Rangers Q&A: Club 1872 answer key questions on Dave King, Ibrox boardroom seat, fan relations and governance

Their ‘legacy membership’ scheme has been launched with the intention of raising £13million to buy out Dave King’s 20.37 per cent stake in RIFC plc. Crucially, it would take Club 1872 above the 25 per cent threshold, giving fans influence in the here and now a chance to protect their club for generations to come.

Director Laura Fawkes joined King on the Four Lads Had a Dream Podcast to discuss the deal and the ramifications for Rangers with Chris Jack and Steven Clifford.

Here is the full Q&A with Club 1872 as King provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to his fellow fans.

CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT THE ‘NEVER AGAIN’ CAMPAIGN IS AND WHAT IT MEANS?

LF: We are calling it the legacy campaign and one of the phrases that Dave coined in relation to it was ‘never again’. Those two things are symbolic and it means that we don’t want to go back and see a repeat of where we have been over the last few years as a club and a support.

We don’t want the club to fall into the wrong hands, we want to put that protection in place. We are mindful, we remember where we have been and we don’t want to see our children and grandchildren experience what we did as Rangers fans and that is where the legacy part comes in. What we are asking people to do is make a £500 donation to Club 1872 and that can be made up front in one go or over a period of time and there are various options laid out on the website.

In total, people will have donated £500 and they become a legacy member. What that allows us to do is purchase Dave King’s entire shareholding and become the single largest shareholder in Rangers. It is through that shareholding that we get the protection that I just mentioned there.

I was thinking about this podcast the other day and thinking about what could come up and explaining a bit about the legacy campaign. And I was remembering the day after the last game around the time we went into administration. The next day, a cousin of mine had a birthday party for his wee boy and I remember going and chit chat and ‘did you go to the game yesterday? How are you feeling about things?’ and I remember us saying to each other ‘this could be it’.

Those were really scary times for Rangers fans and it was uneasy. I remember that and I think we all need to remember that. We have spoken to supporters about this before and asked if they had a time machine and could go back to prior the club being sold to Craig Whyte, and everything that happened thereafter, and you could have put £10 per month into a vehicle that would give you the protection that Club 1872 can give you, would you have done it?

I think for most of us the answer is yes. At this moment in time, we have a great board in place, we trust the board and the club is going in a great direction. But there are no guarantees and what this shareholding would bring us is a degree of control over the club so that we can prevent the events of 2012 ever happening again.

WHAT HAPPENS IF CLUB 1872 FAIL TO RAISE THE MONEY TO BUY THE SHARES? DO YOU HAVE A CONTINGENCY THAT WOULD ALLOW FOR THAT?

LF: I think it is important to clarify, and we have put this information out publicly, it is on the website and we have been sharing this information on social media. For the benefit of anyone that has missed this, we will be buying the shares in tranches and that is part of the agreement that we have put in place.

We are not going to be in a position where we are stockpiling all this money, fail to meet the required target and then find ourselves with millions of pounds in the bank and wondering what to do with it.

We will be buying Dave’s shares as the three year period progresses and we can buy as many shares as the campaign is successful. The more people who sign up, the more shares we can buy over the time period.

I think it is important to remind people that the core purpose of the Club 1872 shares company is to purchase shares in Rangers Football Club. There may be a period where it looks like we haven’t met the target and we have some funds accumulated at that point but the purpose is always to buy shares.

It is great that Dave is going to be flexible with us and the time period, although we are really pushing for people to do this as quickly as possible so that we can take advantage of the agreement that we have put in place whereby, for example, if we can buy all the shares in the first year we will get them at a reduced rate.

Club 1872’s core function to buy shares in Rangers will exist beyond the period of this deal and will always be the priority for the shares company.

The contingency plan, as I said, is to carry on with the organisation’s core function. We would seek to purchase shares on an ongoing basis and we would have to renegotiate with Dave at that point.

We would speak to Dave about what timescale he is looking at in terms of his flexibility. Beyond that, we would do what we have done previously.

We spent £1million on Mike Ashley’s shares in 2017 and opportunities to buy shares outwith share issues have been few and far between. When they come up, we have certainly taken them and that was an important purchase for us because it helped rid the club of a very toxic influence. Over a period of 14 months, we took part in share issues and invested £1.4million into Rangers.

Mike Ashley

That is something that Club 1872 has been doing before we even had these initial conversations that Dave mentioned. That is the core function of the organisation and there will be a point in the future where we have to see where we are and take stock and have further discussions with Dave.

