An award-winning sports writer, and a national newspaper journalist since 2000, I mostly cover football, in particular the commotions of the Old Firm, but also further afield. There are also regular forays into boxing and golf, my other passions.
The Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League members are expected to hold their respective votes next month, with a single, merged body considered to be possible in time for the beginning of next season.
Few managers can have seemed so embattled without even having taken a training session, but those who know Brown are adamant that he will not flinch.
“He’ll handle it,” said Ally McCoist, the Rangers manager, as if the idea that Brown might be intimidated was absurd. He is very good technically in terms of coaching players and he also has a very good eye for a player as well. He knows his football.”
The request was made at a scheduled board meeting last week although aspects of his behaviour and indiscretions about club matters had been raised at the two previous board meetings following a complaint by a supporter.
Herald Sport understands that if Murray had agreed, an amicable departure could have taken place, with the chairman remaining at the club until after the interim financial results are announced next month and perhaps even until the end of the season.
He has been a low-key Rangers chairman, with fewer and fewer public appearances and statements during the course of recent months, but the decision by the board of directors to ask him to stand down in the best interests of the club suddenly returns Murray to the centre of attention.
It is not a place he finds comfortable. Murray does not talk to journalists, other than set-piece interviews, of which he has carried out very few, and he is steeped in the tradition of Rangers being a club that retains a dignified silence about its affairs.
The manager cannot allow a subdued mood to settle on his squad, not least because there is a championship and a Scottish Cup to pursue. Even so, the swiftness of the way the team restored its purpose was enough to overwhelm Dundee United.
