Succulent Lamb – The Celtic Wiki

Celtic Slang | About Celtic | Celtic’s Foundation

Details

Reference to: Sycophantic journalism to Rangers (RIP) and later to Sevco/TheRangers
Derivations: Succulent Lamb journalism, Succulent Lamb Syndrome
Started: 19 Nov 1998

Definition

Succulent Lamb refers to media men who choose to pander to the whims and agendas set by the Huns. Sycophantic media writers such as Jim Traynor, Chic Young and Derek Johnstone have towed the line set by the Huns or even simply played up to them to curry favour. It can be described as ‘shill‘ coverage of the Huns.

The bankruptcy of Rangers was made possible by the convenient and self serving relationship between many media men and the Huns. It meant that all investigation was sidelined in fear of losing favour. To curry favour and to avoid potential ramifications from the Huns and their support, the media men acquiesced to the Huns demands (without even needing to be directed to do so much often) and this generated a great degree of hubris which led to Rangers self-destruction and death in 2012.

Any journalism that doesn’t put the facts to scrutiny, plays to the gallery, has high levels of sycophancy or just portrays the subject in an unmerited high manner is practising succulent lamb journalism. Some even refer to it as ‘Succulent Lamb Syndrome‘.

Journalist Graham Speirs likes to make claim that he was the one who began the satirical succulent lamb mocking following Jim Traynor’s cringing article. Think he’s giving himself a little too much credit for that, but he has been a highly vocal critic of the succulent lamb brigade (as he has put it) and for that we respect him.

His definition is quite a swipe at certain of his peers:

“Succulent lamb journalism means a culture – and I hold my hand up here too – a culture of sycophantic, unquestioning, puff journalism that went on around Rangers generally and Sir David Murray particularly.”

In 2013, Alex Thompson (Channel 4 News) who had taken a strong interest in exposing the shill coverage, exposed the cosy and unacceptable relationship between Glasgow Media and Rangers with his expose on Jim Traynor. It was revealing and even surprising for what came out.

Away from the mockery, the serious side is that succulent lamb journalism has been to the detriment of Scottish football and tackling it has been vital. Sadly, there has been little to nothing done, with all the prime sycophants still remaining in their roles (or moved onto other notable roles) despite the collapse of Rangers and their negligence & blind spot in their coverage of the events that led up to it.

Articles

(The classic “Succulent Lamb” article)

SECRET FEAR THAT DRIVES ME TO WIN 10 IN A ROW

Daily Record – November 19, 1998

Exclusive James Traynor

Rangers chairman David Murray opens up on the highs and lows of his decade in charge of Rangers and promises that the best is still to come

RANGERS owner David Murray doesn’t often allow his true feelings to surface, but currently he is finding it difficult to disguise a pain which has been gnawing away inside since the end of last season.

After a period of almost total dominance of Scottish football during which Rangers racked up 17 trophies the club met with failure.

Celtic won the championship and the League Cup and Hearts beat Rangers in the Tennents Scottish Cup final, leaving Murray with nothing to show for a massive investment in time and money.

Even now he winces when he thinks of that season, but it is the vivid memory, and the pain of defeat with which he now suffers, that combine to drive him on.

Last night as he looked back on a decade as Rangers’ owner – come this Sunday, the 22nd, it will be 10 years since he paid Lawrence Marlborough £6 million for the club – Murray’s desire to avoid the miseries of another barren season could not be disputed.

To hear him speak was to listen to a man who believes himself to be charged with some kind of great and mighty mission. Murray, who chose to talk only to the Record about his dreams and ambitions for Rangers, said: “No one should doubt that Rangers are the biggest club in the country, but I know that talk is cheap in this business and that we will have to prove just how big we are.

“That doesn’t really bother me because as long as I am able to influence this club we will be the biggest and we will be the best. “I have spent 10 years of my life, and I know that sometimes I gave up too much of myself to Rangers, but I am not about to give up now.

“Neither am I willing to stand aside and allow another club to overtake Rangers. The failure of last season hurt me a lot and that pain was something I didn’t need nor want.

“It is also a pain which I never want to suffer again, but by God that sort of thing just makes me even more determined to succeed. I am still as driven, still as enthusiastic and I will welcome the challenge of anyone out there.”

Murray was referring not only to the Kenny Dalglish/Jim Kerr consortium who are stalking Celtic, but also the as yet uncovered groups who are bound to make bids to buy out Fergus McCann.