If we reach a point where the opportunity to buy Dave’s shareholding no longer exists for us, we will go back to doing what we have always done and that is look for opportunities to buy shares. It is a core function of the organisation and therefore it is always going to be our priority as a board.

On the point of what happens if this doesn’t work. There will be people that are naturally sceptical about this given where we have been as a club and a support, but it is totally doable.

I think as football fans, and I am not talking about Rangers fans but across the UK, we have this collective mindset that there will be this sugar daddy that will come along and fund our club.

When I’m talking about Club 1872 and how it works, I always say to them ‘do you have £13million to buy out Dave King’s shareholding?’ And the answer with everyone that I know would be ‘no, of course I don’t’.

But if you ask them ‘do you have £10 a month that you could spare to put towards this over a period of three years?’ then the answer for most is yes. We are understanding of the situation that people find themselves in. We are in the middle of a pandemic and people’s jobs have been affected. We know that they give so much already to the club.

But what we are asking is if they can afford a little bit more, and if they can afford that £10 a month, and tens of thousands of other Rangers supporters say yes, then collectively it is absolutely doable to raise the funds required to raise Dave’s shareholding. We are confident about this.

The Rangers support have stepped up in dark times. Things are doing well just now, the support are behind the club and the team and we came out in our numbers again and bought season tickets. This is totally doable and it is a scale thing.

This only works if more people get involved. What I often hear from people that I speak to, and I see this on social media as well, is people saying that they will sit back and see how we do, sit back and see if this becomes successful and then join. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way Club 1872 works, because it can only work if tens of thousands of Rangers fans get behind it.

We have a core group of about 7,000 members who have been with Club 1872 either since it started or with previous fans groups and they have stepped up in recent years. Those are small shoulders carrying a huge responsibility, and what we want to do is say ‘come and join us and add your shoulders into the mix to take a collective responsibility for this’.

This is not what can Club 1872 achieve, this is what we as a support can achieve because Club 1872 is a member-led organisation. Members take all the key decisions, there are no directors of Club 1872 that have more power than any member of Club 1872 and I think the important thing to stress is that we are all as responsible as each other for Club 1872 working or not.

That is what I say to people. We believe this can work and what we are asking is to donate £500 over a period of time and take collective responsibility for this.

CAN YOU ADDRESS WHAT HAPPENS IF THERE IS ANOTHER SHARE ISSUE AND DAVE’S HOLDING IS DILUTED? COULD THAT AFFECT THE MONEY NEEDED TO BEYOND £13MILLION?

LF: One of the things I see on social media is people saying ‘I would rather see that £13million go into the club’. I think there is a misunderstanding here and a bit of confusion.

This is not a straight choice between shall we put £13million into the club or shall we buy Dave’s shares for £13million? The way the club has been funded over the last few years has been extraordinary.

There were share issues and we did have the option to take part in those share issues. Those share issues were planned because the club needed the money and the board, under Dave’s chairmanship, were very clear with supporters over that period that they were running at a deficit while building a team that would become competitive.

That plan was not an indefinite plan, it is not the way we expected and it is not the way we continue to expect things to work at Rangers. There may be share issues over the next few years at Rangers, but what we expect and what we have been told at previous AGMs and in all our discussions with the club, is that it is now approaching that period of self-sufficiency where that funding model that we have had in place for the last few years won’t be necessary anymore.

One of things that we felt was important, we have seen the accounts and we know there is a funding gap, was that Club 1872 would be able to step up and financially support the club by buying shares if that was required. An agreement was reached with the Rangers board that should it require funding that we would be allowed to participate, if Resolution 8 passes at the upcoming AGM.

That is something that we will always be keen to look at and discuss with the board. We never want to be in a position where the club is struggling financially, meanwhile we are giving money to Dave King. I know Dave wouldn’t want that to be the position either.

At this moment in time, what we know for sure is that we have the opportunity to buy 66million shares from Dave King. What we don’t know is whether there will be share issues that allow us to invest directly in the club.

I think that we have to be realistic, but also flexible. We are committed to the legacy campaign that we have launched, but we also have to be flexible, maintain communication with the board and keep an eye what is happening at the club and the financial plans. We will keep those options open as to whether or not we will be required to invest further.

It is not something that we would expect the club to require. It is great to know that Dave has made that offer that if the club allow us to participate at that level that he would be comfortable with that.

