Glasgow Rangers: the bigger you are, the harder you fall

Rangers Football Club need no introduction. 55 Scottish league titles, 34 Scottish Cup titles, 28 Scottish League Cup titles, one Cup Winners' Cup title, and one half of the Old Firm, possibly the most famous city rivalry in the world.

 

The Teddy Bears are a giant club, but this status couldn't prevent their fall when financial issues came knocking in 2012. But let's take a step back to the beginning. May 2011 saw Rangers win the league title by just one point over arch-rivals Celtic and former owner David Murray sell 85.3% of the club to Craig Whyte's Wavetower Limited for just one pound. The following summer Rangers legend and all-time topscorer Ally McCoist, whose spell as a player saw him take part in 416 matches and score 251 times, was appointed as manager after having served for four years as an assistant manager at the club.

McCoist was appointed with the task of qualifying for UEFA competitions in order to secure vital income that would keep the club's finances in check, but the bizarre transfer policies imposed by Whyte made negotiations fall through, like the possible arrival of hungarian centre-back Roland Juhasz from Anderlecht and dutch striker Wesley Verhoek from ADO Den Haag. These failed deals prevented the squad from getting much needed help in the quest for European football, with the Champions League third qualifying round double fixture against FF Malmoe approaching. A 0-1 defeat at Ibrox meant that Rangers had to go to Sweden in a must-win match, which they failed to do so as the Swedish champions equalized in the 80th minute in a match which saw the home side get one red card and the Scottish visitors get two more (Whittaker and Bougherra).

Forced out of the main continental competition, McCoist's boy were now required to at least get to the Europa League group stage in order to salvage some sort of prize from the campaign, and the new obstacle was Slovenian side NK Maribor, who at the time had just started a dominant streak of five consecutive domestic titles and were about to become European group stage regulars. The first leg in Maribor saw Rangers score first but then conceding twice to eventually lose 2-1 with a stoppage time goal for the Slovenians, so once again the Scottish champions had gotten themselves in a situation in which they just had one possible result to survive elimination. Maribor striked first at Ibrox though, and Rangers only could pull one back to tie the match but still lose 2-3 on aggregate, crashing out of Europe altogether while still in August.

In terms of domestic competitions, the club had alternating success. Off to a flying start in the league with 38 points from the first 14 matches, a tough run of form combined with a massive Celtic win streak meant that Rangers could only get to 2nd place in the league despite having a big lead over the rivals by november. In the cup competitions however no joy was reserved for the boys in blue, as they crashed out of the league cup at First Division side Falkirk and lost to Dundee United in the Scottish Cup. This meant no trophies at Ibrox for the 2011-12 season, but this was a lesser issue compared to what was about to come for the club. The missed revenue from the double continental crashout in August meant that the income at the club wasn't as high as expected, so Rangers entered administration in February over an alleged non-payment of 9 million pounds in taxes and was docked 10 points, which meant the title fight was already over despite a dozen matchweeks still to be played. By April it was revealed that the club's debt could be as high as 134 million pounds, and in May Whyte sold his share of the club to a consortium led by businessman Charles Green under the condition that Green's settlement to the creditors would be accepted in order to exit administration. When the offer was rejected the club entered the liquidation process, and the assets, including Rangers F.C., Ibrox Stadium and the club's Training Centre were sold to a consortium led by Green.

On July 4th a vote was held between the other eleven clubs that were part of the Scottish Premier League to decide if Rangers would be allowed to keep their top tier status, but ten clubs voted against, with only Kilmarnock abstaining from the vote. Another vote was held on July 13th between the Scottish Football League clubs to decide if Rangers could get a membership, for which 29 of the 30 clubs voted in favour, and to decide if they could re-start from the First Division, the second tier of Scottish football, for which the voting saw 25 votes against Rangers. This meant that the club had to start over from the Third Division, the fourth tier.

The first and only season of Rangers FC in the fourth tier was oviously a blue domination, with the Teddy Bears winning the league by a massive 24 points over Peterhead and claiming promotion in a 0-0 draw at Montrose by the end of March. This season saw Rangers attract more than 45 thousand fans to Ibrox on average, astonishing numbers that show the affection for the club despite the liquidation and restart from the fourth tier.

The 2013-14 season in the newly formed League One was absolutely an exercise of record smashing for Rangers: 102 points out of a possible 108, undefeated, won the league by 39 points, scoring 106 goals with a +88 goal difference, any possible record for the third tier of Scottish football you can possibly think of was beaten in that one season. The following year they managed to get all the way to the playoff final, but a 6-1 aggregate loss to Motherwell meant that a second season in Championship purgatory was the fate. The next year would have a much sweeter ending: after four seasons in the swamps of lower league football, mighty Rangers were back in the Premiership. A 1-0 win over Dumbarton at Ibrox secured the title and promotion with four matches to spare.

From 2016 onwards, Rangers have become once more what they were before the liquidation tragedy, ending a 9-year domination by Celtic by winning the 2021 league title and missing out on the Europa League trophy on penalties against Eintracht Frankfurt in the 2022 final. Now the days of the lower divisions seem far off, but for Rangers fans the pain of those years will forever make every success, every Old Firm derby and every European night at Ibrox that much more special.