The anticipation of Rangers Football Club’s most important game since winning the European Cup exactly 50 years ago is almost unbearable for the supporters. In order to shorten the waiting time before the final in the Europa League on Wednesday (kick-off 9 p.m.) against Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt, the brothers Stevie and Alan Jukes, known as the music group Saint Phnx, who are close to the club, published a motivational anthem at the beginning of the week. The title: “Make us dream” – makes us dream!
The song went around the world on the internet just a few hours after it was released. Hardly any other club moves people in Scotland as much as Rangers. The lyric stanzas illustrate the inner life of the ancient passion club founded in 1872 – especially the chorus, which contains everything that worries the Rangers just before the showdown: “No matter what may happen, we will always go on / Our darkest days are behind us / Now our time has come again / Destiny written on the wall…”.
With these lines, the supporters said goodbye to coach Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s team to Seville, to the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán final stadium. However, this is only partially true, because the sympathizers traveled directly behind the team. As early as February, when a place in the final was still as far away as Seville itself, despite the success over Borussia Dortmund in the second round, the first fans booked their trip to the Spanish Mediterranean coast. With every subsequent win against Red Star Belgrade, SC Braga and RB Leipzig in the round of 16, quarter-finals and semi-finals, more and more people did the same. Travel expenses skyrocketed, but the end-game experience seems worth every price.
14 years ago, the final trip to Europe only went as far as Manchester
Up to 100,000 “Gers”, as Rangers fans call them, made their way to Seville from all over the world, most of them without tickets and some even without accommodation. The adventurous travel reports can be read in the island media. One fan, Derek MacDougall, told BBC Scotland that he even traveled from Australia for the game despite not even having a ticket. But he just has to be there. As early as Monday, 32 charter flights left Glasgow for Andalusia. The migration of peoples is reminiscent of the Rangers’ participation in the final when the competition was still called the Uefa Cup, 14 years ago. At that time, the team even accompanied a quarter of a million people – but only across the inner-British border to Manchester. For a football game, mind you, which Glasgow then lost 2-0 to Zenit St. Petersburg.
A call to Scottish legend Graeme Souness, 69, three-time European Cup winner with Liverpool, who ended his career as a player-coach with Rangers between 1986 and 1991, helps to classify the unbridled enthusiasm. The support for the Rangers no longer has anything to do “with being a normal fan”, says Souness, it’s “a way of life”. For him, Rangers are one of the four British clubs that have long since outgrown club status, along with their neighbors Celtic, Liverpool FC and Manchester United. What do they depict instead? “Institutions!” Souness explains: “If they lose, people don’t want to go to work the next day.” The pressure on players, coaches and officials at Glasgow clubs is even greater than at Liverpool or Manchester because their dominance in the Scottish Premiership means they are expected to win every game. The league is therefore similar to a pair of scales: the more one wins, the less the other. Celtic and Rangers combine 107 of 126 championships, this season Celtic clinched the title. The bitter rivalry is the lifeblood of both clubs – but at the same time it ruined Rangers.
The fan organization “Club 1872” owns five percent of the club
The heavily indebted club went bankrupt ten years ago after years of mismanagement caused by a change of ownership and disputes with the British Inland Revenue. The bankruptcy forced Rangers to be relegated and begin rebuilding under a new operator in the semi-professional Fourth Division. But the perseverance of the fans, who packed Ibrox Park with around 50,000 spectators at every home game, kept the club alive. The fan organization “Club 1872” now owns five percent of the club and has announced that it will soon take over the other 15 percent from majority owner and former chairman Dave King. The remaining shares are even more split, with twelve percent, the second most are currently held by club boss Douglas Park.
The football tanker, who had run aground in the meantime, started moving again, especially with the signing of ex-Liverpool player Steven Gerrard as coach in the summer of 2018 – and when such heavyweights pick up speed, they can rarely be stopped. As well as reaching the Europa League round of 16 twice, Gerrard led a largely unknown squad to the 2021 championship, the first in a decade – before surprisingly defecting to Aston Villa in November. The Dutchman van Bronckhorst, 47, who once played 118 competitive games for Rangers as a professional, took over for him.
According to Souness, the team have “no obvious star” who could play for a top club next season. He likes the tricky attacker Joe Aribo best; midfielder John Lundstram, brought in from Sheffield United, has developed well in the second half of the season, he says. In addition to the 40-year-old goalkeeper Allan McGregor, the captain of the eleven, James Tavernier, was particularly striking: right-back – and with seven goals the leading scorer in the competition. Only: Are the internationally inexperienced players up to this unique opportunity? Souness believes that the players are used to “a big crowd” from the home games, and away each opponent is like “in a cup final” anyway. Given the budget, which is uncompetitive at international level, Souness would rate the Europa League title as “the greatest success in the club’s history”. However, he could not watch the game himself because his daughter was getting married on the same day. The celebration has been planned for two years.
And back then it was inconceivable that Glasgow Rangers could make their fans dream again so quickly.