A decade on, Andy Halliday’s deluded views on the Union Bears has put a spotlight on the issues at Ibrox that has the 2012 Tribute Act almost certainly condemned to live forever in the shadow of Celtic, Scotland’s most successful club.

Sustainability seems to be gaining popularity among Ibrox fans, they probably don’t know what it looks like or means but compared to their current miseries almost anything else would be acceptable. Much like a Player Trading Model.

Soon after formation, once Charles Green had been eased aside sustainability was the plan, the excesses of the first 18 months under Green were over with Ally McCoist’s wings clipped. There wouldn’t be any more stays at Trump Turnberry to prepare for facing Stranraer. No more league postponements because Fraser Aird was in the Canada u-23 squad.

Mike Ashley was the man, a successful and very wealthy English businessman who owned Newcastle United but his sustainable management of that club meant that they’d never be able to truly compete with Chelsea and Manchester City. Even Arsenal and Manchester United struggled to compete with the new money pouring into Stamford Bridge and the Etihad Stadium.

At Ibrox Ashley was one of the Founding Fathers, an initial shareholder who provided the new club with a kit deal that provided instant access to the biggest High Street chain in the UK. What a deal for a start-up.

🔵 “Rangers don’t do walking away, so why are we walking away now?”
🐻 “The Union Bears were criticised for protesting against Mike Ashley… the people criticising them back then are on the wrong side of history now”
📞 Billy & Andy Halliday discuss the walkout at Ibrox ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/EOWQXx6U2g
— Clyde 1 Superscoreboard (@ClydeSSB) January 13, 2025

Having been used to the excesses of Dave Murray that led to administration and liquidation Ibrox fans expected more of the same from their new club, even knowing the likely consequences.

The only purpose to a club from Ibrox is to trample over Celtic, whatever it takes. Whether it is from the overly generous Bank of Scotland loans or by cheating HMRC with a disguised remuneration scheme that attracted players that they couldn’t afford through legal means.

Ashley was going to change that, Derek Lambias was installed as Chairman in December 2014 just as McCoist was going on gardening leave with his salary doubled during his notice period.

Five players arrived on loan from Newcastle to help the side but the environment created by McCoist and the bloated wages of Lee McCulloch, Ian Black and Lee Wallace left the team doomed.

When details emerged of the retail deal it just became too much for angry fans unaccustomed to a club spending what they could afford.

The Union Bears were heavily involved in the protests, as was Craig Houston and the Sons of Struth. A number of fan organisations including The Rangers Trust came together as Club 1872 to do the leg work while Douglas Park and Dave King worked on buying shares. Paul Murray and his mate provided a running commentary for Daily Record readers.

Soon the loyal bears had a crusade to get on board with, almost all still believe that a dark plot was launched through HMRC to put their club out of business when the real architects were Murray and the nodding dogs on the Board of Directors such as Alistair Johnstone, King and Paul Murray.

Bears were convinced that Ashley was a wrong ‘un, apparently he wasn’t a true blue nose, he didn’t have the good of the club at heart.

The Sports Direct tycoon has some undesirable business methods but he does deliver success, he knows the High Street and has taken successful brands online to maximise profits. He is self-made, a British success story.

His only interest in the 2012 Ibrox club was to do the same, make them successful and deliver profits.

In England Newcastle were competing with six or more wealthy clubs with traditions of success, he could have blown £100m on transfers to win a League Cup or a one season visit to the Champions League but what was the point of that?

In Scotland there could be only one rival to a competent, well run club from Ibrox, with good management there was reason to expect a trophy split with Celtic and equal access to the lucrative Champions League.

Ashley viewed all that and was chased out of town. Militant fans and the media demonised him, campaigns against shop staff on Minimum Wage deals were fawningly covered, if big bad Mike could be ousted and ownership returned to Real Rinjurz men all would be well again in the world.

That was the theory, a decade later an Ashley type figure is exactly what new CEO Paddy Stewart is looking for but the reality of sustainability is alien to fans that have watched Celtic trash the myth of The World’s Most Successful Club. Next season Celtic will be heavy favourites to win their 56^th title.

The Ashley/Sports Direct moment has been lost.

When Llambias was bringing reality to Ibrox Celtic were managed by Ronny Deila. No harm, lovely guy, adores the club and all that but he wasn’t much more than a Stromsgodest level manager.

Previously Peter Lawwell had appointed Tony Mowbray and Neil Lennon as managers, the English Championship was as good as it got for both men in their subsequent careers.

Even with 10,000 additional seats Celtic were vulnerable. The laziness and arrogance of Lawwell was stamped all over the club.

Twenty months after beating Barcelona in the Champions League the summer transfer window had brought in Jo-Inge Berget, Dedryck Boyata, Alexander Tonev, John Guidetti and Mubarek Wakaso all on loan. Stefan Scepovic was eventually, reluctantly signed on a permanent basis.

Whether that was downsizing or managed decline is open to debate.

It wasn’t until the arrival of Brendan Rodgers in May 2016 that Celtic got back on the front foot, made ambitious signings, acted professionally in terms of preparations, training, tactics. The lot. They even treated Champions League qualification seriously after being outsmarted by Malmo and Maribor, once Rodgers was ousted it was the turn of Cluj and Ferencvaros to expose Celtic’s failings.

In Deila’s last few months the home crowds were dwindling on a game by game basis, the advantage of 10,000 additional seats was covered up by embarrassing banners.

