Dementia in football
League championship No.55 is the most important in Ibrox history – here’s why ....
Jimmy Calderwood, 65
In August 2017 former Aberdeen boss Calderwood, who guided the club to the last 32 of the UEFA Cup and a Scottish Cup final, announced he was being treated for early onset dementia. His son Scott told the Aberdeen Press & Journal last year that his father was “OK just now” and “coping” with his condition.
Sir Bobby Charlton, 83
Another World Cup winner with England, the Manchester United stalwart is one of England’s greatest ever players. His diagnosis was made public in November last year with his wife, Lady Norma, saying she hoped the information would raise awareness of the condition and help others who are suffering with it.
Jimmy Millar, 86
The family of former Rangers striker Jimmy Millar went public with his diagnosis in May 2017, by which point he had already been suffering with it for a decade. Millar scored 162 goals for the Ibrox club, forming a famous partnership with Ralph Brand.
IT will be simply the best, better than all the rest. For so long, the pursuit and prospect of 55 has been a dream, now it is a reality for Rangers.
After 10 years of waiting and seven months of competition, Rangers are potentially just three weeks away from the Premiership title. Steven Gerrard and his players stand on the brink of Ibrox immortality.
The class of season 2020/21 are not the most accomplished side to have won a title and there may well be higher calibre ones to come if Gerrard can build on the success of this campaign. Their achievement is unique, though, and it is that factor which places them above the legends in whose esteemed footsteps they follow.
The Premiership will be won in
their own style, earned by their physical endeavours and their mental fortitude. Their rivals may have self-combusted, but that takes nothing away from the relentless way in which Rangers have stormed to a success three years in the making under Gerrard and his staff.
The Rangers story is unparalleled in sport and it is one which the club should celebrate and promote. There need not be a fear of jinxing it or a caution that their rhetoric will come back to haunt them, and they should revel in the achievement as much as the fans who have watched them from afar during the most difficult campaign in Scottish football history.
It was said that if Rangers played on the streets then they would support from the pavements. Football, and life, owes nobody anything, but Rangers fans cannot be grudged these moments of emotion – everything from relief to elation – as they celebrate a title win that for so long felt almost out of reach.
Their absence from the stands this season is the ultimate disappointment and frustration, but it won’t diminish the achievement on the park or the feelings off it.
It is only natural to think where Rangers have been, but now they can look forward. This is a line in the sand, the end of an era as Rangers now enter one of prosperity.
From the ultimate adversity, Rangers have triumphed once again, and it is only because of those trials and tribulations that they have overcome that this season is as special.
From the depths of the Third Division, Rangers now stand victorious in the Premiership and ‘The Journey’ has been completed after so many bumps along the way.
The list of characters in the tale of twists and turns is lengthy. Some will be forever remembered, while others sadly cannot be forgotten, but each one has made a mark, good or bad, on a club that survived and that now thrives once again.
The years from Craig Whyte to Mike Ashley drained all hope from supporters but did not deprive them of their fight. Once Dave King, Paul Murray and John Gilligan won their own battle, it was a matter of when Rangers would be champions again.
That process has been too long and too costly and the years spent fluctuating between calamity and crisis were wasted by Rangers.
They were painful to endure at the time, but they make the victories today more meaningful.
It would not have been possible without the contributions of so many individuals, but the support as a collective have more than played their part.
Gerrard has always humbly sought to distance himself from his predecessors when he has been mentioned in the same breath as those who wrote the illustrious story of Rangers. Whether it be Graeme Souness, Dick Advocaat, Alex McLeish or Walter Smith, Gerrard has played down the comparisons because he had not achieved what each Rangers manager must do and deliver silverware to a demanding fan base.
The successes that those famous names attained are forever enshrined in Ibrox folklore, but they will be surpassed by Gerrard sooner rather than later as Rangers look to collect the remaining seven points required to confirm their status as champions.
Every title win is special and cherished, but the 55th is the most significant in Rangers’ history, not because it is the next one, but because it ensured 54 was not the last one. A decade after Smith’s side triumphed at Rugby Park, Rangers are now Going for 56 next term.
When Souness won the league in his first season at Ibrox, he ended a prolonged and painful barren period and revolutionised Rangers. By the time Smith completed nine-in-a-row, a generation of supporters had memories to last a lifetime.
Those of more recent years will fondly recall the triumphs of Smith second time around, the big-money days of the Advocaat era or the dramatic glories that McLeish enjoyed, and each flag day or cup win carries its own significance. None match this one, though.
As the title is celebrated, absent friends will be toasted. For some fans, this will be their first taste of the success that they have heard all about but never had the chance to experience.
In years to come, they will be able to tell the story of 55, how it was won and what it meant. It joins an illustrious list, but it stands alone, better than all the rest, better than any one.
Potentially three weeks away, Steven Gerrard stands on the brink of Ibrox immortality