THEY might have just about finished the Copland Road stand at last.
But you get the feeling Rangers better not let the workies clock off just yet.
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Because any time now, the roof could fall in on their boardroom.
John Bennett felt like the last buttress holding the creaking Ibrox infrastructure together. His £23million investment in 2015 had helped free them from Mike Ashley’s grip, he’d taken over as chairman a year back in April when Douglas Park had had enough, he’d been stand-in chief executive since James Bisgrove nipped off to Saudi in May.
Let’s be honest. At 61, he was spinning more plates than a circus conjurer. He was doing just about every job bar managing the team and pulling on a pair of boots.
Then, at 1pm on Saturday, came the news that he was quitting because of ill health.
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And suddenly you wondered who was left in there to stop those plates crashing to the floor. Because if that happens a second time in their history, the result could be catastrophic.
So far, there’s no more news on what those health problems were that forced Bennett to step away from it all.
But there can be little doubt that the level of stress he’s been put under, the immense pressure he’s chosen to take on his shoulders, must have played a huge role in wearing the man out.
Were he a £1m-a-year executive who’d been headhunted but hadn’t done the business, you might be tempted to take the cynical view that stress and pressure come with the territory and the salary and that if he couldn’t hack it, tough cheese.
He wasn’t though. He was a lifelong fan who made good and who chose to give his club a huge lump of his personal fortune at a time of serious need.
You’d think that level of support, of love, of commitment, might buy a certain level of respect, of clout, of leeway.
Yet all it seemed to bring Bennett was grief and abuse and pain, a cocktail of negativity that all the riches in the world can’t insulate any of us from.
For me, what’s happened to him sums up everything that’s wrong with Rangers, a club whose traumatic journey to the domestic game’s depths offered a golden opportunity to come back with a new, brighter, more forward-looking attitude.
But who somehow have re-emerged just as confused as they were before, just as insular, just as short-sighted and every bit as incapable of controlling their finances.
Many times on big occasions these past few seasons, they have been accused of being rudderless on the pitch.
But if so, the team’s no different from the board, because Bennett’s departure not only leaves a leadership vacuum, it makes them vulnerable to guys like Dave King making even more waves at a time when what they really need is to put their foot on the ball and calm down.
King says he’s willing to come back and work for nothing if it helps, bless his heart. He says he’d be happy to talk to potential sugardaddys from the States and Saudi.
Oh, and while he’s mentioning Saudi, did he mention he’s still pals with Steven Gerrard?
And so the soap opera rolls on, the storylines and the characters continually recycling.
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This is why, in this column a few weeks back, I warned Jim Gillespie — the St Mirren vice-chairman who Rangers wanted as their new chief executive –— to think carefully before allowing his heart to rule his head.
I wrote that if he’d been doing due diligence on any other company with the problems that affect Rangers, he’d probably have run a mile.
In the end, that’s what he appears to have done, even if his reasons for saying thanks but no thanks still haven’t been made clear.
Though if he was aware of Bennett’s health issues, I’d be hugely surprised if they didn’t play a part in his decision.
Me? Well, for what it’s worth, I think Rangers need a chief exec without one shred of emotional pull to the club, because look at their board — it’s full of ‘Rangers Men’ whose hearts are constantly ruling their heads when it comes to what’s best for the club.
What they ideally need is someone who understands football, but who most of all has a level-headed, ruthless business brain.
Someone who won’t be swayed by history or heritage or Wur Culture or any of the other stuff that holds Rangers back, but who steams in asking difficult questions, demanding positive answers and making the toughest of decisions.
Because if not?
If they keep going the way they’re going?
Well, they’ve all been extras in that movie before . . .
TEN years ago this weekend, Rodger Baillie spent his Saturday teatime hanging around to ask Jason Cummings about a last-minute winning goal against Cowdenbeath.
So what? Who cares?
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Well, Rodger did. And that’s what made him special.
He was 74 years young at the time. He’d forgotten more about story-getting, interviewing and deadlines than most of us will ever know.
He didn’t have to be wrapping up against the cold in draughty grounds, he could have been at home with his feet up watching the scores come in.
But he did it because he loved it. He did it because he wanted to stay involved in a game that had been his life.
Most of all, he did it because he had that rarest of qualities: Genuine humility.
I’ve known guys in this game who’d run crying to Human Resources if their gaffer dared suggest they might cover a match that didn’t involve Celtic or Rangers, who convince themselves that’s what their place in the world is. Well, Rodger Baillie had been there when Celtic won in Lisbon, when Rangers won in Barcelona, when Scotland at the World Cup was a given.
The night Jock Stein died, he was the one reporter allowed through the police cordon, as he was the only one with a number for the big man’s daughter.
If any sportswriter ever had the right to turn his nose up at jobs he saw as demeaning, Rodger was that man. But he didn’t.
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Way past retirement age, half a century after being in the dressing room the night the Lions conquered Europe, he’d get a weekly call asking if he fancied Firhill or Cappielow or Somerset Park. He always said yes without a pause.
Amidst the myriad of things there were to admire about him, this was a side of Rodger that I loved. Just another of so many reasons to be thankful for his life as he’s laid to rest today.
Your heart goes out to his wife Rosemary, to three children in Louise, Andrew and Michael who all grew up to follow dad into national papers, to his grandchildren, who’ll be joined today by so many colleagues and friends whose lives were touched by this dapper, polite, dry-witted star of our trade.
This office lost a legend when he passed away. Our industry lost one of the very last of a golden era. Scottish football lost someone who chronicled its history across an incredible SEVEN decades.
Rodger Baillie’s were footsteps no one will walk in again.
TO score 250 goals in a career is pretty special.
To do it while holding down a day job?
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We’re talking little short of miraculous.
Rory McAllister’s done it, though. He’s become only the third man to hit that magic mark in Scottish senior football since the end of the Second World War — and he’s done it as a part-timer who combines training and playing with his day job as a plumber.
That’s a hell of an achievement. And as he proved on Saturday, at 37 he has no intention of hanging up the boots yet.
Four minutes from time at home to Stirling Albion, the Aberdonian nicked the winner that maintained Peterhead’s 100 per cent League Two start and took him one closer to catching Ally McCoist as our deadliest post-war marksman.
McAllister’s now just 31 short of the Rangers legend, who sent him a classy video congratulting him on his milestone and suggesting (maybe only half-jokingly) that he starts taking it a wee bit easier.
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Some chance. The man whose exploits have taken him from Caley Thistle to Montrose, Cove, Brechin and three amazing stints for The Blue Toon is already working out the numbers.
He’s aiming for at least 15 this season, so he goes into his testimonial year with Coisty properly in his sights. And as defenders all over the land will confirm, Rory McAllister rarely misses the target.
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