SHOULD Celtic inflict another heavy defeat on Rangers in the Betfred Cup semi-final at Hampden this afternoon, tomorrow morning papers will once again make for difficult reading for Alex Wilson.
But the stories of Old Firm ignominy will still be far more palatable than the alarming headlines which Wilson and his fellow supporters grew weary of waking up to during the protracted and often acrimonious battle for power at Ibrox.
“Rangers are still on the front and back pages these days, but it is for the right reasons now, for footballing reasons,” he said. “Some of them are contentious, like the Joey Barton thing or the right old thumping we got off Celtic last month. But they aren’t allegations about corporate malfeasance, about financial wrongdoings, about the jiggery-pokery of people that nobody trusts or wants in place. We have come a long way. Tremendous progress has been made.
“Forget all this ‘you were liquidated so you’re a new club’ chat. That is just so much horse**** it is not true. But we did come close to just disappearing off the face of the earth.”
Having been involved in the bid to oust the hated former regime at Rangers – he came close to taking a place on the Ibrox board on two separate occasions – Wilson appreciates better than most fans just how precarious their predicament was during those dark days.
The former HR executive at BT, Ford, Guinness, Grand Metropolitan and ICI, was approached by Cenkos Securities, who had been brought in to advise the club about raising fresh capital ahead of a share offering, back in 2012, about the possibility of becoming a non-executive director.
He held talks with Charles Green, the chief executive who had fronted the consortium which had acquired the assets of the liquidated club, and Imran Ahmad, the commercial director. The concerns he privately harboured about the intentions of the individuals who had assumed control at the club he had followed since he was a boy growing up in Hamilton, were confirmed during the meetings.
“Cenkos, who were a group that I had known before, asked me if I would go and have a chat with Green,” he said. “I sat with him for about an hour. I met Ahmad for less than that. I wasn’t impressed.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was just thrilled to be offered that chance. But I came away from the meetings feeling very despondent. I didn’t get on with the gentlemen in question at all. It was no sad day when I was informed they had chosen somebody else, Phil Cartmell.”
However, those unsettling encounters with Green and Ahmad prompted Wilson - along with businessman Scott Murdoch, former director Paul Murray and ex-chairman Malcolm Murray - to put himself up for election to the Rangers board at the AGM the following year.
The quartet, who became known collectively in the media as The Requisitioners, failed in their attempt to gain control. Graham Wallace, the former chief operating officer of Manchester City, was brought in as chief executive and that lent credibility to the existing administration.
“The shareholding of Green and his allies was up in the thirties,” said Wilson. “The only way we were going to get a win was to persuade all of the major professional investment companies to vote for us. We got some, maybe as many as half, but it wasn’t enough.
“We were beaten by a clear 20 points. By then they had put in a new board. They cobbled it together in five or six weeks. Investment firms will always try and give a new board a chance.
“But I would like to think that demonstration of opposition, even though Green and his associates held on, maybe brought the situation to the attention of Dave King, Douglas Park and others and showed them it needed to be addressed.
“It needed somebody with financial muscle. They had to go to some of the bigger shareholders and say: ‘We’ll buy you out’. That is the only way it was ever going to happen. Ultimately, that is what occurred. But the position the club got into just can’t be allowed to happen again.”
To that end, Wilson has just joined the first board of Club 1872, the new Rangers supporters’ organisation. He feels their goals of increasing their share ownership, safeguarding the future of the stadium and holding the board to account are, despite the current hierarchy having their complete backing, vital for the club given their deeply troubled recent past.
“I got a wee nudge, was asked if I would consider standing and was lucky enough to be voted in,” he said. “Now you have got the fans with one single voice. The fans’ money is about 75 to 80 per cent of the club’s income so we are entitled to have a voice, have a say.
“The guys on the club board just now are good guys. But boards change, people change, individuals change. Can we absolutely guarantee that at some point in the future, maybe not in the next regime or the regime after that, we won’t end up with a bad egg in there? No. That is why Club 1872 has these aspirations of share ownership and stadium protection.
“We will work constructively with the board. We have both got the same objectives. These are not two organisations, a formal plc and a fans’ group, in opposition. There is no civil war. But we do want to hold them accountable. We do want interaction. We do want to understand where they’re taking it and we do want to challenge them.”
The combined shareholding of Rangers First and the Rangers Supporters Trust, the two groups which merged to form Club 1872 in May, stands at six per cent. But Wilson stressed the ambition and funds are already there to increase that substantially. He believes the possibilities are considerable.
“We have got the money,” he said. “Long term, we would like to think we can get to 25 per cent. Long term, we would also like to think we can find a mechanism to ring fence Ibrox stadium. Those are our aspirations.
“Having 10 per cent allows you to call EGMS. Having 25 per cent plus one gives you, under current corporate law, blocking status. So if somebody at the club was to say ‘we’re going to sell Argyle House’ we could say ‘oh no you’re not’. But it will take us a good old while to get to 25."
Despite their growing influence, Wilson appreciates the backing of King, George Letham, Park, George Taylor and other wealthy benefactors - whose interest-free loans, which will be converted into shares in the future, have offset the losses incurred by an institution which continues to wrestle with complex historical issues - will be vital.
“We will need the continued support and investment of King and the board, that is clear,” he said. “They are going to have to keep investing in the squad and the stadium. There is no question in my mind that they will continue to do so. The fans have also been phenomenal. They have been loyal and have stuck with us through thick and thin.
“But we are on the road to redemption in terms of being an honourable organisation and getting back to some degree of success. But the journey is only partly finished. It is not concluded. But the good thing is if I look around at the board of Club 1872 and the board of Rangers there is positive intent. There is trust, belief, commitment.”
That was not, as Alex Wilson can testify, always the story.
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