If the past 10 years have taught Murray, who is one of Britain’s wealthiest individuals, anything it is how to win and he believes Rangers will continue to grow and prosper.

“I look upon these last 10 years as a having been a great era, but it is over and Rangers are about to head on into a new era,” he said over a glass of the finest red.

He was about to take in another mouthful of the most succulent lamb – anyone who knows Murray shouldn’t be surprised to learn he is a full-blooded, unashamed red meat eater – when he put down his knife and fork.

It was like a statement of intent and looking directly across the table to make sure I hadn’t yet succumbed to the wine, he said:

“Bring on the next 10 years, there’s more to come for Rangers.

“Understand that I care passionately about what I’m doing with Rangers and believe that in 10 years time we will still be setting the pace.

“Too many of us have put too much into this club and we won’t let someone come along and take it all away.

“What I’m saying here is that no matter who buys Celtic from Fergus, they will need to have the deepest of pockets imaginable.

“The fresh challenge would be good for the Scottish game and lift the profile, but Celtic’s new owners had better be prepared to spend.

“In the past, Celtic’s people maybe just haven’t fancied trying to take Rangers on financially, but if I have to go in deeper to keep my club up there then I will. I have done it too many times to be frightened now.”

From anyone else such talk could be dismissed as no more than empty rhetoric, but with Murray you just feel it is more than bluster and besides, he does have a track record as a spender.

There have been times in his 10 years when he has taken Rangers somewhere between £15m and £20m into debt and he knows that if this season goes belly up like the last one he could be looking at a potential debt of £20m. However, having taken the value of Rangers from £6m to approximately £186m in 10 years he knows how far he can gamble in pursuit of success.

This season alone he has allowed his new manager Dick Advocaat to spend almost £30m, but he refuses to lose any sleep over it.

He said: “I don’t because I consider spending as much as £5million on someone like Andrei Kanchelskis as a necessity. If a club like ours doesn’t do that then we fall by the wayside.

“Look, I have many other businesses so I could find many other things to worry about, but I love sport and I want Rangers to be successful. I know this won’t be accepted by some people but this isn’t about making money. “£56m has been invested in the stadium and in my time £200m has been turned over and after interest our trading profit is minimal. Perhaps as much as £60m has been spent on players and I have even paid in about £1m in hospitality but never taken a salary from the place.

“I get six complimentary tickets the same as everyone else and if I want extra I have to pay for them the same as everyone else.

“There are no free lunches for David Murray at Ibrox and I have never taken part or been at the centre of any of the numerous victory celebrations we have had.”

Murray disappears to celebrate success with a small group of close friends, leaving the roar of the crowd to wash over the players and management.

“Supporters don’t want chairmen hanging around, even though they look to people like me to provide some kind of direction and the new ways to keep moving the club on,” he said.

“I hope I can say that in my 10 years so far I’ve been fairly good at that, but the day I run out of ideas is the day I’ll know it’s over. I’m sure someone will tell me because I have good people around me, I always have.

“But I’m not ready yet to step back and I see enough fresh challenges, staying ahead at home and winning a place at the European table, ahead in the next 10 years to keep my own adrenaline flowing.”

He knows roughly how much it will cost him and he’s heard the rumours that ENIC, who have invested £40m in Rangers, are uneasy at the club’s spending policies but Murray claims these backers have always been supportive of his methods.

He said: “They could kick up a fuss but they don’t. Besides, I am the owner of the club and so far most people seem to like what I’ve done.”

When Succulent Lamb is on The Menu – Serious Questions Are Off

24 March 2012
http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/succulent-lamb-menu-questions/1010
Alex Thomson

Right – let me make two things absolutely clear at the outset.

First, I am writing this imagining that one or two people outside Glasgow use the internet, so I might make some observations familiar to Clydeside surfers.

Second, this arises from my continuing investigation into Rangers which is still in early stages. That is to say, I am not investigating Celtic. If I were, rest assured RFC Bears – they’d get just the same treatment.

I’d expected the paranoia, insults, spin etc – hey – this is “fitba” after all and I welcome it good, bad and ugly, from fans within and without Glasgow. Indeed I’ve gone out and asked for it.

What I didn’t expect were the insults (and in at least one case a direct physical threat) not from fans but from Scottish journalists.

Sarajevo, Mogadishu, Kabul, Islamabad, Tripoli, Baghdad…I could bore you with more – in none of these places have I ever got this interesting reaction from local journalists.

Only in Glasgow.

