Rangers try their luck against SPL opposition

What a deluded, arrogant article.

The reason Rangers crowds are so big is because glory hunters from all over Scotland jump on the bandwagon, as they do with Man U in England.

Go support your local team, have a few decades never winning anything, and you'll appreciate what being a football fan is like for most people.

Aye Frank, spot on, all those glory hunters dreaming of the third division title and promotion, why would you want to support someone else when that's on offer.

Arrogant and deluded, quite.

A deserved win for Rangers against the SPL leaders. One wonders why the Ibrox side's players don't play like that every week. Cheating the fans, only raising performance levels for the big games.

It's been a bad week for Motherwell. But when a draw at Aberdeen and serious disappointment when losing at Ibrox are what's caused it, well, older 'Well fans can live it.

Oh, and didn't really see anything wrong with the arcticle tbh.

I enjoyed the article too, but even the most benign piece with Alex's name beneath it seems to goad a number of readers into Having Their Say while furiously smacking their keyboards and unleashing some no doubt cathartic invective.

I’ve read and re-read this article and for the life of me I can’t see any sign of the arrogance or delusion alluded to by Frank. No doubt it exists within sections of the Rangers support (as it does in most clubs of a certain stature), and particularly in large sections of the Scottish media, but I can’t see it here.

From memory, Alex has written well on events following the slide into administration and beyond. He certainly seems to have the measure of Charles Green.

The annoying thing is I was actually trying to write an arrogant article! Obviously just deluding myself ...

Thanks for the kind words, folks - and I'm sorry you've been ganged up on a bit here, Frank but, of course, you know you're far from alone in your general thinking about Rangers fans. What I would say is, as AMMS points out, one of the key characteristics of glory-hunting and bandwagon jumping is deserting a club in its time of need. I'd be the first to mention how poor Rangers crowds were in the nine year period where we didn't win the title in the late 70s-mid 80s but when we get crowds like this after LIQUIDATION the glory-hunter argument needs to get more subtle.

To be fair to you, I think a lot of the Rangers support aren't too bothered about the quality of competition they're in - just as long as Rangers are winning most weeks - so this lends itself to a slight cultishness around Ibrox this season (it's a lot easier to "come back from the dead" and be a lower league "martyr" when you know you'll get to almost October without losing a game over 90 minutes and maybe lose no league games at all) but the vast majority are just bloody relieved we can all still get together after months of thinking everything would be taken away.

Football success can also be judged relative to resources, expectations, history etc. For me, Rangers' masses of domestic titles actually highlighted the parlousness of our European record. Almost continual access to UEFA competition over half a century yet when we moved into a big boys playground we could reach only 4 finals, winning just one. I would never disrespect domestic competitions or our rivals by treatting the winning of Scottish titles with anything other than sheer delight over the years. But, for me, the real glory - the bandwagon I wanted to jump on as a Rangers fan - was Europe, where no-one could accuse us of lack of ambition, of myopia, of bullying smaller opponents or buying success unfairly. Not only did we never achieve that glory consistently enough but newco Rangers must now wait at least three years before it can even have a crack at Europe again. For a club of Rangers size, the only real bandwagon to be jumped on right now is one of suddenly having a chance to prove your loyalty.

Okay it's nowhere near as hard as it is to be the fan of a club more permanently located in the lower leagues but, similairly, it's pretty patronising to think a club must lose half of its games in any one season in order for its fans to be considered "real".

Bill Bones - I'm bound to say Rangers weren't cheating their fans before last night, I know but, to be fair, I think this almost entirely new squad of strangers needed an SPL-standard game, as Motherwell provided, in order to finally gell. Hey - if we get pumped out the Scottish Cup by the Mechanics and struggle any more in the Third Division then you'll have a point mate and I'll be first to admit it but there was an almost European atmosphere about last night's game and it's noteable that it provided the kind of upping of performance levels which Euro nights usually provided the Old Firm as they sailed off into a two horse race in the SPL, post-October for most of the 21st century.

