Celebrate 140 Years

Rangers today celebrate 140 years as Scotland’s greatest institution behind the Church of Scotland.

It’s something we should celebrate, as our club reaches another milestone in our illustrious history.

This club we love is the most successful club in Scotland and the best supported club in Scotland.

As I write this, the club has sold 50,000 tickets for the next Division 3 match on Saturday against Peterhead. We are the only club in Britain with that kind of real “on the ground” support.

It’s easy to forget just how big we are as media outlets try and diminish the achievements and standing of the club.

It would also be understandable if bears accepted that as we are, for now, a division 3 side we should not command the same media coverage as we did in the SPL, however, I’d challenge that and remind all bears that we are still the best supported club in Scotland by a distance.

Therefor, while the media will put us on the front or back pages when news is negative, but 6 pages in from the back when it is positive, the simple response is to stop buying or reading print media, listening to certain snide Radio stations, and using websites of national broadcasters, until we get the level of fair recognition we deserve.

Our sporting institution is just that, and our club has a rich sporting heritage of success and dignity that is unmatched in Scotland.

Set up by 4 young lads whose only dream was a football one, it displayed Glasgow’s proud Protestant heritage of dignity and respect, and found Scotland’s proud Protestant people ready and willing to take the club to their hearts.

The club has grown and evolved over the years, but still attracts the largest crowds, the largest demographic, and the largest tv audiences in Scotland, and welcomes supporters of all creeds and faiths to every last nook and cranny of the club. Our club has been at the vanguard of change for 140 years, and has always been careful to balance its heritage with its future, and while David Murray may have skewed that balance, one can only hope that today’s press conference to celebrate that 140 years is underpinned going forward by a true desire to build a museum to celebrate everything Rangers, then now and forever.

Of course, finances and how the current management team achieve such a museum should be transparent and funded without limiting the club’s ability to compete on our journey back to the summit of Scottish Football

The existing sponsors of the Scottish game are well aware of the pull of Rangers, and this may well force the hand of the SFA and SPL as Sky and others apply pressure to restructure the game in Scotland.

Peter Lawwell may disagree that change in the game is inevitable, but as powerful as he is, that decision will be forced by Sky, the SFL and Rangers

When this happens, and I believe it will, then Rangers will be in a very strong position to recover and build for the next 140 years.

Some Celtic fans are trying their best to question the continuity in our history, in a rather haphazard fashion that is to be laughed at and ridiculed.

Rangers are never going to go away, and the SFA's transfer of licence from Rangers oldco to newco alongside legal clarification from Lord Nimmo Smith that seperates the football club from it's controlling corporate entity only tells us what we already know.

As Celtic celebrate their "125" years, their own controlling corporate identity (as I've previously blogged) was founded in 2001.

No one is questioning that the football club was founded in 1888, even though their original corporate entity was formed in 1897, nine years after the club was formed. The same principle applies to both clubs.

Why let the facts get in the way of propaganda?

Bill