Rangers’ route back to Scotland’s top tier even rockier than expected

A return to the top of Scottish football is proving a tougher journey for Rangers both on and off the field than we initially expected, writes Matt Smith.

Rangers fans in 2012 displaying the now famous 'We don't do walking away' banner. In the time since, fans have been staying away in their droves as Rangers becomes fraught with off-field problems and underwhelming on-pitch results.Show less

Hardly a day goes by without Rangers, the fallen Glasgow club, being in the Scottish back-page news.

And very rarely is the news good.

These are once-great European giants who have more top-flight league titles and domestic trebles than any other club in the world.

They are first British club to reach a European final and are winners of the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1972.

They have won the Scottish League 54 times and claim to have one of the biggest fan bases of any club, both domestically and around the globe.

In 2008, they competed in a Uefa Cup final.

Yet now they have found themselves at the forefront of one of the biggest collapses in footballing history, due to liquidation in 2012.

Some claim the club who achieved such heights – most from the following of their long-time local rivals Celtic and other doom-mongers – ceased to exist when they were liquidated, therefore these records do not stand for the “New Rangers” (try telling that to the tens of thousands of fans who believe this is the one-and-only original club).

Rangers had been in the top division from their inception in 1872 until their liquidation at the end of the 2011/12 season, which saw them, with a new corporate identity, gain admittance to the four tier of Scottish football.

This goes much further than a collapse in performance, change of board or influence from rich investors from abroad, as many a club have witnessed help in their demise.

The finger of blame for this downfall has been pointed in many directions, but it remains alarming how precarious the pedestal of power can be.

David Murray, the Scottish metal businessman bought the club in 1988 and led them to nine domestic titles in a row, and a sense of “The Untouchables” came over the club.

Fans thought: “This will never happen to us”. It did.

Fast forward to 2012 and we saw the birth of “New Rangers”, “Sevco Scotland Ltd” or “The Rangers” and a string of businessmen try to fail to steady the financial ship, some with more shady solutions than others.

The actual name is still up for debate as moneymen wrangle over naming rights for the club and the stadium, Ibrox (well, that was what it was called when this was written).

Rangers – let us call them Rangers for now – were accepted into the bottom league that has no relegation with a number of sanctions in place, including a one-year transfer ban, in time for the club to begin the 2012/13 campaign.

Their major players, many of them internationals, refused to sign for the new club, obviously used to the higher wages and TV time that came with domestic top-billing and European football.

However, the loyal fans who believed they would march straight back up to their alleged place at the top table seemed to be proved right on Day 1 as they crushed East Stirlingshire 5-1 in front of a record fourth-tier attendance of 49,118 (the lower clubs are used to 500 on a good day).

Tougher times, on the field, were ahead.

Rangers romped to the fourth and third-tier titles leagues as winners, but have since encountered stiffer competition in the Championship (Scotland’s second league) without a blank chequebook or the lure to attract domestic talent to a “bigger” club, as was their wont in their heyday.

Edinburgh clubs Hearts and Hibernian went down from the Premiership last term, and Rangers’ saunter back to the top is no longer a guarantee.

Two losses to Hibs, plus Hearts’ seemingly insurmountable 13-point lead at the top of the Championship table has added another seed (tree?) of doubt among fans.

Defiant supporters had claimed in 2012 “We don’t do walking away”, but they have been staying away in their droves as their club have stumbled to defeats and draws against clubs only five years ago they would have expected to put six or seven past in and early round of a cup competition.

The empty seats at Ibrox do not lie on matchdays, and a club of this stature should know where the bread and butter lie.

This week, former manager and director Walter Smith vowed he would never return to the club, having witnessed the chaos off the field.

Also this week, a very attractive offer came in from an interested American investor, but both it and its improved offer were rejected.

On Thursday, the power struggle took a new twist as it was reported Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley is ready to provide a loan of £10 million (Dh55.9m) to Rangers but wants security of Ibrox Stadium and the club’s Murray Park training ground.

The Three Bears consortium, led by local businessman Douglas Park, countered by offering a loan of half that amount, but only requesting two seats on the club board and security over Murray Park.

It is like a game of Monopoly in the real world.

All of this leaves the many, many thousands of Rangers fans wondering what will happen and what future, if any, their beloved club will have.

As Walter Smith said, following the sale of promising player Lewis Macleod to an English Championship side: “I’m delighted that less than seven years after appearing in a European final we are now almost as big a club as Brentford.”

But, with the many mysteries still surrounding Rangers, their ownership, their future, their survival, a lot can change in a day.

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