The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Follow, follow
RANGERS FANS REFLECT ON THEIR LONG JOURNEY BACK TO THE TOP TIER
TO the neutral fan there was something utterly incongruous about it. But there it was, in black and white. Rangers – serial winners of trophies, the club of Willie Waddell and John Greig and Paul Gascoigne, one of Europe’s most famous teams, with a 50,000-capacity stadium – had plunged through the trapdoor of Scottish football. It was a surreal sight, seeing Rangers lining up alongside East Stirling and Montrose, when their traditional rivals had long included Celtic, Heart of Midlothian and Aberdeen.
Behind it, of course, lay a messy and unedifying financial story that saw Rangers Football Club plc enter administration on February 14, 2012, less than 12 months after businessman Craig Whyte had purchased the club for £1 from David Murray. Within four months a consortium led by former Sheffield United chief executive Charles Green had bought the business and assets of Rangers and the club were given conditional membership of the Scottish Football Association. On July 29, the team travelled north to Brechin City for a Ramsdens Cup first-round tie. Brechin brought out a commemorative mug, saying they were the “first club to play new Rangers in a competitive game”.
Rangers edged the game 2-1, and thus began a four-year odyssey that took the players and their travelling supporters to some unfamiliar places – Annan, Elgin, Stenhousemuir, Montrose, Peterhead – as the team steadily fought its way back up the divisions. The journey finally came to an end on April 5 this year, when Rangers clinched the Ladbrokes Championship league title and promotion.
Today, at Ibrox, Rangers, newly returned to the top tier, play Hamilton Academical, a moment their fans have longed for. Here, four of them look back at what they have learned over the last four years.
JULIE NEILL, 43 SEASON-TICKET HOLDER FROM THE AGE OF 13
RANGERS being demoted was so bad for Scottish football. You only have to look at our main competitors across the city – their gates fell as well. There was a shallow narrow-mindedness shown by the clubs that voted for demotion but they didn’t look at the bigger picture. This was very much proved when the tax-bill court case was thrown out so there was no need for Rangers to be put into liquidation. I do feel quite bitter about it all.
But the last four years have been interesting. There was a Queen of the South game on a Sunday; it was really good, with a great atmosphere and hospitality. There wasn’t a proper stand there, it was more like seating with scaffolding.
It was very strange going to some grounds that had small capacities, though. There were some grounds where you almost felt as if you could reach out and touch the players. In a big stadium like Ibrox you don’t hear all the bawling and swearing that’s going on, but you can at some of the smaller grounds. The language would be blue. I often wondered how the players must have felt, going to these grounds; players like Lee McCulloch, who stood by us all these years, going from the lovely, classy dressing rooms to God knows what at the smaller grounds. From a fan’s point of view, it’s been an interesting experience. Humbling, too: you now appreciate the top flight more.
What I will say is, all these towns have
The last four years have made the team stronger on the
park. We’ve had to fight tooth and nail to get to where we are
enjoyed the fact the Rangers supporters have travelled there, because they have spent so much money. I think that’s where the lower leagues will now experience a gap. They’re not going to get that income any more. There needs to be financial support from the SFA to these clubs to make up the shortfall. If you look at the figures, one visit by Rangers was a real payday for the clubs. And bear in mind that we followed the team through rain and hail.
From a Rangers perspective, though, I think going down to the bottom league gave us the [player] clear-out we needed at that time. The last four years have made the team stronger on the park; the smaller teams waded straight in. We’ve had to fight tooth and nail to get to where we are.
Would I want it all to happen again? Probably not. But I’m so excited about the season starting and the first Old Firm game [at Celtic Park on September 10]. I can’t wait for that. It’s going to be so good, returning to some sort of normality after four long years. There will be a massive build-up atmosphere to the game.
STUART SPENCER, 24 SECRETARY OF THE RC HAMILTON GLASGOW UNIVERSITY RANGERS SUPPORTERS’ CLUB
AS far as the last four years are concerned, sometimes I can’t believe they happened. Even when you knew what was coming when we were placed into the third division it was still a bit of an eye-opener to see these small grounds. Some of them weren’t grounds: they were more like parks, really.
But there was a lot of pressure on Rangers in these compact grounds. Most of the fans present might have been Rangers’ fans but the games didn’t always go to plan. It took us a while to win away from home. A real low point was losing at Stirling Albion [in October 2012]. Albion’s manager Greig McDonald wasn’t at the game because he was getting married. Albion even brought out a DVD of that game.
It was all a learning experience, though. It was good seeing these places around Scotland and it was good that we brought money into the local clubs. It was a bit of fresh air in the Scottish game, in the lower divisions where Rangers were bringing attention to these clubs who no-one had heard of before and who, all of a sudden, were getting television coverage.
