1898-1918 In A League Of Their Own
Since they shared the first League Championship with Dumbarton in 1890-91, Rangers had never finished lower than fifth in the table. Now they stood on the threshold of greatness.
For not only were they to win their first Championship outright. They were also to achieve a feat which has been beyond every other club side in the world.
Rangers, under the watchful eye of their match secretary William Wilton, uniquely won every single League game in the 1898-99 season.
Eighteen games, eighteen victories, a maximum 36 points. They scored 79 goals at an average of more than four a game, conceding just 18.
Runners-up Hearts were 10 points adrift in the days when a victory was worth only two.
Rangers began with a 6-2 annihilation of Partick Thistle.
The captain Robert Hamilton, who still holds the club record for Old Firm matches with 32 goals against Celtic, scored a hat-trick.
Hamilton, a schoolmaster, was to find the net a further 18 times that season.
With 10 straight victories under their belt, Rangers' away game at Hibernian was the crunch. Hibs were being touted as the only serious rivals for the title and looked like it when they took a 2-0 lead.
Rangers squared the game in the second-half then conceded another goal. As the match see-sawed, Hamilton came to the rescue to make it 3-3.
With just seconds to go, Rangers were awarded a penalty. Up stepped Neil to ram the ball home. They had won with the last kick of the match.
Rangers inflicted some devastating scorelines on their opponents. Clyde were beaten 8-0 and the Championship was wrapped up with a 7-0 humiliation of Dundee.
With four games left, the only question was could Rangers continue to be invincible? Next up were Hibernian at Ibrox on Christmas Eve.
There were to be no Christmas gifts from Rangers. Hibs, the team who had been spoken of as title rivals and who had run them so close at Easter Road, were demolished 10-0, still their record defeat.
In the end, everything hung on the last match away to Clyde in January. Conditions were icy, but Rangers won 3-0 to achieve an incredible perfect League season.
However Celtic, who finished third and had been polished off with 4-0 and 4-1 defeats, were to thwart Rangers' dreams of the Cup.
In the Scottish Cup Final, Rangers had an early goal disallowed for offside and Celtic took the trophy 2-0. Rangers would have to wait 29 years to do the League and Cup Double.
Wilton was rewarded with his appointment as the Club's first Manager as Rangers formally became a business company. Rangers Football Club Limited was established in March 1899 and appointed its first board of directors under the chairmanship of James Henderson.
Later that year they moved to New Ibrox - site of the present stadium - just up the road from the old ground where they had played since 1887.
This increasingly professional approach by the club paid handsome dividends. Rangers retained the title for the next three seasons making it Four-In-A-Row.
These momentous times were marred, though, by the first of Ibrox's tragedies. A section of the western terracing collapsed during a Scotland v England match in 1902. Twenty five people died and 500 were injured.
1919-1939 A Glorious Double
The season of 1919-20 was a golden one for Rangers. The previous term they had been pipped for the title by just one point by Celtic. Now they were ready to reassert themselves.
They won 31 of their 42 League games, drawing nine and losing just two. But it was the manner of those victories that impressed. Rangers scored 106 goals and conceded just 25.
A vital factor had been the emergence of a man who had joined the club in 1914 as trainer. His name was William Struth.
Together, manager William Wilton and right-hand man Struth began a period of Rangers domination that was to last until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
Sadly, Wilton was not to enjoy this extraordinary success which saw Rangers take the title 15 times in 21 seasons. With the Championship back at Ibrox, Wilton - the club's first manager - died the day after the last game of the season in May 1920, drowning in a boating accident.
Struth, who was appointed his successor, lived to become a legend. He managed the club for 34 years, winning a glittering array of trophies - 18 League Championships, 10 Scottish Cups and two League Cups.
And one player in his squad created a curious record. James Gordon, who was with Rangers from 1910 until 1930, became the only player ever in British football to appear for his club in all positions from goalkeeper to the old-fashioned outside left.
By the time the 1927-28 season came round, Rangers had already won the title five times during the seven seasons that Struth had been in the hot seat. And this was to be their best yet. The year they won their first Double.
Rangers, the current Champions, showed their mettle from the start, winning their first six League games. Some victories were sweeter than others. Rangers shared the spoils with Celtic - each team winning at home 1-0 - but their 7-2 triumph at Airdrie was their first success there in six years.
Rangers set themselves a new League goals record, finishing with 109 as they won 28 of their 36 games, drawing eight and losing four.
Meanwhile, Rangers were making confident progress in the Cup which they hadn't won since 1903.
They cruised through the first round, winning 6-0 at East Stirling. Home victories followed over Cowdenbeath (4-2) and King's Park (3-1). Then a 1-0 defeat of Albion Rovers away put them into the semi-finals against Hibernian.