When Sports Direct/Ashley/Llambias were in charge at Ibrox there was the prospect of sustainability, self financing, player trading and all the other aspects of the Wish List.

The Union Bears chased that dangerous thinking out of town, now they are campaigning and chanting for the removal of the Park’s influence. Graeme is a Director with Douglas owning more than 10% of the club shares, second only to King in the size of his stake in the club.

If someone can repay the £10m interest bearing loan and buy out his shareholding I suspect that Douglas would happily step aside, he tried his best, stopped Celtic’s second attempt on 10-in-a-row but has played his part is laying the foundations for a third attempt on it.

Halliday thinks that the Union Bears got it right with Ashley, maybe he should spend more time offering his skills to Motherwell rather than promoting more dangerous thinking among the Gullible & Deluded at Ibrox.

What terrible deeds was Ashley planning to hand out? A decade of winning three trophies or watching Celtic become the World’s Most Successful Club on the back of 20 out of 25 trophy wins while Halliday watched on at Ibrox, Tynecastle and Fir Park.

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NICHOLSON ON MUTE OVER IBROX COVER UP

Eleven days on from Celtic’s visit to Ibrox there hasn’t been a single word attributed to Michael Nicholson about the events.

In over three years as CEO Nicholson has made only one media appearance, introducing Brendan Rodgers as manager in June 2023 where he memorably claimed that the ambition of the club was to be world class in everything that they do. It will be a very short list to cover the areas that Celtic are world class in.

Late on in the match at Ibrox, Arne Engels was struck in the head by a coin, for Nicholson and his cronies on the board the clubs biggest asset came very close to what would have been a very serious eye injury, possibly career ending.

An insurance pay-out wouldn’t have begun to compensate a 21-year-old internationalist setting out in his career.

Nicholson watched from the Directors Box, Engels was able to finish the game but that is neither here nor there.

Almost a fortnight on not a word has been said by the SPFL, SFA, or either club. It seems that their joint commitment to the toxic O** F*** brand comes ahead of everything, even a duty of care to employees.

Sky Sports captured the moment that Engels was struck and fell to the ground, referee Don Robertson picked up a coin, ran across the pitch to an unknown official and that is effectively the end of the matter.

The two clubs briefed favoured media partners, in Celtic’s case the Daily Record, about their shock and horror over the incident, a box ticking exercise with nothing heard of since.

Someone on Twitter did highlight a likely suspect seen making a throwing action just before Engels was struck but no-one in football seems interested.

A competent CCTV system should be able to narrow things down but so far we have been spared a mug shot of someone to assist Police Scotland with their inquires.

Three sets of fixtures have been played since the January 2 fixture, the Glasgow Derby is becoming less significant with each passing day and in time honoured tradition it seems that everyone would just like to move on for the good of Scottish football. Nicholson certainly doesn’t want to draw attention to an unsavoury aspect of the brand that the Celtic board has invested deeply into since July 2012.

This should be an easy arrest for Scotland’s finest….Up 3-0, thumping their biggest rivals and this is how the behave!!!!Scumbags
— 🇯🇵🇮🇪🇮🇪 ☘☘ Charlie Tully. ☘☘ 🇮🇪🇮🇪🇯🇵 (@TullyParadise) January 3, 2025

Without doubt Celtic have their fair share of nutters. Coins, lighters and vapes have been thrown at opposing players at Celtic Park, it is an issue that the club is hopefully tackling with strong sanctions for anyone involved.

At Ibrox the issue is more widespread with little sign of interest in eradicating it from the host club. Why go alienating a sizeable chunk of your support, many of whom cheered and celebrated seeing an opponent fall to the ground.

The familiar, triumphalist songs were soon belting out with gusto as their miserable lives were given a couple of days reprieve.

At every big match at Ibrox it is almost impossible to see the passageways in the three stands visible to television cameras.

Everyone inside Ibrox on January 2 should be known to the host club, every seat was filled by a Season Ticket holder, My Gers member or a corporate guest.

If they can’t identify who threw the coin at Engels the club becomes the problem rather than the fan that decided to celebrate victory by trying to blind an opponent.

Ibrox has become such a dangerous place that Celtic stopped accepting tickets to provide 800 fans as target practise.

Back in April 2017 a fan wandered out of the Sandy Jardine Stand to confront Scott Brown, a full sized battery was launched at celebrating Celtic players, after scoring racist gestures were made at Scott Sinclair.

Fast forward five years and a Celtic physio was left permanently disfigured by a bottle thrown by a corporate guest.

At the same match there was the mystery of the half time broken glass which appeared in Joe Hart’s penalty area.

CCTV seemed to be switched off while the Ibrox ground-staff repaired the penalty box, none of the Police or Stewards seemed to notice or, there was no gasp from the fans at ‘a bottle being thrown’ onto the pitch.

As ever Nicholson took no action, it was only seven months later at the Celtic AGM that he was questioned on the incident. Reluctantly answering.

So over the less than three years broken glass has mysteriously appeared over half-time in the Celtic penalty area and an £11m asset/player struck in the face by a coin. A physio disfigured.

As Nicholson and the others at Celtic rub their hands over the March 15 Derby fixture it seems that they are quite prepared to put up with serious incidents involving employees when visiting Ibrox. It seems that the O** F*** brand is too precious to challenged.

Is it going to take an even more serious incident before the Celtic CEO finds his voice and disassociates from his intended Sydney Super Cup partners?