Yer absolutely right about how things have improved for The Well and surely the Panathinaikos and Levante experiences, although losing ones (as the Old Firm's Euro experiences usually were), have helped bring an added sharpness to Fir park. No-one's currently accusing Michael Higdon of cheating Motherwell fans last season ... and not just because he'd most likely drop you if ye did :-)

'but newco Rangers must wait at least three years before it can even have a crack at Europe again'

Four, surely. Three to get back into the SPL, and then dependent on final position in season 2015-2016. Unless they win the Scottish Cup in the meantime.

When Fiorentina found themselves in the 4th level Serie C2 in 2002-2003 as a result of similar fiscal irregularities, they were back in Serie A within two years as they were allowed to skip C1 on the grounds of 'sporting merit'. Can we be sure that some way will not be found of getting Rangers back in the SPL in less than three years?

Add me to the list of people who liked the article.

The two assertions it makes - that SPL fans are not turning out in bigger numbers than last season, and that Rangers are 'everybody's cup final' - are easily verifiable by reference to facts. What was Berwick's average crowd last season? Less than 400? Crowd for Rangers? 4,100. I'd be ready to bet that half the Berwick fans there that day will go once again this season at most, and that some wouldn't even have known the home players' names.

One thing I'm curious about is what justification there is for Rangers and Celtic playing at home on some of the same weekends. Is it a simple case of the SPL and Div 3 fixtures already being worked out before Rangers were put in Div 3?

Liked the bit about the QoS fans going beserk at Ibrox. It's also been good to see the Div 3 teams give Rangers a tough time on their own grounds, even if those who've visited Ibrox for league games have been a bit overwhelmed.

@Geobra - no, sir, we indeed cannot be sure the SFA/SPL will not find some way of skipping newco Rangers to the front of the queue. This terrifies me and many other Bluenoses almost as much as the prospect of another administration/liquidation, especially as our lastest owner is attracting coveted, established SPL players to the club and loaning out want-away experienced foreign pros like Dorin Goian (you might remember him at Palermo) and Carlos Bocanegra rather than selling them altogether.

I'd like to flatter myself that Ian Black, Francisco Sandaza and David Templeton are such died-in-the-wool Rangers supporters that they jumped at the chance to play for us, irrespective of what level Rangers are playing at and irrespective of the fact one's Spanish and another's a childhood Celtic fan. And I'd love to imagine a hardened, cold-hearted English businessman like Charles Green has had his heart melted by just a few months contact with the magnificence that is Ibrox and the Rangers support to the point he where doesn't care how much money he loses on getting us into the SFL Second Division. But, of course, it would all make more sense, all be a tad more realistic, if Green has some idea that we'll be back in the SPL much sooner than expected - and has used this info in negotiations with new signings.

Not only would this mean we're probably spending beyond our means again - already! - but any enforced over-promotion of Rangers would kill any respect for the domestic competitions. Never mind the rest of the country's fans, the Rangers support itself could have no truck with such an insult to the basics of sportsmasnhip. Ally McCoist has gone on record saying he wants us to work our way through all the tiers of the Scottish game (even allowing the newco to start at the foot of the SFL was an insult to the likes of Cove Rangers and Spartans, clubs who've tried long and hard to gain league status) - but Green's been less forthright in that respect.

I was delirious when we beat Motherwell on Wednesday - it was a great night - but at the back of a lot of Rangers minds is a dark worry over how the long-term future may well be undermined by the very policies which made that victory possible.

@Jameswba - cheers, Sir. And, yeah, the whole process of Rangers newco being granted a licence to play and getting voted into the third division took so long in some respects and was so manically rushed in others that the fixture lists were out with "Club 12" playing in the SPL (they're at home to St Johnstone today)before anyone knew for certain who or what post-liquidation Rangers even were.

