were Rangers the biggest club in Britain?

.......In what context,even allowing for for the ravings of the disturbed, could Rangers EVER have been considered the biggest club in Britain?

if there was a brief moment on the back of Heysel, that explains it....and makes it honourable...Good point.

Apart from the fact that Rangers have never been the biggest club in Britain[is the wine kicking in Dougie?] didn't Souness start the spending that has left you in the pickle you are in now. He did the same with Liverpool as well.He is without doubt the most dangerous manager ever to set foot in a football club. He should have a warning on him like cigarettes. This man may kill your club.
Anyway as a hoop I really hope you dont go bust, Dougie.

The point of this thread is that the statistical aftermath of shameful tragedies such as Heysel should not be dredged up a quarter century after the fact to substantiate some fatuous notion about a Glaswegian football club's perceived momentary ascendancy. A lot of people died that day, don't you think that standing over their corpses with a stats notebook is a little, I dunno, wrong?
Or do you feel it's worth it that your point's been 'proven?'

I think it's about time that some supporters stopped thinking that they have some sort of proxy ownership of these multi-million pound businesses. My perception is that most of the money pouring into the premiership clubs comes from television rights and the vast majority of viewers of any one game is essentially neutral. In the last 7 days I've watched 6 full matches, enjoyed most of them and not been that fussed who won any of them. This is an entertainment medium.

I'm impressed with the style and level of protest taken at Man U. They still get behind the team and yet make a point.

I do expect the green and white scarves to be in the official club shop by this afternoon though.

... we seem to have several sorts of supporters, and it depends on when they started watching the team what their expectations are.

I started supporting them about 1976, as they were dropping down the divisions. As such I have no expectations whatsoever, except more misery.

There's a part of the crowd who only knew Town when we were in the second division (using a small 's') and we looked like we were going to go up to the first division, till it all ended badly and we plummeted again. Still, the fans who started to watch us then expect us to be up there again, and they boo when we lose, and they call for the Manager Out or Board out and they sulk that the Rugby League side and the Football team are closely related.

The faction who knew Huddersfield as the 3-Successive Championship winners back in the 1920s are thin on the ground. It seems, for them, that past success, which was beyond anything anyone had done back then, is a little treasure they keep close to their heart, and even though we've gone through some bad times, they still *know* we're a great team who have done miraculous things.

So I guess this is the same with any club who have had some success. If the fans have dined at the top table, they expect to be up there again. I hesitate to suggest this is emblematic of the modern world, that kids throw wobblers when they don't get their way. Maybe that's too big an extrapolation to make.

In my opinion, over the last few years, sensible governance of HTFC and it's attendant business has meant we have a solid base to grow on, not for meteoric success, but for slowly building a better side and climbing the divisions. We will have glitches along the way, and my big dread is that the vocal contingent who boo when things don't go right force dramatic changes when it's not needed.

A final note about Town - a while back I looked up our attendances over the years. If you factor out the away support, our average attendance if we're toward the top of the table is about 16000 and the average at the bottom is about 9000, regardless of what division we're in.

Your club is either a business, in which case you do what it takes to make money and spend it on top players to chase trophies to make more money, or.... it's not.

Manchester United are obviously an example of the first model, and have been since long before their recent glazerisation. It's often forgotten that it was only because of the share-inflating shenanigans of a condemned-meat wholesaler (nicknamed "Champagne Louis" 40-odd years before Keano's "prawn sandwiches" sneer) that they could afford to bring Denis Law back from Italy to give them the leg-up they needed to rise from the ashes of Munich. In other words, the underlying idea of the green and gold campaign - Manchester United should return to its roots and represent the people of Manchester - has been more an ideal than an attainable goal for a very long time now.

Athletic Bilbao are an example of the second model. They only field players from their ground's area of influence: the Basque Country - an area the size of Lincolnshire. As a result, their trophy room looks like a Soviet supermarket and they don't sell a fat lot of shirts. But they do remarkably well in the circumstances. They've never been relegated, they have the most loyal support in La Liga, and they do occasionally make it to the odd final (as they did last year - that they should then get trounced is neither here nor there; they get their big day out which is what counts). The upshot is that while they may not be huge in Hong Kong, nobody can claim they're anything other than Bilbao's football club.

And those are the choices. To opt for one you have to forgo the other.

...then they could start by not putting forty quid each in the Glazers' pockets every other Saturday.

The Glazers clearly know the fans don't love them, and just as clearly don't give a stuff - so long as the fans keep buying the tickets and the merchandise.

that will continue to be run by businessmen for a long time yet. And business has 1 simple requirement: make money for the owners. There's something a bit odd about Man U fans complaining because the club's owners are making money while they're still seeing some of the best players in the world play some great football in front of them. (If they wanted some money spent on that cruddy pitch, I'd be a bit more sympathetic mind.)

we're run as a one member one vote club voting on issues such as ticket prices, merchandise etc

the green and gold scarves are admirable and hopefully the glazers will sit up and take notice as they are not wanted now that the clouds really have disapeared and their shoddy business dealings are revealed

hopefully supporters at other clubs whose owners are questionable such as portsmouth and dare i say it liverpool will do the same and rid these parasites