But we are looking at a period of self-sufficiency and there are other ways for the club to fund the gap. We would be looking at player trading, increased commercial income and I know you, Stevie (Clifford, 4Lads co-host), have written blogs about the deal with Castore and how that is going to radically change the club’s financial position.

That was a good deal that was struck and we expect commercial income to increase as a result of that. Income from European competition, for example. These are ways that a healthy, normal business would plug any gap that exists.

It has always been the plan, as I understand it, that the club would move to that position where that income was funding any gap that would exist and we have had no indication from the board that that has changed.

Rangers' kits are supplied by Castore

There might have been some impact from Covid, we don’t know the details of that yet, but we do know that there are other means available to the Rangers board to plug the gap. We wouldn’t expect a healthy, normally functioning business to be relying on its customers, which in some ways is what supporters are, to continually plug that gap.

FANS ALWAYS WANT THEIR CLUB TO HAVE A BENEFACTOR THAT PUTS MONEY IN YEAR AFTER YEAR. COULD THAT BE THE FANS AND THE SUPPORTERS COULD BE THAT FIGURE?

LF: We had that for a long time and it worked and we were successful under David Murray. We were winning titles and things were looking great, up until it didn’t. That is the risk that always exists unless we, as a fan base, step up and take responsibility for the club and the protection for the club.

There is that risk that it just won’t work at some point in the future. In terms of an income stream for the club, the Club 1872 model as it exists allows for it to create and maintain additional revenue streams for the club.

We don’t expect that to be required, we don’t expect the club to require that funding through share issues. But Club 1872 Shares and Projects CICs, the way they are structured means that the funds that are ring-fenced.

So any money that is donated for shares can only be spent on shares in RIFC. Club 1872 is independently regulated and highly regulated and we have had a high level of interaction with the CIC Regulator.

There is an asset lock in place so that legally we cannot sell those shares and we have a Projects aspect of Club 1872 as well and funds that are donated there can only be spent on projects for the benefit of the Rangers community.

Going forward, once we have completed this deal with Dave, if we require funds to maintain our shareholding or the membership decides it wants to increase the shareholding then we will have that revenue stream. We will have people donating on a monthly basis and tens of thousands of Rangers fans donating on a monthly basis can be a hefty revenue stream for the club.

If the membership decides they want to increase the shareholding or maintain it, we will have the funds to do that. But we will also have significant funds available to spend on projects for the benefit of the Rangers community.

One of the things we have mentioned is that the 150th anniversary is coming up and there are huge opportunities for us to make a symbolic gesture and create an additional revenue stream that can be spent benefitting the Rangers community and the club.

YOU HOPE THAT CLUB 1872 WOULD GET A BOARDROOM SEAT? WHAT WOULD THAT LOOK LIKE AND WHAT SAY CAN THE FANS HAVE GOING FORWARD?

LF: From our point of view, I would encourage anyone who is curious or who has questions about Club 1872 and how it works to check out the website and we have a FAQ section.

There are two that I think are relevant to this part of our discussion and one is ‘will Club 1872 be involved in the day-to-day running of the football club?’ There are people who think that is what fan ownership means and that is absolutely not the case. We go into that on the website.

The other questions is ‘how will it work if we have a seat on the board?’ It is a stated aim and we polled members in 2017 or 2018 about whether we should have a seat on the board and we almost immediately opened discussions with Dave at that point.

Those discussions were positive over a period of time and it has always been something that we feel we are working towards. We wouldn’t be putting forward anyone that sits on the Club 1872 board, just for the reasons that Dave has mentioned.

I think it is important that we are clear about that and we would be looking for suitable candidates, someone who has the experience, the confidence, the gravitas, the knowledge, the skills, that would be appropriate to sit on the RIFC board.

There are no current directors, I know I can speak for myself and the other directors, that at this stage are remotely interested in sitting on the RIFC board. We are very much a working board at Club 1872, we are hands on and involved in the day to day running of Club 1872. That is where we feel comfortable, where we feel our skillset lies.

We would be looking at an appropriate candidate to sit on the board and it wouldn’t be someone that sits on the board of Club 1872 because that just wouldn’t work. It would be a process that we would look at very carefully.

On a more general point, it is important to remind people that all key decisions are taken by Club 1872 members. So while the board will hold private discussions with suitable candidates, any major decisions about how it would work would be subject to a member vote.