So something’s up. Something’s different.

Something about asking questions about RFC clearly angers some in the Glasgow media in a way I’ve never seen in 25 years of global reporting.

Equally, a number of fine Glasgow journalists have been incredibly helpful, encouraging and agree there has been something deeply wrong for far too long in the culture of reporting RFC.

They know who they are, male and female, working in papers, radio and broadcasting and every single one has encouraged me to dig around in an area many cannot, will not or are prevented from, exploring.

I refer of course to “succulent lamb”. Graham Spiers, seasoned football writer in Glasgow was there the day it happened.

He and other reporters dined with Sir David Murray – then RFC owner, in the Channel Islands. Murray – as ever – was talking big on the Rangers dream-theme, laying out plans for the club that seemed to go well beyond the mere limit of the sky.

There duly appeared copy praising the “succulent lamb” that was eaten – the “fine red” that was drunk.

The food and drink were taken – so was this man’s dream of Rangers – all without much question in some quarters.

I make and imply no criticism at all of the reporters present – what intrigues as an outsider is how many people years later around Glasgow happily talk about “succulent lamb” journalism.

Let Graham explain – he was actually there, after all: “Succulent lamb journalism means a culture – and I hold my hand up here too – a culture of sycophantic, unquestioning, puff journalism that went on around Rangers generally and Sir David Murray particularly.”

Of course you’ll see it to some degree across sport, across football. But it was, many Glasgow journalists say, more damaging here.

“Look,” says Graham Spiers, “you are making a pact with the devil if you like. You get thrown the best scraps. You get something for the back page or whatever. But there’s a tacit deal. You don’t dig too deep. You don’t cause any trouble.”

So Big Dave’s dream was shouted across Glasgow. Fans loved it. It shifted papers. Everyone (in blue) wanted in, needed to believe.

So it went on – year after year. On one side the directors at Scotland’s football “governing” bodies didn’t ask much. On the other, large sections of Glasgow football journalism declined to delve.

How else to explain Ibrox’s boom to spectacular bust?

How else to deal with the fact that when Craig Whyte took over it was stories of a “billionaire” with “off the scale riches” that were pumped out?

Ten minutes on Google or in Companies House could’ve ended that. But no. It was dreamland the fans wanted, dreamland much of the media bought into and a club already financially crippled was about to be further injured.

Legions of fans sold out again, as it would turn out.

Succulent lamb culture has permeated to a degree that, as one prominent Glasgow tabloid journalist put it: “The press -a really critical check and balance in the normal way of things, had been more or less destroyed in Glasgow.”

So are things any better today? Is succulent lamb off the menu – replaced with humble pie?

I leave it to others to judge if that succulent lamb cozy Glasgow football culture has really gone away.

Rangers: succulent lamb on the rack?

13 Feb 2013
Channel 4
http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/succulent-lamb-rack/4144

Channel 4 News understands very well that sportswriters need close relations with the football clubs they report on. But what follows stands out because of the culture peculiar to Rangers FC and the media during the reign of Sir David Murray and Craig Whyte.

It also stands out because it concerns a former reporter in that culture, who now runs the Rangers media operation.

In response to last week’s media coverage of Rangers’ disputed bills for £400,000 Rangers FC did not answer any of Channel 4 News’ questions directly.

Instead the club website – now controlled by Ibrox press boss James Traynor, attacked the media en masse, accusing them of being “at such a damning low”: “…it has become clear Rangers cannot rely on basic honesty, decency or integrity from enough of the country’s media…”

It struck many appropriate that Mr Traynor should issue such a rallying cry in defence of Rangers. For he stands as one example of the curious Glasgow concept of “succulent lamb” journalism:

SECRET FEAR THAT DRIVES ME TO WIN; 10 IN A ROW

(Daily Record – November 19, 1998)

Exclusive James Traynor

Rangers chairman David Murray opens up on the highs and lows of his decade in charge of Rangers and promises that the best is still to come…”

So ran Mr Traynor’s now infamously sycophantic article on how Sir David Murray would conquer the world with Rangers, building to those fateful lines:

“He was about to take in another mouthful of the most succulent lamb – anyone who knows Murray shouldn’t be surprised to learn he is a full-blooded, unashamed red meat eater – when he put down his knife and fork.

It was like a statement of intent and looking directly across the table to make sure I hadn’t yet succumbed to the wine, he said:

“Bring on the next 10 years, there’s more to come for Rangers.”