The match, played at Tynecastle, was a comfortable 3-0 victory for Rangers with goals from Archibald and Fleming plus an own goal by Hibernian's Wiseman.
A record crowd of 118,115 packed into Hampden for the Final against Celtic and a goalless first-half gave no clue to the drama that was to come.
Early in the second-half a Rangers shot was punched off the line by Celtic defender Willie McStay. Penalty!
Skipper Davie Meiklejohn - not a normal penalty taker - stepped up and made it 1-0. Bob McPhail scored the second and Sandy Archibald made it three with a blistering long-range shot.
With five minutes to go, Archibald drove the final nail into Celtic's coffin. Rangers' arch-rivals had been vanquished 4-0 and the Scottish Cup was back at Ibrox for the first time in a quarter of a century.
There was no rest for the heroic boys in blue. Within three days they were facing Kilmarnock in the League. It was a walkover. The score was 5-1, the title was theirs. Rangers had achieved the Double at last.
It didn't stop there. Rangers retained the Championship for the next three seasons making it Five-In-A-Row and won four more titles (1932-33, 1933-34, 1936-37 and 1938-39) before the outbreak of war.
By now Rangers were making up for lost time in the Cup. Having gone so long without leaving much of an impression, they were to lift it six times in nine years. There were further Final victories in 1930 (Partick 2-1 after a 0-0 draw), 1932 (Kilmarnock 3-0 after a 1-1 draw), 1934 (a 5-0 thrashing of St Mirren), 1935 (Hamilton 2-1) and 1936 (Third Lanark 1-0).
Even the Double, which had eluded them for so long, was becoming easy for Rangers with the victorious teams of 1930 and 1934 making it three in seven years.
There were a few disappointments, perhaps the strangest being in the 1931-32 season when Rangers scored their record number of League goals - 118 in 38 matches - yet finished runners-up in the Championship to Motherwell. Soon they were to score 118 in a season again - but this time it was in that Double year of 1933-34.
The Thirties provided an almost unbroken period of fabulous success for Rangers, highlighted by yet another record in the last Old Firm League match at Ibrox before the war.
On January 2nd 1939, the biggest crowd ever to watch a League football match in the British Isles turned out for the traditional holiday fixture with Celtic. Ibrox was bursting at the seams as 118,567 fans crammed in to watch Dave Kinnear and Alex Venters give Rangers a 2-1 win.
Within months, however, players and fans would be uniting to face a common enemy, fighting against Hitler's Germany. The Scottish Championship was suspended, though clubs continued to play in regional leagues.
Rangers won all their wartime competitions in the Southern Regional League - including one match in which they gave Celtic an 8-1 beating.
When Scottish League football returned in the winter of 1946, William Struth would still be in command at Ibrox and Rangers would maintain their winning ways.
1946-1970 A Historic Treble
After the end of the Second World War, Rangers played host to Moscow Dynamo who wound up a four-match British tour at Ibrox in November 1945. Dynamo had drawn 3-3 with Chelsea and beaten Cardiff 10-1 and Arsenal 4-3.
The Russians scored after three minutes and when Willie Waddell missed a penalty for Rangers it looked like Dynamo would come out on top. But Rangers fought back and held them to a 2-2 draw, despite the fact that the visitors had 12 players on the pitch at one point!
When normal League football returned to Scotland in the winter of 1946-47, it was with a difference. A new competition had been devised, the Scottish League Cup.
Rangers, still under the guidance of long-serving manager William Struth, won the first Final, beating Aberdeen 4-0. They also picked up where they had left off in 1939 by winning the first post-war Championship.
It was as if nothing had changed, and yet there was better to come. A 1-0 victory in a replayed Scottish Cup Final against Morton in 1948 was followed by the greatest season up to then in Rangers' history.
In 1948-49, Rangers became the first team to win the League, the Scottish Cup, and the League Cup in one season. It was the first glorious treble in Scottish football.
In those days, the early stage of the League Cup was played in sections and it looked odds on that Celtic, in the same group as Rangers, would come out on top. That is until Celtic, amazingly, contrived to let in six goals at home to Clyde.
The upshot was that Rangers' final section game against Celtic would decide who would go through. A crowd of 105,000 packed into Ibrox to watch the cliffhanger. Goals from Billy Williamson and Waddell gave Rangers a 2-1 win and pitted them against St Mirren in the quarter-final.
A 1-0 victory and a 4-1 romp over Dundee in the semi set Rangers up for a League Cup Final appearance against Raith Rovers in the Spring. A 2-0 win meant Rangers had completed the first leg.
Rangers path in the Scottish Cup was much more comfortable. They reached the Final with easy victories over Elgin, Motherwell, Partick and then East Fife in the semi, scoring 17 goals and conceding just one.