IS CLUB 1872 EQUIPPED TO HANDLE A SHAREHOLDING OF 25 PER CENT AND SET UP TO HAVE THE KIND OF INFLUENCE THAT YOU HOPE FOR? WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN TO BE IN THE POSITION TO MAKE THE MOST OF THIS OPPORTUNITY, SHOULD IT ARRIVE?

LF: I am very confident that the structure and governance side of Club 1872 is taken care of. We have a robust set of Articles of Association that were drafted in collaboration with the membership during a consultation period and we worked very closely with the independent regulator of Community Interest Companies to create a constitution that was fit for purpose and that represents best what Club 1872 to trying to do and enshrines members’ rights.

On the governance side of things, I think Club 1872 is in very good shape and I know we have had very in-depth conversations with Dave and he is aware of how that works and the process that we have been though.

Dave was very humble when he talking about his legacy and how he will be remembered. I don’t want to embarrass you, Dave, but I know that you are a person that the Rangers support trusts so to have that endorsement from you is really nice.

We also did all of that in conjunction with the CIC Regulator so it is a highly regulated entity which has a robust constitution in place and we are well placed to take on this challenge and manage the shareholding.

Operationally, that is another matter. It should be fairly obvious and it is something that the board are aware of, that operationally we need to ramp things up. At the moment, we have one member of staff at Club 1872, one person who is paid for their involvement and that is the admin assistant that deals with account queries.

While I am speaking I am going to give a shout out to that person, Lil. She has been an absolute trooper in the last few days. The level of interest we have had has been phenomenal and that is not just from people signing up, that is people emailing us or contacting us on social media and asking general or specific questions about how this works and how they can get involved.

Every morning I wake up and there are emails or messages from Lil sent at one or two in the morning because she is putting in some shift helping us work our way through the backlog of emails from people that are keen to get involved. That is the only person that is paid to be involved at Club 1872. We obviously pay accountancy fees and things and all our accounts are filed by a chartered accountancy firm.

There is a fee attached to the mass emails system that we use so there are costs attached to that. As the membership increases, there is no doubt that we will have to beef things up and strengthen the organisation. We will have to look at increased costs for marketing, advertising, executive support.

If you compare Club 1872 to similar organisations, like the Rangers Charity Foundation or RYDC, those are organisations that have at the helm a chief executive that oversees several members of staff to process their admin and deal with queries. They pay for advertising, as any business or organisation would, and that is something we will have to look at for Club 1872.

It is something we are looking at currently. The bottom line of this is that we don’t have the funds in place just now, we have a very limited admin budget and we have been very careful over the last few years to minimise those admin costs.

If we want this to work we are going to have to invest in and increase our spending and we will be in a much better position to do that as the membership grows. The more money we have coming in, the more we can use to operationally support and promote the organisation and that is something we are looking at doing.

NOW THAT THAT THE SPORTS DIRECT PERIOD IS BEHIND RANGERS, HOW BIG A HELP CAN IT BE TO MAKING THE CLUB GROW GOING FORWARD?

LF: From a supporter point of view, I will never forget when we closed that deal to purchase Mike Ashley’s shares. It was just Joanne and I who were involved in those discussions and we knew what a significant marker in Club 1872’s history that was going to be and what it meant for the club.

We were in contact, it is our colleague on the board, Euan McFarlane that deals with them, with fans groups at Newcastle and they had told us repeatedly that they would give anything to be in the position that Club 1872 were in that they could participate in removing that toxic influence from their club. That was a huge moment for Club 1872 and that point we became the second largest shareholder. That is an indication of what Club 1872 can achieve.

Supporters backed the club in purchasing retail and kit and that has been emotional. I bought a strip for my son and we want to wear the kit because we have that emotional connection to the club and we are proud to wear it.

It was more than that, there was a real sense of pride that we were able to buy kit again over the summer, a feeling of a real marker in the club’s history that we had moved beyond that toxic period.

I think Dave is right, you can’t underplay the importance of that. We have had lots of dealings with James Bisgrove and almost always been very impressed by him.

I think he has done a great job at the club and that we are in a good position and that fans are right to get behind the retail part of the club and feel good about it.

A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE DUBIOUS ABOUT CLUB 1872. HOW DO YOU CHANGE THAT PERSPECTIVE?

LF: I think the first part of changing that perspective is to acknowledge that it is completely understandable that people are dubious about Club 1872. Given where we have been as a support, I think we are naturally cautious about pretty much anything to do with our club.

So it is important for us that we understand that and that we are committed to engaging with people, to talking to them and answering their questions. It is also really important to talk about how we answer people’s questions and communication with the support is key.

