If you are a fan of theRangers – and were a fan of Rangers too – then the fuzzy logic of an Edinburgh University International Commercial Law lecturer’s recent article is right up your street. And if you are willing mainstream media lacky for the continuity myth, you may well view the workings that reach the conclusion as somewhat dubious, but you’ll publish it anyway, as the Daily Record has today –

Dr Jonathan Hardman’s “Looking Beyond Separate Legal Personality, or How Many Titles have Rangers Won?” believes as long as you are willing to accept conflicting legal concepts should be put to one side – yes really – then “the way to start remedying this is to state clearly that Rangers Football Club has 55 titles” and “the legal entities involved” are in some way “irrelevant”.

And the Daily Record describes this essay as a ‘verdict’, you know the kind a judge or jury might reach in a court of law after considering all the evidence but by both sides. The Scottish legal system is adversarial based, two sets of lawyers are engaged to argue the toss on behalf of their client. One legal argument will win, the other legal professional will lose. Not incidentally to the detriment of the lawyer in question. Let’s say Donald Findlay QC is defending you on a murder charge – that at least tells you that someone died – and didn’t Alistair Johnston not say Craig Whyte should be charged with the ‘murder of an institution’?

Craig Whyte cleared of fraud – Rangers board member Alastair Johnston accuses Mr Whyte of the ‘murder’ of an institution. More on #RepScot pic.twitter.com/LnEDdthzMx

— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) June 6, 2017

Well if Findlay fails to convince the court of his clients innocence it doesn’t mean he is diminished any way professionally. You win some and you lose some and you can only go with the hand that you have been dealt.

And of course Donald Findlay has had his say on this matter.

Remember, Remember…“You cannot pass on that which is undefinable, this is a new Rangers,” Donald Findlay QC

On this day, 1 November, back in 2014 former Rangers vice chairman Donald Findlay broke ranks with the Ibrox myth-makers in an interview in the Scottish Daily Mail in which he stated that the post liquidation Rangers are a ‘new entity’ which must establish ‘its own history and tradition’.

It’s always worth reminding people of the truth and 1 November is a good day to do that, thanks to the frank and honest assessment provided by the Queen’s Counsel.

Findlay told them the truth. Here’s what he had to say:

“It is a different club. They may play at Ibrox and they may play sometimes in royal blue jerseys. But you cannot pass on that which is undefinable. And that is spirit and tradition and all the rest of it.

“To me this is a new Rangers which has to establish its own history and tradition. But it’s not the Rangers I know. To me, genuinely, it is a new entity.”

Findlay also believed he is not the only supporter of the now liquidated football club to hold these views, but most prefer to remain silent.

“The view I have is one expressed to me by a lot of other Rangers supporters” declared Findlay. “You can buy assets,” he conceded, “but you can’t buy history. You can’t buy tradition. History and tradition are in the heart and in the mind. You can’t buy that.”

Charles Green was able to buy the assets of the doomed club in June 2012 after the creditors voted down the CVA proposed by the administrators Duff & Phelps, who were selected by Craig Whyte and appointed by the Court of Session on 14 February 2012 as Rangers slipped into administration.

Findlay, is Chairman of Cowdenbeath FC, his first role in football since being exposed singing sectarian songs while vice Chairman at Rangers (1872) and having to resign. Findlay gave the interview a few days ahead of Rangers’ (2012) visit to Cowdenbeath’s Central Park on lower division league duties.

In an earlier league fixture the programme editor at Livingston FC was forced to resign amid threats of future boycotts by the traveling support and online abuse on social media site directed at the West Lothian club and indeed the editor.

In an attempt to take the heat out if the situation the Livingston chairman issued an apology for any offence taken by the Rangers (2012) supporters but did NOT retract the factual basis of the programme feature, that the Rangers Livingston lost to that day was a new club.

In previous seasons in their short history, while further down the Scottish leagues, supporters of the new club bullied other clubs, such as Montrose, who dared to tell it like it is by calling Rangers a new club.

Supporters of all other teams in Scotland are all aware of the facts regarding the demise of the football club whose name – Rangers Football Club Ltd – is displayed on those infamous gates at Ibrox.

Ask yourself this question, when they were erecting these gates, did they decide use the name of the club or the holding company on the gates, if they were separate things? Surely they would have just used the club’s name? Or maybe they used Rangers Football Club Ltd because that was the club after all!

Of course visiting supporters to Ibrox pre-lockdown reminded their hosts of the uncomfortable truth by singing “You’re not Rangers anymore”. On days like this the truth really does hurt down Govan way.

Despite Rangers knowing that everyone else knows their status as a new club, a narrative emerged where the word liquidation is never used. Instead the club “emerged from administration” and was “demoted” to the bottom tier due to the behaviour of one man – Craig Whyte. It wasn’t their fault – they are victims and everyone else in Scottish football – including notably Celtic, Dundee United and Raith Rovers – kicked them when they were down. And they wanted payback – something old co failed to achieve towards hundreds of creditors from the face-painter to HMRC.

The role of the SFA needs to be mentioned. Supporters of other clubs point to Campbell Ogilvie, the “heavily compromised “President of the SFA remaining in post throughout this Rangers collapse despite being up to his neck in the muck of the Rangers’ demise. These supporters believe, with good reason, that everything and anything the SFA could do to assist Rangers – was done. It was only an online rebellion by season ticket holders of other Scottish clubs that prevented a new Rangers being parachuted into the second rather than the fourth tier back in the summer of 2012.

Despite all of this the Rangers supporters believe that they have actually been harshly treated by the SFA!

The national BBC News on the same day that Findlay’s interview appeared in the Daily Mail, broadcast the demotion/ same club myth to the UK on the evening news while reporting on that day’s League Cup Semi Final draw which set up the first ever meeting between Celtic and the new Rangers at Hampden the following February (Celtic won 2-0).

