This scenario involving the football team we associate with Ibrox must surely come to a conclusion soon.
Let's check some movies for an indication as to how it might pan out.
It's a Wonderful Life: Ally McCoist wishes he had never been born. His trainee angel points out he would not have chatted up Sue Barker on A Question of Sport, won the league at Celtic Park, and Hugh Dallas would not have been hit by a £1 coin. Ally cheers up when Uncle Billy remembers where he put the cash to pay the VAT, PAYE, and NI bills. Thousands of fans turn up with bucket loads of money. Even Hector the Inspector makes a donation. A cash register rings in the Ibrox superstore and an angel gets his wings.
Twelve Angry Men: In a locked room at Hampden, SPL representatives vote 11-1 in favour of expelling the Ibrox club. Charles Green, looking awfy like Henry Fonda, makes a dogged case for the defence until the verdict is reversed. (NB: There is also a version in which Charles Green looks just like Tony Hancock.)
Casablanca: Charles Green and Walter Smith were friends away back. Green says: "We'll always have that 1967 Cup-Winners final in Nuremberg. The Germans wore grey, you wore blue." In a touching finale at Glasgow airport, Green hands the Ibrox title deeds to Smith. HMRC inspectors are told to round up the usual suspects.
The Sound of Music: A nun leads a small band of young Rangers players across the Scottish Border to the safety of the Northern Premier League. Great soundtrack, including Up to Our Knees in Edelweiss.
Groundhog Day: A TV sports reporter who says he supports Partick Thistle but spends more time at Ibrox wakes up every morning to cover a story about a takeover bid which collapses in time for the evening news. The time loop is broken when he buys a Thistle season ticket.
This is a game people of any or no football persuasion can play. Construct your own versions of Back to the Future, Titanic, Gone with the Wind, Terminator, The Succulence of the Lambs, Pride and Prejudice, Cinema Paradiso, Apocalypse Now, or Taxi Driver. The last one is where Charles Green manages to turn the Ibrox club around based on some sound advice from a Glasgow cabbie.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article