Adver News: Town hold talks with ex-Magpie Ranger

[bigbobjoylove]

[flammableBen]

That's it. I'm going to stab spacey.

[RobertT]

And everyone take a breath.

We haven't signed the dumb shit yet
The alleged victim might not be a Northern slag on benefits but a liar
She might be the slag bit but telling the truth
Ranger might be guilty
He might not be

I think we can all agree that signing him is probably not the best idea, he's probably a bit of a cock at the very least and court cases are best left to the courts until they are finished with.  Then we can crack on and offend everyone and tell anyone offended to get over themselves because this is the fucking internet you soft twats and people can do what the fuck they like on it.

Or something like that.

carry on.

[Amir]

To be fair, the Crown Prosecution Service would probably be surprised.

The CPS will have carried out an objective assessment of the evidence...

Ahahahahahahaha....yes, all hail the complete and utter fuckwits at the CPS.  I get your point though.

Rape in many instances is a case of he said/she said, and thus is incredibly hard to prove or disprove. I'd imagine a lot of guilty men get away with it even when brought to trial to be honest.  Even so, I think the accused should be allowed to remain anonymous in cases of rape also.

[Quagmire]

Am I the only person that genuinely couldn't give a fuck about any of this?
I couldn't give a shit if we have a fascist in charge, a rapist on the pitch or a drink driver in goal.
I go and watch a team play football for 90 minutes every 2 weeks, as long as they win I couldn't care who scored, who was the manager or who kept a clean sheet.

[Ardiles]

Am I the only person that genuinely couldn't give a fuck about any of this?

Yep, possibly.

[Quagmire]

Don't get me wrong, I understand everyone's concerns/opinions.
I realise a lot of you, like myself, will have your own sons, daughters, nephews, nieces etc who things like this could have happened to, and I hope they never do.
But all I have ever wanted from the football club I support is 3 points each week, it's never bothered me and I've never had the energy to give a shit who it is helping us get them points.

[Levi lapper]

Having admin powers and making "jokes" about rape? On a football forum. A new low in my opinion.

[DiV]

Ben, post more please...

[otanswell]

Oops

[StfcRusty]

How come Flashheart resorted to personal insults once his opinion was consistently criticised / contradicted? Surely Ben had the right to disagree?

[4D]

I disagree 

[Flashheart]

I don't appreciate people trying to twist what I am saying.

Anyway, that's enough on that. Any more and it would not surprise me if I was accused of condoning rape before long.

[Nomoreheroes]

I'm actually a little surprised at the way everyone is looking at this. I'm trying to look at it a different way.

From what I can tell, Ranger is a Premier League footballer, who has been drummed out of Newcastle because of bad behaviour. Trouble has followed him all the way through his career, which has (until this point) continued to move in an upward direction. He has allegedly done some pretty crass things, but he has still reaped the rewards. Then, all of a sudden, he has lost it all. He's now on £30 per week and noone will touch him. Potentially, everything has changed for him. Could this be a light bulb moment for him?

Now, along comes Jed, possibly the only person willing to offer Ranger a final chance in the game (before the trial). The contract is nowhere near as much as he has been earning, but its a chance to get back onto the long term gravy train. Jed's contract has lots of clauses in it that mean that the club aren't liable should Ranger be found guilty, but enable Ranger to move on should a £500k (perhaps) bid be tabled. Its all signed before the court case to help Ranger's plea. And then:

Scenario 1: Ranger comes and plays for a few weeks until the trial, where he is found guilty and goes down. During that few weeks he scores a couple of goals and helps the team get some points. The club then loses a striker, but nothing more. Potentially the club keeps his registration which they can sell on when he comes out of prison?

Scenario 2: The same, but Ranger argues that his new move and new life in Swindon is part of his rehabilitation. He gets tagged and sentenced to community service. He continues to play for Town, scorers goals, reforms himself and is then sold on for a huge fee at some point in the future.

Scenario 3: He is found not guilty. He plays through until January and then is snapped up for a big fee by a Championship club. We can then afford a decent replacement.

Scenario 4: He comes to the club, continues to show the 'bad boy' attitude and Jed kicks him out of the club (at no cost, because the contract is loaded in the club's favour)

If any one of those scenarios happened, the club would benefit to a degree - Or would certainly not lose out.

I think Ranger would be a big gamble, but I think that Jed is a bit of a gambler. I think he sniffs an opportunity here and I wouldn't be surprised to see him go for it - under the terms I have alluded to. It might not be popular to begin with, but if Ranger was a prolific goal scorer or netted the Town megabucks in a quick transfer, I'm sure that much would be forgotten.

Now, I'm not making light of all of the stuff that was posted from the Wiki article, which showed all the bad stuff he has been involved in. Unfortunately, there are some really nasty people out there and it would appear that Ranger is one of them. But I'm looking at this purely as a business decision, rather than as a moral compass. I think Jed is too.

[Stegenfreud]

The guy is clearly an idiot. If he is found not guilty of the rape charge he's still an idiot. I think there are plenty of players out there we could sign so not sure the club needs the inevitable bad PR from signing this guy.