Many Celtic supporters have questioned our own club and back in November 2014, pointed out of that if an ex- Rangers (1872) vice chairman can make such a statement then Celtic should have come out and state the facts, as Celtic FC believed them to be, regarding the Continuity Myth.

A joke by Celtic Chief Executive Peter Lawwell tagging the new club as Rory Bremner FC was seen as being entirely insufficient to these Celtic supporters who believe that the club should have done the following:

1. Stated clearly that Celtic regard Rangers (2012) as a new entity, with no claim on the history of the liquidated club.

2. Stated that as such there is no track record between Celtic and this new club which was founded in the summer of 2012 by Charles Green.

3. Stated that Celtic regard the term ‘Old Firm’, the joint descriptive term for Celtic and the liquidated club, as having died with Rangers FC upon their liquidation.

4. Stated for the avoidance of doubt that ‘Rangers’ were never demoted. Instead the current club were given preferential treatment in being allowed a place in the fourth tier to fill the gap created by the demise of Rangers through liquidation.

Scottish football will never be allowed to move forward while this same club/ demoted unfairly Continuity Myth remains – Montrose, Livingston, Cowdenbeath and other smaller clubs were brave enough to stand up and tell the truth. It’s just a pity that Celtic didn’t do the same.

Eight years on from Donald Findlay’s frank interview in the Daily Mail, Scottish football has unleashed a monster of their own creation on the game. And it’s probably too late now to do anything about it.

So this was no verdict from the Jonny Hardman, as he is more commonly known. It’s a partisan argument that could be put forward in a court if the case involved determining whether these titles should belong to theRangers. And of course the other side of the argument would get it’s chance to present their own case. Not something that the Daily Record offer. Instead they went straight to the verdict, a sort of kangaroo court to bring in a topical Australian reference.

It’s the kind of cake and eat it approach the Ibrox club always look to embrace and one the mainstream media are more than happy to try and authenticate, well aware that despite the best efforts of club and scribes, the continuity myth still appears only to be accepted by theRangers, their support and amongst those who rely on the scraps from their table to fill their column inches – and the odd University lecturer.

The Celtic Star presented a very helpful Continuity Myth Busting Kit to our readers earlier this week and it is highly recommended.

Here’s some of what Jonny Hardman writes –

“OldCo and NewCo each have separate legal personalities.

“Someone at Ibrox on the day of the transfer, though, would not have been able to tell the difference between the transfer of assets and the transfer of shares from OldCo’s previous owners to new owners.

“So how many titles have Rangers won? Well, it depends.

“If we focus on separate legal personality, The Rangers Football Club Ltd (NewCo) has won one title, The Rangers Football Club Plc (OldCo) won 53 titles, and the unincorporated association of Rangers Football Club won one.”

“the way to start remedying this is to state clearly that Rangers Football Club has 55 titles”

“the legal entities involved” (are) “irrelevant”

Speaking to the Daily Record Jonny Hardman explains further…

“Rangers Football Club transferred from one company to another. “Each company is treated by law as a separate legal person, and so, technically, the new Rangers company has only won one title. “But I argue that this test is unsatisfactory.”

“Instead, I argue that the social reality of Rangers Football Club continued, and this continuity should be the test we use to decide how many titles Rangers has won.”

“Incidentally, Celtic undertook a corporate reorganisation in 2002. “So if we used such a narrow technical legal reading, Celtic has won 14 titles rather than 51.”

“This reorganisation was within the same corporate group, rather than to a totally new ownership structure, but shows the danger of relying too closely on this technically narrow test.”

You can actually smell the propaganda from this article, and its premise that as long as you ignore everything else bar the ‘social reality’ then Rangers Football Club exists and is ongoing.

So, the culture, the songs and the supporters are the club and remain – and as such and therefore so does the history? Convenient then to claim the titles and the apparent unbroken history, but ignore the liquidation, the astronomical debts that went unpaid and the shareholders sold down the river. Never mind fuzzy logic, that’s the logic of the entitled and brazen right there, alongside a convenient rewriting of history which we are all being fed on a regular basis. And whether it comes from the Record sports desk staffer or a lecturer with an expensive collection of brown brogues, it’s all built on sand.

Clubs are not based on ‘social reality’. Yes, the terraces, the stands and the songs and the culture that come from both over the years create a support around a club, but they don’t bear responsibility for the players, the wages, the national insurance and tax contributions, the shareholders dividends or indeed the day-to-day administration of a football club. ‘Social Reality’ is not responsible for creating a club, meeting the requirements of the governing body, registering players, managers, staff,. Nor is it responsible for the buying and selling of players and ensuring you live withing your means – no giggling at the back please.

If you lean entirely on a ‘social reality’ as the description of a football club, then what do you have? 50,000 turning up standing in a big circle and singing songs in support of nothing at all – no registered players, no stadium – because apparently the rest of it – the legal part – doesn’t exist.

I do get the desperation, I really do. Trying hard to convince yourself you didn’t get liquidated is hard enough, but trying to get others to accept 55 titles or 150 years of history as a way of authenticating your chosen view of history is a nigh on impossible task – particularly when we witnessed the demise and continue to pass down the story.

What we are seeing from the Daily Record, and this approach to reporting Pravda would be proud of, is a denying of a death, despite the fact they themselves reported on the funeral.

That is difficult to backtrack on, simply because it’s ludicrous. As ludicrous as the idea of a ‘social reality’ that overrides legal entities, as long as you choose to consider them ‘irrelevant’. What a convenient and embarrassing way to attempt to reach a conclusion of continuation and it is one where the workings simply don’t add up.

Niall J