Tangled Up in Blue
Page 43
The ‘Gallant Pioneers’; the Rangers team which reached the Scottish Cup Final in 1877. Tom Vallance (centre) is wearing a lion rampant badge to indicate his status as an international. Peter Campbell (on one knee) is to his left with Moses McNeil (arms folded) next along. Other founders Peter McNeil and William McBeath were no longer playing for the club.
The original Ibrox Park, 1887; the row of houses in the background (behind the goal) still stand and give a good indication of the position of the old ground relative to the modern stadium.
The Glasgow Exhibition Cup, won by Rangers in 1901 but presented to Celtic as the winners of the British League Cup in 1902. Celtic have since refused all requests to return the trophy to Ibrox.
The first Ibrox disaster, April 1902; hundreds fell through the gap, 70 foot long and 10 foot wide which opened up in the western terrace during the Scotland vs England international match. Twenty-five were killed.
Rangers 2 Celtic 2, Scottish Cup Final replay, 17 April 1909: Using cheap whisky as fuel, rioting Old Firm fans set fire to pay boxes at Hampden in the belief that the result had been arranged to ensure another lucrative replay. The cup that year was withheld.
Illustration of Rangers player Jimmy Bowie, October 1922; later a director and chairman, Bowie was ousted in a boardroom coup by the club’s all-powerful manager Bill Struth in 1947.
The Rangers team pose with directors after beating Celtic 4 -0 in the Scottish Cup Final of 1928, ending a 25-year run without winning the trophy. Penalty taker and stand-in skipper Davie Meiklejohn is standing, second from the left.
Fatal collision; Celtic goalkeeper John Thomson dives at the feet of Rangers forward Sam English, Ibrox Park 5 September 1931. Thomson suffered a depressed fracture of the skull and later died.
Portrait in oils of Bill Struth, Rangers manager from 1920–54, in the Trophy Room at Ibrox.
Old-fashioned Rangers; European Cup semi-final first leg, April 1960, Eintracht Frankfurt 6 Rangers 1. Manager Scot Symon was later criticised by some of his players for failing to offer any tactical or motivational advice at half-time with the score at 1-1.
Rangers left-half Jim Baxter arrives at the Victoria Infirmary with his leg in plaster, alongside Davie Wilson, December 1964. With Baxter’s injury went any hope Rangers had of winning the European Cup.
Action from the Cup Winners’ Cup Final May 1967, Bayern Munich 1 Rangers 0 aet: Rangers players later admitted that Celtic’s European Cup win in Lisbon less than a week earlier had a negative effect on their performance.
St James’ Park, May 1969, Rangers’ Ronnie MacKinnon beats Newcastle’s Wyn Davies to the header. Newcastle won the match 2-0 precipitating the first in a series of outbreaks of hooliganism, linked to religious bigotry, by Rangers fans at this time.
Stairway to hell: Sixty-six people died at the second Ibrox disaster, 2 January 1971. The ‘waterfall’ design of Stairway 13 was later found to have been unsafe. Rangers escaped blame for the disaster at the subsequent Fatal Accident Inquiry, leading to accusations of a cover-up.
Rangers players Derek Johnstone, Colin Jackson and Dave Smith visit injured spectators at the Victoria Infirmary following the Ibrox disaster.
John Greig, captain of the Rangers/Celtic Select XI, introduces the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir Donald Liddle, to team-mates including Billy McNeill, George Best and Bobby Charlton.
The Rangers players receive the trophy in their dressing room after victory over Dynamo Moscow in the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup, May 1972. There was no trophy presentation in front of the fans.
The Rangers team which won the Treble in 1976. They later repeated the feat in 1978, before manager Jock Wallace (front row left) quit the club in acrimonious circumstances.
‘The Three Amigos’: Souness reversed the flow, stretching back decades, of Scottish talent heading south by bringing high profile English players to Ibrox. Here, Chris Woods, Terry Butcher and Graham Roberts make their way to Glasgow Sheriff Court, after being charged with ‘conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace’ during a match against Celtic in October 1987.
May 1989: Now you see him…
July 1989: Now you don’t… Maurice Johnston became the first known Catholic to sign for Rangers since the Edwardian era.
Graeme Souness conducts the Prime Minister on a tour of Ibrox Park, March 1990. Rangers’ spending at this time was described as a Thatcherite bubble, which never seemed to burst.
The spending at Rangers continued under the new partnership of manager Walter Smith (left) and chairman David Murray (right) with the club bringing in talented foreign players such as the Danish winger Brian Laudrup.
The apex of Rangers’ unsustainable spending came during the extravagant Dick Advocaat years: The Dutch trainer shares a word with his £12m signing Tore André Flo.
A copy of the side-letter used to top up the remuneration of Tore André Flo. These letters were kept hidden from both the SFA and HMRC, which led to an investigation by both bodies.
Rangers captain Barry Ferguson lifts the CIS Insurance Cup after a 2-1 defeat of Celtic, the first part of a domestic Treble in 2003. It was later revealed that Rangers were employing the unlawful EBT tax avoidance scheme throughout these years, which allowed them to retain and pay players they would otherwise have been unable to afford.
Frenchman Paul Le Guen’s short-lived spell as Rangers manager was characterised by a strange recruitment policy, including the purchase of Slovakian striker Filip Sebo from Austria Vienna.
May 2011; Craig Whyte is congratulated by Rangers fans after completing his purchase of the club, for £1, from Sir David Murray.
‘Preferred bidder’ Charles Green (right) with David Whitehouse from administrators Duff and Phelps. After the club’s liquidation, Green acquired the business and assets of Rangers from former owner Craig Whyte. The colour-coded irony of the transaction was lost on no one.
How the media originally covered the liquidation of Rangers in June 2012; they would soon change their tune.
The Rangers crest on the Bill Struth main stand at Ibrox. The inscription bears the wrong date of the club’s foundation, which caused confusion to club historians for many years. (courtesy of football-stadiums.co.uk)