The Final itself proved no difficulty, Rangers seeing off Clyde 4-1. One curiosity emerged from the match. Williamson, who had scored the winning goal in the previous season's Final, again found the net, giving him the remarkable record of having played in only two Scottish Cup games, both of them Finals, and scoring on both occasions.
The second leg of the treble was now safely at Ibrox, but the odds on them winning the Championship seemed stacked against Rangers. The race for the title had been a titanic struggle between Rangers and Dundee. Rangers had enjoyed an unbeaten run of 12 games but couldn't shake off their rivals.
It was going down to the wire and, on the last day of the season, Dundee needed a draw at Falkirk to seal it. Surely they wouldn't slip up?
Rangers did all that they could with Willie Thornton scoring a hat-trick as they won 4-1 at Albion Rovers. But the news from Brockville Park was astonishing.
Dundee had crashed 4-1. The title and the Treble belonged to Rangers. History had been made.
Much of Rangers success in the post-war years was based on the quality of their defence which was known as "The Iron Curtain".
Bobby Brown didn't miss a game in goal from the start of the 1946-47 season until April 1952. Full backs George Young and Jock Shaw stood behind an uncompromising half-back line of Ian McColl, Willie Woodburn and Sammy Cox.
McColl had succeeded Scot Symon, who was to write his name in the record books by becoming Rangers' third manager in 1954.
Struth was to collect two more League and Cup Doubles in 1949-50 and 1952-53 and among Symon's six Championships, five Cups and four League Cups, he did the Double in 1962-63 and then emulated Struth by claiming the Club's second Treble in 1963-64.
Symon, incidentally, was the first man to play both football and cricket for Scotland, a feat matched by future Rangers goalie Andy Goram in 1989.
Rangers won 25 of their 34 League games during that Treble year, losing just four. They achieved the double over Celtic, but surprisingly lost at home and away to St Johnstone.
The League Cup was secured with a 5-0 victory over Morton in the Final and Rangers beat Dundee 3-1 to lift the Scottish Cup.
It was to be 11 seasons before Rangers would be Champions again. Worse still, Celtic were to win nine consecutive titles during that time.
But there were compensations. Rangers won the League Cup twice (1964-65 and 1970-71) and the Scottish Cup in 1966. On all three occasions they defeated Celtic in the Final.
European competition also beckoned. Rangers had first played in the European Cup in 1956-57, when they had gone out to Nice after a first round play-off, and in 1960 they reached the semi-final, losing to Eintracht Frankfurt.
But in 1961 they became the first Scottish side to reach a European Final when they contested the Cup Winners' Cup against Fiorentina, going down 4-1 on aggregate over two legs.
By 1967 Rangers had reached the Cup Winners' Cup Final again only to face another disappointment, losing by the only goal of the game in extra time to Bayern Munich.
Season 1967-68 saw Davie White installed as Rangers' fourth manager. They lost just one League game in his first term - 3-2 at home to Aberdeen - yet could finish only runners-up to Celtic for the title.
White was dismissed after little more than two years and Rangers turned to former Ibrox star Willie Waddell as their fifth manager in 1969.
Waddell was to make up for those disappointments with Rangers' first European prize. He also won the Scottish League Cup in 1970-71 when a young lad called Derek Johnstone scored the only goal to beat Celtic.
But Waddell also had to endure the gravest event in Rangers' history which was about to engulf the Club.
1971 The Ibrox Disaster 
It was the afternoon of the Old Firm game, Rangers v Celtic at Ibrox, Saturday January 2 1971.
The match was heading for a 0-0 draw when Jimmy Johnstone broke the deadlock to give Celtic the lead in the 89th minute.
Then, with just seconds left on the clock, Colin Stein snatched a dramatic equaliser for Rangers.
The blue section of the 80,000 all-ticket crowd went wild with delight. The green was thrown into despair.
Two goals in a minute. What a finish! Yet, unseen amid this sea of emotions, a disaster was beginning to unfold at the Rangers end of the ground over on the East terrace at Staircase 13.
As the fans swayed away from the heaving mass, some stumbled halfway down the steep steps. Those around didn't see them fall and continued their descent.
Suddenly a tidal wave of fans was engulfed in a terrifying crush. Steel barriers crumpled under the impact.
When the carnage cleared, 66 people had lost their lives and more than 140 lay injured.
Among the dead were 31 teenagers. The youngest victim was a boy of nine, Nigel Pickup, who had travelled to the game from Liverpool.
One woman was among the fatalities. Margaret Ferguson, an 18-year-old from Maddiston near Falkirk, had made a doll for the baby daughter of Rangers centre-forward Stein - the man who scored the late equaliser - and had delivered it to his home just before Christmas.
Five schoolboy pals, four of whom lived in the same street, had gone to the game together from the small town of Markinch in Fife. The five, all members of Glenrothes Rangers Supporters Club, never returned.