In November 2013, while Rangers were in the second division, we developed a supporters’ club at the university. We named it after RC Hamilton, a leading Rangers and Scotland player in the late 19th century who graduated as a teacher from the university while still a player. But it was quite hard at first: a lot of fans weren’t going to the games because of what had happened. A lot of overseas students seemed to know more about Celtic than they did about Rangers. The club’s profile was diminishing day by day. You can see Ibrox from the university’s sixth-floor library. One day, someone – I think he was from Bulgaria – said to me, “What’s that building there?” I told him it was Rangers, and he said, “Who?” That was the point when I got together with a few friends and said, “This can’t go on.” So we set up the club to try to raise Rangers’ profile.
The last four years, then, have been an experience, something that won’t be forgotten about in Scottish football for a very long time. But there is a strong element of Rangers supporters who can say they were part of that.
Were these four lost years? Not really. You have to look at the positives, at the fact this was a historical development, at the fact the club had to rebuild. The journey back to the top has been long but finally we are back where we belong. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Me and the club members will be at today’s game. We can’t wait.
GRAEME MILLAR, 28 LIFELONG RANGERS FAN
AFTER we were demoted there was a period of excitement and there was a buzz on the buses and at Ibrox itself. Along the way we had many disappointing results but there were good times as well. If you’ve been on a supporters’ bus you can imagine the atmosphere, especially going to Elgin and Annan and other places.
Visiting small towns like that was surreal. Rangers are used to playing the cream of the crop in European competitions: to go from that to the likes of Brechin so quickly was strange. But at the same time we knew we were doing a good thing in bringing in gate receipts for these smaller clubs. There was an online trend at one point, I remember: if we were travelling to Elgin, say, there would be a Rangers scarf wrapped around the sign saying: “Welcome to Elgin.” There were a lot of happy times on the road.
I’m not too disappointed that Rangers had to play through the leagues. I wasn’t unhappy to have been there. But the football we played during that period under Ally McCoist numbed that a little bit. There was a lot of discontent among the fans, coming up through the Championship, and that was compounded by the defeat in the play-offs to Motherwell at the end of last season. But we’re now back in the top flight, having had a very successful Championship season. We’re in a strong position, having come through the lower leagues.
In terms of how Rangers fans are perceived by others, it feels very much as if it’s us against the world. That’s the atmosphere I’ve experienced so far. I think we’ve been galvanised by the successes and the events of the last four years and by the successes of last season; it has brought about a sense of unity among the Rangers support where perhaps there was division in terms of what was the best way forward. We’ve got a great manager in Mark Warburton. We’ve got new signings like Joey Barton and Niko Kranjcar; they’re here because they see the bigger picture in terms of Rangers being back in the top flight. There’s a real excitement about us being back. Obviously I’ve got my blue-tinted specs on but I can’t see any team apart from Rangers winning the Ladbrokes Premiership this season. I’ll be disappointed if that doesn’t happen.
WILLIE VASS, 49 SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHER AND LIFELONG RANGERS FAN
IAM bringing out a book, Glasgow Rangers: The Journey (Mission Accomplished), and hope to have it out for October. It will have 200-plus pages detailing, in pictures, the four seasons in the footballing outposts of Scotland.
I have now visited every senior ground in the country and – if counting league, cup, pre-season and friendlies – I have been at 220 matches in the four years between Rangers being kicked out of the top league to the end of last season when they clinched promotion.
My overriding memories of the first season were being warmly welcomed by all the member clubs in SFL Division 3 which was a stark contrast to the bitterness and hostility encountered by the then SPL clubs who hastily put the boot into Rangers.
I remember setting off at 7am to places
Rangers are used to playing the cream of the crop in European competitions. To go from that to playing the likes of Brechin so quickly was strange
such as Elgin, Forres and Peterhead and wondering where to park and how to get our images back to the picture desks. I had the idea of putting a “pie blog” in place and rating the match cuisine of all the lowerleague clubs. Surprisingly the first league ground we visited, Peterhead, was the winner with a steak and mince pie which tasted better than the one your granny used to make. Not surprising when one of their directors was a butcher and had a kiosk at the ground where all the fans leaving the match could stock up on their sausages, pies and pastries on the way home.
There were small grounds which sprouted makeshift scaffolding stands to cram in the extra thousands of away fans – cultivating the blue pound, perhaps. I remember, too, seeing thousands of fans in red, white and blue descend on these small towns and make it a day out.
Then the football got brutal in later seasons – route one from front to back. Turgid stuff but the fans kept on supporting their team in numbers. They were the real heroes, standing up to their ankles in mud and cheering on a team which perhaps at times did not deserve that level of support. Off-field trouble may have played its hand in those results but the fans also forced regime change and ushered in a new board of directors with a new vision on the footballing front.
Mark Warburton and [assistant manager] David Weir re-energised the team and the Rangers supporters can look forward to this season back in the top flight with renewed hopes and ambitions.
Rangers are back. The journey’s over but where or what have we arrived back to? What state is Scottish football in four years after kicking out its biggest and most successful club?