Gary Keown has always been a bit of a sceptic, one of the few in the mainstream capable of publishing what they are thinking. Paddy Stewart should avoid the Daily Mail, the feel staunch factor of Armed Forces Day lasted less than 90 minutes yesterday.
The Daily Record and BBC Scotland have been in the driving seat of the Bazza Bus, breaking the speed limit on the way back from Kilmarnock on Wednesday night but the Daily Mail columnist is capable of taking a more detached view.
He doesn’t need to be in the succulent circle, he doesn’t need to be fed the latest tit-bit about how Ferguson has transformed the environment around the club.
Whether the current players are learning the songs that Neil McCann and Billy Dodds sang on the bus in the days of yore doesn’t really impact his employment.
His main purpose at the Daily Mail is to deliver opinion, if it goes against the grain they’re happy to publish.
It’s not the sort of content that BBC cheerleaders Kenny, Tom, Al, Jane and big Tommo would dare to share. They might think it but that’s as far as it goes, there are Season Tickets to sell and puff pieces with Super Jack Butland and Captain Disappointed to hold onto.
A product of the Murray Years, the 21st Century has been a painful one for Keown, this season alone he has witnessed Celtic trash the myth of the World’s Most Successful Club, at some point in April the hoops will be champions of Scotland for a 55th time, a number that only has significance in one country.
These landmarks aren’t one off events, there is every reason to think that the next decade will be much like the last one, and that is the real fear for legacy media as the clock ticks away.
New CEO Stewart has the task of stopping it, ending the misery. In almost three months in charge his presence has been hard to detect, his impact negligible.
He appears to be like a politician blaming all of the ills on the previous mob, not quite realising that his purpose is to change it, to at least provide hope that things will change, that Celtic’s success can be halted.
Sir David would throw the kitchen sink of it regardless of where they money came from. It could be from the Bank of Scotland, it could be HBOS, it could be Joe Lewis of ENIC or that guy in South Africa, as long as it wasn’t Murray’s.
The modern CEO conducts strategic reviews, employs consultants and has no need for the back pages to feed their ego.
It is a very different era to stars from Italy jetting in, signing talks for Lucca Vialla and Ronaldo, snatching signings from Manchester United and Arsenal and of course the daily trashing of all things Celtic.
Today’s landscape is just a bit different, Keown knows it and in Paddy Stewart there is a fall guy as Daily Mail readers are informed:
In a way, the silliness, the Vaudeville, of giving Barry Ferguson the manager’s job and letting him bring in his pals for a few months is a most apposite end to the reign of those currently in charge at Ibrox.
One last perplexing decision. One last act of playing to the gallery. One last reprise of ‘pyoor Ranjurz men thegither fur auld time’s sake anawrat’ before these Americans with their data and recruitment plans and business heads come in and start trying to run the place properly.
A final charge into battle behind Baz’s Big Orange – or should that be tangerine? – Monster Truck that appeared at Auchenhowie during the week before the days of Pedro Caixinha’s dogs and caravans, Graeme Murty’s headstands, Ibrox being shut for the start of the season, building a player-trading model around letting your biggest assets leave for nothing and Philippe Clement going on about shots at goal when you’ve been knocked out of the cup by Queen’s Park can be put to bed for good.
Fair enough. It’s only temporary. It’s a bit of light relief, really. Despite yesterday’s return to earth at home to Motherwell, Rangers punters seemed to enjoy the comeback win at Kilmarnock in Ferguson’s first game, even though it could have been 4-0 to the home side within half-an-hour.
And who can grudge them a bit of fun, a bit of all-our-yesterdays, after everything they’ve been put through in recent times?
It’s just that you wonder where the whole carry-on leaves CEO Patrick Stewart. Painted as the bloke who had a firm hand on the tiller, the hot-shot making all the big decisions from here on in, when he first arrived in December, monitoring his direction of travel has been like trying to keep an eye on an empty poke of Monster Munch in a wind tunnel.
Keown added:
It feels like Rangers have just sacrificed Europe at the altar of stopping the mad squad from accosting people on the cobbles outside Ibrox or staging protests. And that isn’t right. Managing Rangers in Europe remains an incredible shop window for someone out of work. Was there really no one with pedigree available or interested?
If it was Stewart’s call to bullet Clement and bring in Ferguson, it makes no sense, given the sentiments he expressed just days before the St Mirren defeat. If it wasn’t his call, and an order from above, it makes him look like a nodding dog. A marginally more interesting Stewart Robertson.
Either way, it doesn’t inspire confidence ahead of the biggest game of the season.
Ferguson, of course, is welcome to prove us naysayers wrong over these two legs against The Special One. Seeing Rangers progress in Europe would be wonderful.
However, looking towards the longer-term, the events of the past week have left Stewart with an even greater need to prove that he is more than just another corporate yes-man — some suit who changes with the direction of the breeze — further up the tree.
Deep down Keown and the others know that there is no impeding takeover. Keith Jackson went off on one after a tip off from the southern hemisphere, it has all the credibility of Craig Whyte’s wealth.
No one in the mainstream wants to piss on the chips of their declining Army of Readers, times are tough in the industry just as they are for bears preparing to find the excuses to justify renewing season tickets averaging £700 a pop to watch St Mirren and Motherwell winning at Ibrox.
The penny will drop on the 49ers moonbeam around the same time as Celtic claim #title55, if that is topped up by a sixth treble in nine years Stewart and his team at Ibrox better have more than a strategic review and a Sporting Director to amuse their partners in legacy media.
Having failed miserably with the former legend in Gio, the gobby Londoner that was the Brains Behind Gerrard and a Proper Football Manager, turning to the staunch Ferguson is an act of complete desperation. Stewart knows it, Keown and a few others know it as well. Clyde and Alloa fans definitely know it.
Time is already running out for Stewart, rank and file bears are revolting, worryingly not all of the current mainstream are on message with Keown seeing through the spin and deflection tactics and seeing nothing other than Glasgow’s Green and White. It isn’t a sight that he can ever be comfortable with.
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by Valentine's day massacre
Oh , the irony of Keown , comparing Paddy Stewart to a nodding dog to his bosses ! This is just one member of the Scottish sports scoops fraternity, who if was given information from Ibroxland saying theRangers had £30 million tucked away for rainy days ..would add another £10 million on top in his report copy ? That is what’s known as a ‘ nodding dog ! ‘