There were so many harrowing tales. Eye-witness John Dawson was among the injured. He said: "When the barrier gave way I was carried along a passageway for 20 yards with three people on top of me and at least three underneath."
Another survivor of Staircase 13 was Robert Black. He said: "There was so much pressure from behind me that I was tossed down on top of others. People were on the ground and I was tossed over them. I was just carried forward by the surge."
Both sides of the Old Firm put aside their rivalries and came together to play a game to raise funds for the victims' families. A combined Rangers and Celtic team took on a Scotland XI at Hampden watched by 81,405 fans.
The tragedy echoed a previous accident on Staircase 13 when two people had been killed.
The club and their fans were in mourning. It was the blackest day in the history of Scottish football.
IN MEMORY OF THE 66 WHO DIED
| GEORGE ADAMS
HUGH ADDIE
DAVID ANDERSON
JOHN BUCHANAN
RICHARD BARKE
ROBERT CAIRNS
ROBERT CARRIGAN
JOHN CRAWFORD
THOMAS DICKSON
CHARLES DOUGAN
FRANCIS DOVER
DAVID DUFF
PETER EASTON
PETER FARRIES
GEORGE FINDLAY
MARGARET FERGUSON
IAN FREW
JOHN GARDINER
ROBERT GRANT
THOMAS GRANT
JAMES GRAY
CHARLES LIVINGSTON
ADAM HENDERSON
IAN HUNTER
BRIAN HUTCHISON
GEORGE IRWIN
JOHN JEFFREY
ANDREW LINDSAY
JAMES MAIR
RUSSEL MALCOLM
ROBERT MAXWELL
ROBERT McADAM
DUNCAN McBREARTY |
DAVID McGHEE
JAMES McGOVERN
ALEX McINTYRE
JOHN McLEAY
RICHARD McLEAY
DONALD McPHERSON
THOMAS McROBBIE
THOMAS MELVILLE
THOMAS MORGAN
DOUGLAS MORRISON
ROBERT MULHOLLAND
JOHN NEIL
ALEXANDER ORR
MARTIN PATON
MASON PHILLIPS
NIGEL PICKUP
JAMES RAE
ROBERT RAE
WALTER RAEBURN
MATTHEW REID
JOHN SEMPLE
WILLIAM SHAW
WALTER SHIELDS
JAMES SIBBALD
GEORGE SMITH
WILLIAM SOMERHILL
CHARLES STIRLING
THOMAS STIRLING
DONALD SUTHERLAND
BRIAN TODD
JAMES TRAINER
GEORGE WILSON
PETER WRIGHT |
1972-1975 Triumph in Europe
It was the greatest challenge of manager Willie Waddell's life - how to lead Rangers out of the shadows cast by the Ibrox disaster in which 66 fans died?
The early signs were not good for Waddell and his coach Jock Wallace as they strove to overcome the Club's tragic loss.
Rangers had won the League Cup and finished only fourth in Division One in that fateful 1970-71 season. Now the new season had begun disappointingly.
The side lost four of their five opening games, including a 3-2 home defeat by Celtic. They had also been beaten twice by Celtic in August in the section games of the League Cup.
In fact, the Championship was to offer no consolation to Rangers. They lost 11 of their 34 games, ending in third place.
It was in Europe, however, that Rangers would find the stage on which to rediscover themselves. Stade Rennes were their first round opponents in the European Cup Winners' Cup. Rangers drew the first leg in France 1-1 and went through by winning 1-0 at Ibrox.
In the second round, Rangers took only a 3-2 advantage with them to the away leg at Sporting Lisbon. A dramatic match ended in stalemate. It was 4-3 to Lisbon on the night after extra-time and 6-6 on aggregate.
Lisbon won the penalty shoot-out. Rangers were crestfallen. But the referee had made a mistake. Manager Waddell grabbed the rule book and ran on to the pitch to point out the error. Rangers' away goals should have counted double, making them the winners, and it should never have gone to penalties. Rangers emotions changed rapidly as they were awarded the tie.
Waddell had begun to experiment with the team, changing around players and positions in the search for a new style.
Sandy Jardine was switched from the front to become a world-class full back which he would demonstrate in the 1974 World Cup. Dave Smith was converted from midfield into a sweeper and became Scotland's Player of the Year.
Waddell also put the emphasis on youth, building a team for the future. He believed it would take time to find the consistency to win the Championship, but he was sure he had a side good enough to do well in Cup competitions.
His strategy produced mixed results in League games, but it was proving successful against Continental sides.
In the Cup Winners' quarter-final, Rangers were drawn to play the first leg at Torino. Derek Johnstone moved from centre forward to play in defence but still managed to score as Rangers stunned the Italians by taking the lead. Torino pulled one back in the second-half, to leave them visiting Ibrox all square.