So other than making this season's Rothman's - Sorry, SKY! - Football Yearbook even more collectable than usual (Club 12 in the SPL fixtures, Dundee in the First Division's, Airdrie in the Second's and Stranraer in the Third's before they all got punted up a tier), it meant Rangers newco had to get shoved hurriedly into Stranraer's place in the Third Division fixtures and take Dundee's in the Ramsdens Cup, because it's a comp for non-SPL sides.

Normally, irrespective of what competitions they play in, the authorities would do all they could to avoid having Rangers AND Celtic at home in the same day (probably not the last but certainly the most famous time this happened was in April 1972 when Celtic lost to Inter on pens in the European Cup semi, in front of 70,000 and Rangers beat Bayern in front of 80,000 at Ibrox in the Cup Winners Cup semi) - somewhere along the line the SFA, UEFA, the police, ambulance service and the UN have got the impression we don't like each other??!! So this season Rangers have had to play the odd game at home on a Sunday when there's no live tv coverage. Small price to pay.

I didn't renew my season ticket. There was too much up in the air emotionally for me, far less the financial uncertainty which still surrounds the newco, for me to do anything other than "take it one game at a time". But I've yet to miss a home game. I've been going to a different area of the ground for every game and the most depressing post-liquidation moment so far was when I nipped up to sit in my seat of the last 12 years and meet the people I've sat next to for a lot of that time. Seeing the games from parts of Ibrox I hadn't visited in over a decade provided a freshness which almost counter-acted the newness of the company which owns Rangers' history. And a beautiful thing happened where I found I always automatically fell into conversation with whatever "mature" Bluenose seemed to always be sat beside me. People generally chat with strangers at the football anyway but at Ibrox, this season, there's probably more of a sense of cameraderie than ever - as well as a need for a kind of Californian "positive reinforecement".

As i chatted away with punters about games past and present, what's been reinforced is the view that the fans do indeed hold the core of the club and, more to the point, it confirmed I could continue coming to Ibrox for the rest of my life and share memories with people who'd also spent decades watching the same club as me, experiencing the same emotions at the same times, all through our personal but shared football pasts. It's been like some sort of West Coast (Clyde Coast!)fan therapy.

My worst post-liquidation experience so far was seeing the newco beat Falkirk from the same seat I'd sat in for the last 12 years, the same seat from which I'd seen us hold the Barca of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta to a goalless draw in the Champions League, from where I'd seen us beating Celtic 5-1 and giving Werder Bremen a going-over during the run to Manchester in a way which convinced me we were indeed finally returning to a European final. That was a mistake. Seeing the newco with my old eyes did not help at all - not that early on in the season anyway. Even though we were pumelling Falkirk out of the League Cup at the time, I realised I needed new angles from which to regard Kevin Kyle and ian Black in Rangers jerseys as anything other than a huge kick in the teeth.

So it was the rear of the Copland Stand for the Queen of the South game. Last time I'd been in that part of the ground was when Gaizka Mendieta beautifully conducted Hector Cuper's gorgeous Valencia team to a classy Champions LEague win enroute to the final. But it was also a part of the stadium I inhabited with my pals in the early 80s when rangers were struggling in front of 10,000 in the Premier Division - so it was all good. Losing a game is never good, especially on penalties, but if moving round the stadium has been therapeutic then this was self-harming. I watched those Dumfries punters going nuts, up the opposite end, and felt a tiny but gutted that Rangers wouldn't be winning a trophy which we'd never won before - nor Celtic! :-) - and a bit more gutted that we wouldn't do ourselves and the SFL the respect of winning it's secondary cup competition for all three years of our minimum stint outside the SPL. I was walking back to my car thinking "this is the newco's first on-field outright deviation from the plan of freakish domination" and then I thought - shit, yeah - this hurts. And if I'm hurting, even just a little bit, I must truly care about the newco.

HMRC claim was over 94 million.