I mentioned in our chat there with Dave that we do have a very limited admin budget so that means things like marketing and advertising haven’t been anywhere near what we would have wanted it to be.

We have done our best in terms of communication but there are always improvements to be made. What we can’t do is man social media 24/7 and answer the same questions all the time every day.

We can make a big effort to engage and if you look at our Twitter feed you will see that we have been answering general questions and we have worked really hard on the website to produce a really good set of FAQs that we will update as more questions come in and we get a better feel of the areas or aspects that people are unsure of.

We can do things like this pod, speak to you and other fan media, we have made efforts to engage with the mainstream media and those efforts will continue.

When I say that communication is important, it is not just about what we tell supporters, it is about us listening to supporters and also reminding people that most of the information that they require is out there.

If you are asking questions about governance, constitution, how Club 1872 is set up, that information is on Companies House and there is a link on our website. It is important for us to speak with the support. If you are a donating member, help us out.

If you see things on social media that you think doesn’t sound right, like someone saying Club 1872 don’t communicate with their members, you know that you receive regular emails from us and quarterly updates that are very detailed.

Feel free to share that, speak to your friends and family and develop a sense of collective responsibility. There is certainly a job to be done reaching bigger audiences and elements of the support we have never reached before.

Gers boss Steven Gerrard

We did have some roadshows in the past with RSCs and we were just getting going when the situation changed with Covid. If you know someone that is in an RSC or are an RSC secretary, please feel free to get in touch and we will be looking at roadshows and various events when we are able to do it.

We also have an office at Copland House and Club 1872 directors are always there before home games. That open door policy is there. Some of us go in during the week when we can, we are all volunteers and fit this around our jobs and family commitments.

That open invitation is there before matches and if people want to make appointments to see us and meet, you don’t need to wait until a members’ meeting. This is a board that is very open to reaching the membership.

We have had a really good initial response to this and we are hoping we will be able to look at advertising and marketing and professional support in that respect that we haven’t been able to rely on before.

PEOPLE ASK WHY THERE HAVE BEEN NO ELECTIONS RECENTLY?

LF: There have been elections recently. There was an election in February and myself and two other members were elected. There were three places available in February.

We have had elections recently. In line with our constitution, which we drafted in collaboration with the membership, there is no requirement for us to hold elections as soon as a board position becomes available.

We have to look at what we believe is the right time to hold elections. In recent months, and Dave touched on this, there was a lot of confidential work that went into getting the agreement in place where we were ready to present it to the support.

There was a lot of work done to prepare the website and the new subscription system and we were heavily focused on this campaign. There will be elections in the future and no Club 1872 director has ever been appointed without their being an election period.

Directors are required to submit an application, that is shared with the membership and they are given opportunities to question potential candidates.

It is a very open and transparent process and we have asked an independent adjudicator to come in and oversee the elections, and that is something that we will always do as it is written into the Club 1872 constitution. We will hold elections.

Most years that I have been on the board we have had several members meetings throughout the period of any given year. Under normal circumstances, you can meet the Club 1872 board any time you like if you pop in before a matchday.

In terms of more formal meetings, it is something we have done in the past, we haven’t been able to do it in recent months and it is something that we will pick up again as soon as we are able to do it.

WHY DIDN’T YOU GO TO YOUR MEMBERS TO ASK THEM REGARDING DAVE KING’S SHARES?

LF: It is the core function of the organisation, to buy shares. Anyone who has signed up to Club 1872 has already, in the act of signing up, agreed that they are in favour of us purchasing shares in RIFC.

It is the core function of the Club 1872 shares company so it is something that we never need to go to members about. We talk about members leading the organisation and taking key decisions.

That constitution was drawn up in close collaboration with the CIC Regulator and a decision was made that buying shares would not be a key decision because it is part of our core functions of the organisation.

A lot of share purchases we have made in the past and that we will continue to make, certainly with Dave, are confidential in nature and there are various reasons why we wouldn’t want to share that with the membership until the deal is in place and made sure that this is a viable thing to present to the membership. Buying shares is a key function, a core function, of the organisation so it is not something that we poll members on.

PEOPLE ACCUSE YOU OF TAKING A SALARY OUT OF CLUB 1872. ARE YOU PAID? WHO ELSE IS INVOLVED IN CLUB 1872 AND DO THEY TAKE A SALARY?