Rangers took the home leg 1-0 through an Alex MacDonald goal to set up a semi-final clash against mighty Bayern Munich led by the great West German captain Franz Beckenbauer.
The first leg was in Munich and it brought out an impressive performance from Rangers. The first-half was all Bayern after Breitner scored for the home team. But Rangers withstood the pressure and got their reward when a Colin Stein cross was turned into the net by Bayern's Zobel.
At Ibrox, Rangers were much more confident and the Germans were rocked by a first-minute goal from Jardine. Derek Parlane made it 2-0 by half-time and Rangers were through to the Cup Winners' Cup Final for the third time where they would face Moscow Dynamo.
On both previous occasions, Rangers had come home empty handed, losing to Fiorentina in 1961 and going down by the only goal of the game scored in extra time in 1967 to Bayern. This time it would be different.
By half-time in the Final at Barcelona's Nou Camp stadium, Rangers were cock-a-hoop. A shot from Colin Stein and a header from Willie Johnston had given Rangers a 2-0 lead over Dynamo.
Within minutes of the re-start, Johnston had added a third. It was turning into a stroll. Then Rangers' concentration lapsed and sparked a Russian revival. Dynamo scored with 30 minutes to go. Suddenly, Rangers were on the defensive.
Three minutes left and Dynamo scored again. The tension was unbearable. But Rangers survived and a 3-2 victory had given them their long-desired European prize at last.
Understandably, the army of travelling Rangers fans were overcome with joy. But sadly, they invaded the pitch. Their exuberance met with over zealous policing and resulted in inevitable clashes.
The Cup was not presented in public and Rangers were prevented from defending their hard-won trophy by a one-year ban from Europe.
Within weeks, Waddell had moved on to become General Manager to be succeeded by his coach, Jock Wallace.
Wallace had been player-manager of part-time Berwick when they inflicted an embarrassing 1-0 defeat on Rangers in a Scottish Cup tie in 1967. Five years on, this fitness fanatic was in charge at Ibrox using punishing training methods learned from the great Australian athlete and world mile record holder Herb Elliot.
Wallace's first season was also Rangers' Centenary and they celebrated by winning the Scottish Cup, defeating Celtic 3-2 in the Final. But the real rejoicing was saved until season 1974-75 when at last Rangers broke Celtic's hold on the Championship.
It was to be the last Championship of its kind. Scottish football was changing. The old Division One would no longer be the top flight. A new Premier League was being formed of Scotland's top 10 teams which would play each other four times in the League in a season.
Somehow there was a pattern to it all. Rangers had been co-holders of the first Scottish Division One Championship, were winners of the last . . . and would be the first Champions of the new Scottish Premier League.
1976-1996 A New Beginning
The new Scottish Premier League began in the season of 1975-76. Apart from Rangers, the inaugural members of the elite division were Aberdeen, Ayr, Celtic, Dundee, Dundee United, Hearts, Hibernian, Motherwell and St Johnstone.
Compare those names with the teams who played in the very first Scottish Championship back in 1890-91. Only Rangers, Celtic and Hearts were still there. Others had long gone, such as Abercorn, Cambuslang, Cowlairs and Vale of Leven.
Of the remainder, Dumbarton and St Mirren were in lower divisions and Third Lanark had dropped out of the Scottish League in 1967.
So the brave new world consisted of 10 teams, the same number as the original. The difference was that now clubs would play each other four times a season.
Under Jock Wallace's management, Rangers won 23 of their 36 Championship games that season, drawing eight and losing five. They won both games at home against Celtic and drew the away games. Their defeats were at Aberdeen, soon to become a major force in Scottish football, and at Ayr, Hearts, Hibs and Motherwell.
Rangers won the first Scottish Premier title by six points (when a win was still two points) from runners-up Celtic.
But it wasn't just that title win that made it an historic year. Rangers won the League Cup, beating Celtic 1-0 in the Final, and also lifted the Scottish Cup with a 3-1 victory over Hearts. Rangers had achieved the Treble for the third time.
And then euphoria was replaced by disappointment. The next season the cupboard was bare. But it wasn't empty for long. Within 12 months, Rangers had pulled off their fourth Treble, pipping Aberdeen in the Premier League, defeating Celtic 2-1 in the League Cup Final and beating Aberdeen again 2-1 in the Scottish Cup Final.
Wallace had achieved the Treble twice in three seasons - and then he quit abruptly after a disagreement with Willie Waddell and the Rangers board
Rangers turned to one of their European Cup Winners' Cup heroes, John Greig, to be their seventh manager and he came desperately close to winning the Treble in his first season in charge.
