John Brown calls on Rangers fans to save club

John Brown has called for Rangers fans to rally to save the club. Picture: SNS

Brown is alarmed to see Green back at Ibrox in a consultancy role after stepping down as chief executive earlier this year and predicts his old club are again on the road to disaster.

Brown, who led an attempted buy-out of the club from Green in the summer of 2012, opened his heart about the crisis-hit club he loves. Former fans’ favourite Brown reckons they’re doomed, branded Green a clown, called for Rangers fans to rally and save their club and insisted he’d have Green “by the throat” if he’d threatened him like he did Ally McCoist to win more than just the league title this season.

Brown said: “I wish Ally and Walter Smith all the best. But it doesn’t make me feel any happier at what’s gone on.

“It’s a ticking time-bomb. Just find out whose name is on the title deeds?”

“There’s in-fighting in the boardroom. Behind it all, people have to find out who is pulling the strings? Rangers are leaking money for fun and it can only go on for so long.

“My biggest fear is that Rangers will go back into administration because of what’s going on.

“Charles Green was never away. He might have had an extended holiday but he was never away because the people who are running Rangers are putting him up front.

“Rangers will suffer and they will continue to suffer until they sort it all out. It’s a nightmare scenario but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

Brown, now the manager of Dundee, insists the Glasgow club are a sinking ship unless their followers stand up and make their presence felt by taking things into their own hands.

He added: “For the sake of Scottish football, Rangers need to survive. But there are too many people who are taking and taking, rather than giving.

“Rangers fans give and Dundee fans give so they can give to their football club.

“But there are too many takers at boardroom level at Ibrox, including investors. Sooner rather than later there will be no money left. Bang, they will be out of business. Rangers will go down unless the fans stand up and say enough is enough. That’s the only way.”

Brown believes Green is simply trying to throw the onus on former Rangers team-mate McCoist, whose side crashed out of the League Cup away to part-time Forfar at the weekend, to take the blame away from himself after telling the Ibrox gaffer that he’d need to win a cup in addition to lifting the title this season.

He said: “Green’s comments were a disgrace. If my own directors had said that about me, I would have taken every one of them by the throat. You can have that in a private room but not in public. I told Coisty when we played them in a friendly last Wednesday that it would be a tough game up at Forfar. He had eight guys who played against us who weren’t eligible for Forfar, so the eight coming in were eight guys who knew they wouldn’t be good enough to start under normal circumstances.

“So I don’t think you are going to get the same commitment. What Green is doing is covering up what is going on in the background, and throwing it onto the manager. He suddenly comes back after 30,000 plus season-ticket sales. Green is a clown and always has been.

Brown admits he worries for McCoist and claims the club he starred for between 1988 and 1997 are losing money hand over fist. He said: “Coisty is Rangers through and through. He is a nine-in-a-row hero. He was a big player through that era and will want to do his best for the football club.

“But during the last two years, he has been dealing with not the nicest of people, from Craig Whyte to Charles Green.

“Walter always had a David Murray type of character, someone who you could have a good bond with. A lot of success came through that. But Ally wouldn’t know where to turn because before a ball was kicked Green was touting to get Ally the sack. That’s the way he has always worked.

“People who’ve been at Rangers in the past must be turning in their graves at what’s going on at that club.

“It’s inevitable that Rangers are going only one way. If the money runs out, you can’t the bills and that’s that.

“If I were in McCoist’s shoes, I would just be worrying every night about what’s happening to his job. Green has come out with that statement and just thrown everything onto McCoist.

“But the biggest issue here is that the club might go out of existence and that is through his (Green’s) stewardship.

“Ally McCoist will win that division by 20-plus points with all his players available. I would put my house on that. That’s his job, not to win cups.”

“A number of new players come in and it takes time for things to gel which I know from my time at Ibrox.

“When I went from Dundee to Rangers, it took me six months to settle in because of the size of the club and the expectations that go with it.”