LF: The only person that takes a salary is Lil, the admin assistant. We have been very open and clear and transparent about that since Lil was appointed, which was before my time on the board.

Nobody else takes a salary from their involvement in Club 1872 and this was something that we wanted to give people assurances on when we were drafting the Articles. It is written into the constitution that directors will not receive any financial benefit from being involved with Club 1872. No director has even claimed expenses in relation to the work of Club 1872.

For myself, I am very involved in the admin and we do that from the office so I am back and forth. I have never claimed travel expenses. I am not involved for financial benefit.

Someone sent me a screenshot, it looked like from a Facebook page, and it talked about the admin budget and what that might be if we raise the funds to buy Dave’s shareholding. It said if we raise the required amount that Laura Fawkes, Joanne Percival and Euan McFarlane will each receive £200k.

Now, that would make for a cracking Christmas night out, no doubt about it. But it is just not true. Even if we wanted to, even if we had a board in place thinking ‘how can I benefit from this?’, we are prevented as per the constitution from benefitting financially from Club 1872.

We have covered that it is a member organisation so if you are asking ‘who has the power at Club 1872?’ then that would be the membership. All key decisions are taken by the Club 1872 membership.

There is a board in place – myself, Joanne and Euan – at the moment and the board’s role is to oversee the governance of it. We also have a really strong group of volunteers that sit on working groups and we have a number of working groups in place.

Anyone from the membership can volunteer from a working group. In fact, one of the things that has been really nice to see from the last few days is that people who have just signed up have also emailed in to say they are really excited and if there is anything more they can do? The answer is yes.

You can come and meet with the board, have a chat about how the organisation functions and if it is something you are interested in and you have the skills to bring to the table you can become involved in a working group. Club 1872 is effectively managed on a day-to-day basis by myself and the other directors, we are very much a working board, but we are assisted by working group members.

All of them are volunteers and none of them are paid for their involvement. That is not to say that at some point we might not have to professionalise the organisation and, in fact, we almost certainly will.

We will look at executive support, we will look at increasing our spend on accounting, for example, on advertising and marketing professionals. Those are all things that will be done while we communicate with the membership and they will be the first to know if we are making any changes in terms of how we operationally run Club 1872.

FANS SAY THEY ARE PART OF THE ‘RANGERS FAMILY’ BUT THERE ARE VARIOUS FACTIONS AND VARIOUS OPINIONS. HOW DO YOU BRING A SOMETIMES DISPARATE GROUP TOGETHER?

LF: It is certainly true that there are disagreements within the Rangers support. Everyone will have heard the line about if there were three Rangers supporters on a desert island there would be four supporters clubs by the end of the day.

I think we are quite hard on ourselves in that respect. There are disagreements within the Rangers support, but within any significant group of people there are going to be differences of opinion. The Rangers board wont always agree on things at board level at Club 1872 we don’t always agree on things.

If you accept there are going to be people within the support that are not quite onboard with this yet, or that might never be onboard with it, I think we have to listen to people and do our best to manage everyone’s needs and expectations.

Club 1872 is a one member, one vote and everyone gets a vote. We accept the will of the majority and members are voting as we speak as to how we vote our shares at the upcoming AGM.

It is democracy in action. It is a democratic, member-led organisation and we will always do our best to meet everyone’s needs and ensure as many as possible are happy with what we are doing. But we can’t please everyone and I think it is important that we are honest about that.

If you are a Club 1872 member, we are not saying you should just suck it up and if we are doing something that you don’t like that is tough and you should keep your eye on the bigger picture and ignore everything else. That is absolutely not what I am saying.

We are engaging with supporters, through email and social media. We have directors answering emails that come in from supporters so we are engaging and we will listen to criticisms, complaints and concerns.

What we won’t do, I have to be honest, is respond to personal abuse and we do get some of that. But in terms of engaging with genuine concern and criticism, absolutely happy to do that. I would urge everyone to keep an eye on the bigger picture.

We are never going to please everyone, never going to get the situation where every Rangers fan who believes in fan representation is completely happy with what we are doing at Club 1872. It is about that bigger picture and where we have been.

We are enjoying where we are now and absolutely we should be. The club is in great shape, I really liked the way Dave described as he took it when it was in intensive care and it is now a healthy patient.

We should feel good about that and the part we played in it and should have gratitude towards the current Rangers board and have faith in the Rangers board.

But we should also be mindful about where we have been. In terms of how we bring the support together, I think it is about managing expectations and keeping an eye on the bigger picture.