Aberdeen were beaten 2-1 in the League Cup Final and Hibernian were overcome 3-2 at the third attempt in the Scottish Cup Final. But Rangers, who led the table, came unstuck near the end of the 1978-79 season at Parkhead going down 4-2 to Celtic. With just eight minutes to go it had been 2-2. The lapse was enough to hand the title to Celtic.
After such an encouraging start, the honours dried up. There was a Scottish Cup Final triumph over Dundee United, 4-1 after a replay, in 1981 and a 2-1 League Cup Final victory over the same opponents in 1982.
But expectations were high and the pressure was too great. John Greig resigned in 1983 and was replaced by the returning Jock Wallace.
Wallace won the League Cup two years in a row (3-2 over Celtic in 1983-84 and 1-0 against Dundee United in 1984-85), but Rangers' League form was indifferent. These were the years when a "New Firm" - Aberdeen and Dundee United - sought to establish itself and Rangers couldn't finish in the first three.
By 1985-86 Rangers had slumped to fifth, finishing with less than a point a game - a total of 35 from 36 games. It had never happened in Rangers' history and it was a record they would want to forget. Wallace, previously the man with the golden touch and the only one to manage Rangers twice, was sacked.
He was replaced by former Scotland international Graeme Souness, a fiery competitor with an illustrious career at Liverpool and Sampdoria. He appointed Walter Smith, who had been No 2 at Dundee United, as his assistant and began a policy of bringing in big name players from England.
For 80 years, Scotland had seen some of its best football talent drain away over the border. Now Souness reversed it with the likes of England internationals Terry Butcher, Chris Woods and Trevor Steven heading north.
Souness, however, made a controversial start. As player-manager, he was sent off after a flare-up at Hibernian in his first game for the club in August 1986. Souness received a three-match ban and Rangers were fined £5,000.
But at the end of his first full season, Souness had brought the Championship back to Ibrox. Rangers also won the League Cup, beating Celtic 2-1 in the Final.
Souness was on the brink of returning Rangers to greatness, but first it would take a revolution that came with the arrival in the boardroom of David Murray.
Murray, a successful businessman and friend of Souness, became the new owner of Rangers in November 1988, though he did not take over as chairman from David Holmes until June the following year.
He began investing in the team and in the stadium - a process which saw £90 million spent on players and £52 million on ground developments in Murray's first 10 years.
That first season with Murray and Souness together at the helm brought the first of a record-equalling run of Nine-In-A-Row Championships.
They also did something which hadn't happened at Rangers for more than 70 years. They signed a high-profile Catholic player.
In the early days of Scottish football, it was not unusual for players to turn out for both Rangers and Celtic. It was only around the time of the First World War, when Belfast shipyard workers moved to the Clyde, that sectarian attitudes began to harden.
Now with the signing of Mo Johnston, a former Celtic player, for £1.5 million from French club Nantes, Murray was announcing that old prejudices had no place in the modern game.
After a second successive League title in 1989-90, Souness left to manage Liverpool in April 1991. Murray gave him credit for "turning the big ship round."
Walter Smith stepped up as Rangers' ninth manager and the club would win seven League Championships, three Scottish Cups and three League Cups in the space of seven magnificent seasons. No previous Rangers' manager had won so many honours in such a short time.
By season 1992-93, Rangers had won their fifth Treble in awesome fashion. They lost only one of their first 23 League games and, of the other four defeats, three came after the Championship had been won. The margin was still nine points over second-placed Aberdeen.
In all, Rangers went a remarkable 44 games without defeat in all competitions. For the record the sequence was 29 League games, four League Cup, three Scottish Cup and eight matches in the European Champions' League.
It was Rangers' finest run in Europe since winning the Cup Winners' Cup in 1972. In the first round, Rangers beat Lyngby of Copenhagen 3-0 on aggregate then faced English Champions Leeds United in a "Battle of Britain" second round tie.
Scotland and Leeds captain Gary McAllister stunned Ibrox with a goal in the first minute of the first leg. Rangers won 2-1 thanks to Ally McCoist and an own goal from the Leeds keeper John Lukic.
In the away leg, Mark Hateley scored with a scorcher from 25 yards and a McCoist header made it 2-0. Leeds pulled one back at the end of the game, but Rangers had become the first British club to qualify for the league stage of the competition.
Rangers' opponents in their group were Olympique Marseille, FC Bruges and CSKA Moscow. It was always going to be tough. Rangers had key players missing through injury and were limited at that time by the rule which allowed a club to field only three foreign players in the Champions' League.
They won 1-0 away in Moscow and beat Bruges 2-1 at Ibrox. All the other matches were drawn, including a memorable clash with Marseille in Glasgow where Rangers came from behind to score twice in the last 10 minutes. It was not enough for them to progress to the final, but Rangers had played 10 games in Europe without losing.
They beat Aberdeen 2-1 to win the League Cup and wrapped up the Championship with another 2-1 victory over the Dons.