There certainly was more to come from Rangers: sold for a quid, put into administration, liquidated and lucky to be playing fourth-tier football.

And that “succulent lamb”? Well it’s so engrained as a concept in Glasgow’s media culture that these days it even has its own Wikipedia entry.

In the light of this, Channel 4 News can now reveal exactly what “succulent lamb” journalism means, from the hand of the RFC press supremo James Traynor.

Let’s go back just a short time to when the current Ibrox director of communications was football writer at The Daily Record and its sister paper the Sunday Mail.

Back in July 2011, there were searching questions to be asked of Rangers. Like just who was Craig Whyte? What was his business record and just what was really happening inside Ibrox?

But far from it.

In fact, at times, so unquestioning of Mr Whyte was Mr Traynor that we know of at least one occasion when he actually sent an article to Craig Whyte for prior editorial approval before it went into the newspaper.

July 14th is the day the French celebrate the overthrow of deference. But not in Glasgow where, on that day in 2011, James Traynor submitted an article due for the Sunday Mail, to Craig Whyte, with the following message:

14 July 2011 14:49

(Hi Craig, as agreed the following is what I think would cover the Sunday Mail piece. You’ll notice I start with the £15m but also that I haven’t quoted you on that amount. There might be one or two minor alterations between now and the deadline but these would only be cosmetic and grammatical once I’ve had a final look.Thanks, JT.)

He then submits his Sunday Mail article to Craig Whyte in full, for Mr Whyte’s approval, quoting the Rangers boss on grand plans in the transfer market and writing about the £15m to be spent buying the best.

Much of the article in fact is simply a string of quotes from Mr Whyte on his vision for Rangers after just a few weeks in the job.

The next day, Craig Whyte replies to Mr Traynor saying he’s satisfied the article can go in the paper, subject to a change:

Date: 15 July 2011 10:47
Subject: Re: Sunday piece.
To: jxxxxxx@xxxxxX
Hi Jim,

Only one thing – I’d rather not be quoted being critical of a particular player, ie. Danns. Other than that it’s fine.

Best,

Craig

Just four minutes later Jim Traynor is emailing Craig Whyte straight back to assure him the offending quote will not appear in the Sunday Mail:

From:
Date: 15 July 2011 10:51
Subject: Sunday piece.
To: cxxxxxx@xxxxxxx

No problem Craig. It’s out. Thanks. JT.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what’s known as the “succulent lamb” in the world of Glasgow journalism.

In goes the article to the Sunday Mail, all about Mr Whyte’s £15m transfer treasure chest and all the rest of it.

Crucially, the glowing piece came after several months of doubt about Mr Whyte’s financial clout and willingness to invest his own money into the club.

The big spending promised in the article, approved by Mr Whyte, never did materialise.

One small episode in a greater scheme of things where – across all sections of the mainstream media – too few searching questions were asked about Sir David Murray and then Craig Whyte – successive owners who ultimately brought the club to its knees.

But there’s more.

Far from probing the probity of Craig Whyte, James Traynor was actually going on to probe him for a job at Rangers.

And here, for the first time, is your proof.

It comes in a series of text messages exchanged between James Traynor and Craig Whyte just a few months later in January 2012.

By now of course, the mounting problems at Rangers would have been more apparent and fans needed to know the full scale. But Mr Traynor had other things on his mind – a job under Craig Whyte. Here’s the text exchange:

6 JAN 2012 11.43
Hi Craig, haven’t been sacked, haven’t resigned despite all the rumours. However, I’m almost certain I can get out within weeks if I insist. Do you want to talk? JT

6 JAN 2012 16.07

Hi Jim, I’m back in Glasgow next Friday. Let’s meet up then and discuss. C.

6 JAN 2012 16.32

Okay, see you then.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong in looking for a new job – we all do it all the time. And of course we don’t know the preamble to these texts, but the curio here is merely the context that an experienced journalist should apparently be seeking a job from Mr Whyte, should want to be part of his Rangers operation. Channel 4 News understands they did indeed meet and discuss a job at the club. One month after that text exchange – one year ago this week – Rangers filed legal papers at the Court of Sessions to appoint administrators.

Did James Traynor simply not know things were amiss?

Craig Whyte was banned by the Scottish football authorities from the game for bringing it into disrepute after Rangers ended up liquidated. They fined him £200,000.

So there you have it. What so many fans long suspected is laid bare. James Traynor has since made it to Rangers under the new Charles Green regime on a reported six figure salary.