OUSTING ASHLEY SAVED OUR GAME
KING REFLECTS ON KEY MOMENT IN JOURNEY TO TITLE
FOR Dave King, there was surely some significance in the timing of Rangers’ longawaited restoration as champions of Scotland.
Saturday afternoon’s victory over St Mirren came on the sixth anniversary of the EGM in which King and his colleagues forced boardroom change at Ibrox, ousting a Mike Ashley-influenced regime in the process.
Steven Gerrard’s side had one foot over the finishing line. Confirmation of the club’s first title in a decade followed within 24 hours when Celtic failed to win at Tannadice.
King is no longer Rangers chairman, having stepped down 12 months ago. But as he uncorked a £3,500 bottle of Yquem 1872 to toast the triumph at his home in South Africa, he still felt a profound sense of personal satisfaction at completion of a lengthy rebuilding process.
The expense incurred along the way ran into many millions of pounds, not to mention the numerous court battles and on-field disappointments. King, though, would never claim it was anything other than worth it.
He paints a bleak picture of how an alternative future might have unfolded for Rangers had the
I never lost belief we’d win the title. It was just a case of what year
2015 regime change not been successful. Under Ashley (below) and his allies, King feared silverware would become an impossible aim as Celtic’s dominance continued undisputed.
‘I don’t think Rangers would ever have folded completely in the sense the supporters base is so large,’ said King.
‘My view just prior to becoming involved with the club, when I looked at the Easdale-Ashley axis, was that under their business model, Rangers were never going to compete for honours again.
‘I had a conversation with Ashley in London and his view was that he could run Rangers at a profit.
‘He could have done that, of course he could. If you have 50,000-60,000 fans willing to buy season tickets, then it was feasible.
‘If you spend less than you earn and you have a loyal customer base, then he could have made a profit.
‘But Rangers would never have competed. Rangers at that stage were so far behind Celtic that it required major investment to play catch-up.
‘My concern was that if we hadn’t found a way to unlock regime change and bring in investors who had the same target of winning leagues and not making money, then I felt Rangers would become a senior junior club in Scotland. It would have become a one-team league.’
Current chairman Douglas Park, deputy chairman John Bennett, George Letham, George Taylor,
Barry Scott and Stuart Gibson are among the other wealthy Rangers who dug deep to aid the investment process.
King stepped down as chairman in March of last year. He remains the largest shareholder with a 19.55-per-cent stake held through New Oasis Asset Limited, but hopes that can be sold off to supporters in the coming years having agreed a deal with fan group Club 1872.
He admits the route from 2015 was not one of constant upwards progress. As Rangers floundered in the Premiership prior to Gerrard’s arrival in 2018, the likelihood of Celtic completing ten in a row seemed to rise.
‘There were definitely points where I realised the challenge of getting back winning league titles was more difficult than I had assumed — and I must say I assumed it would be quite difficult to start with,’ said King. ‘My focus really wasn’t on ten in a row. To me, ten in a row wasn’t a big thing emotionally. I’ve always seen it as something between Rangers fans and Celtic supporters. ‘You know, Aberdeen fans don’t talk about nine or ten in a row. It just doesn’t exist outside of Rangers and Celtic and I just felt the fact we weren’t there for effectively five seasons meant nine in a row wasn’t something I spent a lot of time worrying about. ‘To me, the focus was getting back to winning. I realised what I thought was a big challenge was even bigger after regime change. It was then that I realised the level of disintegration of the infrastructure. ‘It wasn’t just the football team. We understood the team couldn’t win without the proper infrastructure.
‘The stadium neglect was palpable but there was even more basic things like coaching and sports science. We had nothing in place.
‘So it wasn’t just a question of working on the football team. We also had to manage a lot of our financial resources into areas away from the team that I hadn’t anticipated.
‘So my challenge was how to manage the non-footballing infrastructure issues in a way that didn’t compromise the football.
‘That really just meant having to raise a lot more money than I’d initially hoped for.
‘There was a lot of challenges and it affected me in terms of time frames — but never to the point where it made me lose belief that we would win a title. It was just a case of what year.’
As it turned out, 2021 is the answer. And remarkably early in the year. A season billed as being an epic Old Firm battle became closer to a procession as Gerrard’s unbeaten side claimed the prize with a 20-point margin.
The pandemic has ensured King hasn’t been at Ibrox this season. But what did it mean to him when he watched the weekend events unfold from South Africa?
‘I guess for me there are two things,’ considered King. ‘First, it’s just the relief as a supporter that the project we all embarked on a few years ago to try to get back winning championships — which clearly was the target — has been finished.
‘To do it in such style really gives me an immense sense of satisfaction as a supporter.
‘Additionally, to me as an individual given my role in the whole regime change process and trying to get the club back to this point — and the commitments I made to supporters that we will do everything we can to get back to number one — that gives me a lot of personal satisfaction to have finally achieved that.’