Once again, Rangers were Simply The Best in Scottish football - and it was to get even better.
1997 Nine In A Row 
It was Saturday May 7 1997, the most memorable day in the long and glorious history of Glasgow Rangers football club. Rangers, leading the Premier League with two games to go, were away to Dundee United where they had lost 1-0 earlier in the season.
A header from Brian Laudrup, the ball hit the back of the net. Rangers had done it - a record-equalling nine Championships in succession.
No 1: 1988-89
The glory road had begun at Douglas Park in August 1988 when Gary Stevens, a £1million Summer signing, scored the first goal in a 2-0 win over Hamilton.
Two weeks later, Rangers set their record League win over Celtic with a 5-1 victory at Ibrox after the visitors had scored first. Rangers beat Celtic in three out of their four League games, including their first victory at Parkhead in nine years.
The Championship was settled with a comfortable defeat of Hearts at Ibrox at the end of April. Rangers had won 14 out of their last 16 matches, including a run of nine victories, and finished six points clear of runners-up Aberdeen.
| |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
| League record |
36 |
26 |
4 |
6 |
62 |
26 |
56 |
No 2: 1989-90
Mo Johnston, Rangers' controversial signing, repaid the club by scoring a dramatic last-minute winner against his former team Celtic at Ibrox in November. Johnston was to finish as the club's leading marksman for the season.
Rangers also won their first New Year Old Firm match at Parkhead since 1964. But by Spring they had gone off the boil and went five games without a win. Any nerves about the title disappeared, however, at Ibrox on April Fools Day. The turning point came with a 3-0 defeat of Celtic, again making it three victories out of four for Rangers.
A Trevor Steven header sealed the Championship with a 1-0 victory over Dundee United at Tannadice with two games to spare. Despite that wobble in March, Rangers defence had conceded just 19 goals in 36 games and they finished seven points ahead of second-place Aberdeen.
| |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
| League record |
36 |
20 |
11 |
5 |
48 |
19 |
51 |
No 3: 1990-91
The closest title race of the nine. Mark Hateley had been signed for £1 million from AC Milan, but captain Terry Butcher was left out of the side in September and would soon be on his way to Coventry.
Rangers chalked up a run of 15 matches without defeat, but with five matches left to play and Aberdeen breathing down their necks, manager Graeme Souness sprung a shock by announcing that he was leaving for Liverpool.
Walter Smith took over and on the last day of the season, Rangers faced Aberdeen at Ibrox with the Dons needing only a draw to win the title. The pressure was intense, but two goals from Hateley retained the Championship for Rangers by two points.
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P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
| League record |
36 |
24 |
7 |
5 |
62 |
23 |
55 |
No 4: 1991-92
Smith's first full season in charge and he did the Cup and League Double. One of his first signings was goalkeeper Andy Goram from Hibernian for £1 million.
Rangers opened their season with a 6-0 humiliation of St Johnstone in which Hateley scored a hat-trick. Hateley also scored both goals in the Old Firm victory over Celtic in August.
But it was Ally McCoist who would end as the League's leading scorer with 34 goals. McCoist had often been kept on the bench by Souness the previous season. Now he was rampant, inspired by the confidence shown in him by Smith.
Aberden were beaten 3-2 at Pittodrie in December and Rangers won 3-1 at Celtic in the New Year. Hearts were mounting a title challenge, but McCoist killed off their chances with the only goal of the game at Tynecastle in February.
On the run-in, Rangers lost just once in 24 matches and clinched the title with three games to spare with a 4-0 home victory over St Mirren. They scored more than a century of goals for the first time since 1939 and left runners-up Hearts nine points adrift in the table.
| |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
| League record |
44 |
33 |
6 |
5 |
101 |
31 |
72 |
No 5: 1992-93
The season of Rangers' fifth Treble. One of the great teams which also came with 90 minutes of the European Cup Final. After drawing with Celtic 1-1 at Ibrox in August they did not lose for seven months, stringing together a run of 44 games in all competitions.
By February they were already five points clear of Aberdeen when they went to Pittodrie and won 1-0. The Championship was won with four games to go at Broomfield Park where Rangers beat Airdrie 1-0. McCoist was again the Premier League's leading marksman with 34 goals.
In winning the title by nine points from Aberdeen, much was made of Rangers' fantastic team spirit. As David Murray has said: "Everybody played hard for each other and that pulled us through. I think that was probably our greatest era."
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P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
| League record |
44 |
33 |
7 |
4 |
97 |
35 |
73 |
No 6: 1993-94
The hardest won title. Rangers suffered an appalling catalogue of injuries yet only missed out on an historic back-to-back treble through a 1-0 defeat by Dundee United in the Scottish Cup Final.
