerrymander a place for your former club as close to the Premier Division as possible, but all we hear from Rangers supporters is contempt for the very clubs whose support you need to make that possible. I've supported Celtic all my life, but I never wanted one of the greatest club rivalries in world football to die when this all hit the fan in February. But like most other Scottish football fans, I have become heartily sick of the self-pity, arrogance, lack of humility, refusal to take responsibility and sneering contempt for others that your club and its supporters have displayed over the past few months. Now I'm just thinking, let's take the financial hit and get rid of every vestige of this football club forever, when we've got the chance.
Big Kenny Mac
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 10:22 AMExpect some new faces in quickly - early next week. I know Nacho is keen to return, and Barry Ferguson is monitoring the situation, and would ewasily be the First Division's best player. The war chest will be a bit smaller due to First Division football, but the Rangers will cruise this league even on a reduced budget. Some of the names listed above are the best young players in Scotland, and quite possibly in Britain. ------------------------------------------------ Big Kenny Bluenose
Dragonlord
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 10:09 AM11# I will put aside the part of your post about criminality for the moment( still havn't seem the proof ) and point out SEVCO is NOT rangersfc. They are NOT NEWCO RANGERS. The whole league system is corrupt if this new company is given any preferential treatment. Those in the SFA - SFL should be ashamed of the open corruption coming from their offices and FIFA- EUFA will be receiving letters of complaint if this hair brain idea sees the light of day. Rangers fc are dead.That is the bottom line all animosity towards them also died. SEVCO is a new company and cannot call themselves rangers in any form.
Murdock
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 09:52 AM#11. Pure lies.
Murdock
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 09:51 AMHow irionic is it that Wallace is joining Sevco FC when he was effectively stolen from Hearts? Disgraceful.
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