Ibrox Mainstream messenger outdoes peak Succulent Lamb over ticket decision

Back in the pomp of Dave Murray he had half a dozen reporters on call that would happily print anything at all to keep a cherished place in the Ibrox news cycle with a dozen or more chapping on the door for some crumbs from the masters table.

Murray had the system sussed, a few transfer tales here and there and he was assured of glowing coverage all year round. Success on the park was driven by the glorious business leader, any set-backs or failures would simply fire him up even more with a vow to bounce back bigger and stronger than ever before.

Most of those placemen have moved on to pastures new following the administration and liquidation of Rangers but the spirit lives on in the digital age led by the team at Newsquest where the Rangers Review is the flagship digital title as circulation on The Herald and Evening Times falls off a cliff.

Jonny McFarlane, a former office junior on the Daily Record sports desk is the Head of Digital Sport at Newsquest, he certainly learned well picking up tales from the legendary Record heavyweights.

Now, without briefing, he instinctively knows how to spin the news from Ibrox. Everything in the garden is rosy with problems entirely due to outside enemies.

Unable to attend Ibrox, afraid to share videos or provide updates on the arrival of boats from Asia it is clear that no blame can be pinned on John Bennett and the board by anyone at Newsquest while they are being trashed at every turn by fans on social media.

On May 14 work began to add 600 seats to the Copland Road Stand, on Saturday around 20,000 loyal bears are expected at Hampden to watch a League Cup tie against St Johnstone, locked out of their seats at Ibrox and left in the dark, no return date has been set. Denied updates and told that they have seats of equal quality at Hampden.

With all of that evidence and no sign of the fairly straightforward work needed to accommodate 2,500 Celtic fans on January 2 the Celtic board have decided that since there is doubt over the venue of the first Glasgow Derby of 2025 there will be no away fans at the September 1 match.

It’s a decision that Michael Nicholson would have taken with regret, the Celtic CEO is a strong backer of the O** F*** brand, signing off for the Sydney Super Cup in 2022 to strengthen the business bonds between the two Glasgow clubs.

With news of Celtic’s ticket decision leaked to The Sun, McFarlane was quickly on the case, setting out the defence for the Ibrox board with 2,500 fans denied the trip to Celtic Park on September 1 that they had been anticipating.

All for the sake of getting a news snippet over signing the next Connor Barron, Liam Kelly or Clinton Nisala and the chance to ask Phil Clement what positives can be taken from the latest bad result.

There is no doubt that yesterday’s ticket decision would have been taken reluctantly by Nicholson and his mentor, if there was a way to help restore the image of the old O** F*** they’d have taken it.

Clearly things are grim at Ibrox, playing matches at Hampden is draining large income streams out of the club with no sign of deliveries from Asia or progress on the Copland Road Stand.

At best there is a 50-50 chance of the January 2 match being played at Ibrox, the news vacuum suggests that the game will be played at Hampden.

Even some bears are capable of reading that outcome into yesterday’s ticket decision, in order to stay inside the news loop McFarlane and Newsquest have decided that big bad Celtic.

There is likely to be some genuine news to dismay the loyal Ibrox sources in the coming week, having Newsquest on message isn’t going to protect them from the anger and backlash of loyal bears who’re expected to be duped again because no-one told them.

As Head of Digital Sport at Newsquest McFarlane is also in charge of the National and The Celtic Way as well as the Herald and Glasgow (Evening) Times.

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