Billy Williamson
  • Sporting Integrity Integrity is defined in the dictionary as “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.” There’s no dictionary definition for “sporting integrity,” though there’s been no end of talk about it recently in Scottish football. I thought I’d have a go at clarifying it for you in case you – like me – […]
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    July 10, 2012
  • Credit Where It’s Due: The Rangers Fiasco Awards With the failure of Rangers FC plc’s Company Voluntary Arrangement and the liquidation of the club to follow, the Rangers debacle is finally coming to a resolution. Fittingly for a situation involving so much unpaid debt, there are few who emerge from the episode with much credit. But it’s the trophy end of the season, […]
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    June 14, 2012
  • The Crooks and Clowns of Copland Road Craig Whyte has never met Prince Albert. That’s one of many unnecessary things I learned from the latest “BBC Investigates” documentary about a decade of murky dealings at Rangers. The recent SFA disciplinary tribunal report detailed shocking lapses in corporate governance inside Rangers FC plc, but Mark Daly’s new program focused on the cast of […]
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    May 25, 2012
  • The Rogues Who Ruined Rangers Imagine you are the financial controller of a multi-million pound corporation. You discover that your new boss might have forged tax invoices for payments that were never made. What do you do? I’d like to think I’d call the cops. But if you’re Ken Olverman, the man in charge of counting the diminished pile of […]
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    May 17, 2012
  • Dilemma of the Damned In 1996, Madeline Albright, then Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, was asked if she thought the death of half a million Iraqi children due to United Nation sanctions was a price worth paying in the cold war against Saddam Hussein. Her answer, amid much humming and ha’ing, was basically: “Yes”. Albright later castigated herself for […]
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    May 10, 2012
  • Bigots With Wings “The butterfly effect” is a classic illustration of chaos theory: an insect flapping its wings in Macau can, weeks later, cause a hurricane in Miami. The point is that in a complex system, a seemingly insignificant act can cause a major change at a faraway time and place. I think the butterfly effect helps explain […]
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    April 25, 2012
  • From The Desk of Peter Lawwell Dear Neil, We usually do your report card at the end of the season, but after last Sunday’s game, well, that’s our season over, isn’t it? So let’s do this now. Usual format: I’ll tell you three things I think you’re doing well, and three you need to improve on. First off, I have to […]
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    April 19, 2012
  • Spare the Rod, Spoil the Sport “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.” – Proverbs In my first year of secondary school, gym classes were given over to Highland dancing lessons in the weeks prior to the Xmas party. As physical education in my school was divided by gender, this meant that twice a week […]
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    March 29, 2012
  • No Time For Horseplay Never an organisation known for original thinking, the SFA has recently managed to both shut the barn door after the horse has bolted and then flog a dead horse. However they don’t know who opened the barn door, nor who killed the colt. They need to take a lesson from the Japanese. Have I put […]
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    March 22, 2012