No fewer than 11 players required surgery and Smith was rarely able to field his chosen team. Despite a 2-1 victory over Hearts on the opening day of the season, Rangers struggled early on. It took a 3-1 defeat of Dundee United at Tannadice in October to end a run of just one win in eight games.
Gordon Durie arrived for £1.2 million from Tottenham in November and Rangers luck began to change. But they still went to Celtic for the New Year clash beset by injuries and as underdogs. Hateley, the club's leading scorer that season, made it 1-0 after 58 seconds and Rangers took the game 4-2.
Rangers now went 17 games undefeated, including seven straight wins between February and April. Despite taking only two points from their last five games, an exhausted Rangers picked up their sixth successive title by three points from runners-up Aberdeen.
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P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
| League record |
44 |
22 |
14 |
8 |
74 |
41 |
58 |
No 7: 1994-95
The season that the Scottish Premier League adopted the now familiar three points for a win saw the great Dane Brian Laudrup arrive at Ibrox from Fiorentina for £2.25 million.
On the opening day against Motherwell, he first supplied the cross for Hateley to score and then, picking up the ball on the edge of the Rangers penalty area, started a long run to just outside the Motherwell box where he provided the pass from which Duncan Ferguson found the net.
This was a player with immense natural gifts and Rangers' fans whooped with delight when he scored in a 3-1 victory against Celtic.
Rangers set up a run of 14 games without defeat, including a 3-0 victory at Dundee United. But in March 1995, the club was saddened by the tragic death of former star Davie Cooper at the age of 39.
With the title within touching distance, Rangers beat Aberdeen 3-2 in April and eight days later conquered Hibernian 3-1 at Ibrox. Laudrup was named Scotland's Player of the Year and Rangers had won the title by 15 points from Motherwell.
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P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
| League record |
36 |
20 |
9 |
7 |
60 |
35 |
69 |
No 8: 1995-96
Paul Gascoigne had joined Rangers from Lazio for £4.3 million during the Summer and was to play a decisive part in the Championship.
Celtic were a major threat to Rangers title ambitions and lost only one game all season - at home to Rangers. The other Old Firm games were drawn, including a pulsating 3-3 thriller at Ibrox.
Hibernian were slaughtered 7-0, but Rangers struggled at Raith and were trailing 2-1 until two late goals from McCoist grabbed the points.
But the final glory was Gazza's. Aberdeen took the lead in the crunch match at Ibrox before the Geordie genius, Scotland's Player of the Year, took the game by the scruff of the neck. In a virtuoso performance, Gascoigne scored two golden goals before completing his hat-trick from the penalty spot.
Despite losing two games more than Celtic, Rangers beat them to the title by four points.
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P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
| League record |
36 |
27 |
6 |
3 |
85 |
25 |
87 |
No 9: 1996-97
The race for the Championship revolved around the four Old Firm games with Celtic. In the first, at Ibrox in September, Rangers won 2-0 with goals from Captain Colossus Richard Gough - the man Walter Smith called "my cornerstone" - and Gascoigne.
Five games later - only one of which Rangers had won - they met again. This time Brian Laudrup scored the only goal of the game with a thundering strike.
Back at Ibrox in January Rangers won 3-1, Jorg Albertz getting the first with a blistering free kick and substitute Erik Bo Andersen coming on and scoring twice.
Then in March, Rangers made it played four won four, the first clean sweep they had achieved over Celtic in the Premier League. The only goal was a scrappy affair, a lob from Ian Durrant going in after a mix-up in the Celtic goalmouth.
And so it came down to that Spring afternoon at Tannadice. Laudrup rarely scored with his head. But the goal which made it Nine-In-A-Row went in like a bullet. Rangers had earned their place in the history books.
There was a five point gap between them and runners-up Celtic, the team whose record they had equalled.
It was the early hours of the morning when the players arrived back at Ibrox from Dundee. But the streets around the ground were packed with celebrating fans.
Triumphant manager Walter Smith was overwhelmed: "The feeling at the end of the game was relief," he said. "Knowing how much it meant to Rangers supporters, it is something we will never forget."
Or as departing captain Richard Gough, soon to leave for America, put it: "The boys are legends now."
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P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
| League record |
36 |
25 |
5 |
6 |
85 |
33 |
80 |
The clamour for a 10th title was enormous, but it was a bridge too far. Rangers could finish season 1997-98 only second.
Walter Smith moved on to Everton and in his place for 1998-99 came Dick Advocaat, Holland's coach at the World Cup in 1994 and manager of PSV Eindhoven.
In the close season, £27 million was spent on transfer fees in deals which saw eight new players arrive at the club and 18 leave.
One hundred and twenty-six years on from those first kickabouts on Glasgow Green, Rangers are truly a global club with an international manager, a host of star foreign players and a following all over the world. But no matter how great the changes have been, the cause is still the same - TO BE THE BEST.
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