This page tells the whole story: the founding on the Green; the move to Ibrox and the two disasters that scarred it; the iron reign of Bill Struth; Barcelona in 1972; the Souness revolution and nine-in-a-row; the financial collapse of 2012 and the long climb back from the fourth tier; and the club as it stands today. It is written to state the facts plainly — including the contested ones.
What is Rangers Football Club?
Rangers are a professional football club based in the Govan district of Glasgow, playing in the Scottish Premiership. Founded in 1872, they are the fourth-oldest club in Scotland and among the most decorated in the world, with more than a hundred major trophies. They have played at Ibrox Stadium since 1899, in royal blue since 1873, and their supporters — drawn historically from the Protestant industrial working class of Clydeside, and today from a global network of supporters’ clubs — are among the most numerous in Britain.
Two facts define the modern club above all others. The first is scale: 55 league championships, a haul that for many years stood as a world record for any football club. The second is the catastrophe of 2012, when the company that ran Rangers was liquidated and the club had to begin again in the fourth tier of Scottish football — and then climbed all the way back.
Four boys and a football
Rangers were born of a walk in the park. In March 1872 four teenagers — the brothers Moses and Peter McNeil, along with Peter Campbell and William McBeath, all keen rowers from the Gareloch — were walking through the West End Park, now Kelvingrove, when they fell to discussing the new game of association football, then being popularised in Glasgow by Queen’s Park. They resolved to form a club of their own.
The name
It was Moses McNeil who proposed the name, having come across it in a sporting annual: Swindon Rangers, an English rugby club. He liked the sound of it, and it stuck. Despite universal usage abroad, the club has never officially been called ‘Glasgow Rangers’ — it is, and always has been, simply Rangers Football Club.
The first match
In May 1872 the new club played its first match, against a side called Callander, on the public pitches at Fleshers’ Haugh on Glasgow Green — a goalless draw, played with borrowed equipment by boys not one of whom was yet twenty. Rangers first wore all white, in imitation of the rugby club whose name they had borrowed; the famous royal blue jersey arrived in 1873.
The move to Ibrox
The club moved around the city in its early years — Burnbank, Kinning Park — before settling in 1887 in Govan, in the heart of the shipbuilding district whose yards and workforce would supply its support ever after. The first Ibrox Park opened that year, and the present Ibrox Stadium in 1899.
It was there, on 5 April 1902, that the club suffered the first of two disasters. During a Scotland–England international, a newly built wooden terrace collapsed, and 25 people fell to their deaths, with hundreds injured. It was one of the earliest tragedies in the history of the game, and it forced the rebuilding of the ground on safer, earthen banking.
The early years and the first titles
Rangers were founder members of the Scottish Football League in 1890, and shared its very first championship with Dumbarton after a play-off finished level. Their first Scottish Cup came in 1894 — beating Celtic in the final — and under the club’s first manager, William Wilton, appointed in 1899, Rangers won four titles in a row, including a season in 1898–99 in which they won every single league match, a feat unmatched in British senior football.
It was in these decades, too, that the club’s identity hardened. Rangers drew their support from the Protestant working class of Govan and the wider Clyde, and from the Ulster-Scots community; the influence of figures such as the chairman John Ure Primrose entrenched a Unionist and Protestant character, and an unwritten policy of not knowingly signing Catholic players took hold. It would endure for most of the twentieth century.
The Struth era
In 1920 Bill Struth became manager, and Rangers became a machine. Struth ruled for thirty-four years, until 1954, and won eighteen league championships — a record for any manager anywhere in Britain. He was less a tactician than a builder of standards: players were required to dress immaculately, to behave impeccably, to walk on the right side of the corridor, to be, in every way, visibly superior. That culture of discipline and self-belief became the club’s defining inheritance, and the Main Stand at Ibrox bears his name to this day.
The Struth years also brought Rangers their first Scottish League Cup, in 1947, and their first domestic treble, in 1948–49 — the first ever won in Scotland. His side of the immediate post-war years, built on the legendary ‘Iron Curtain’ defence, dominated Scottish football.
Baxter and the sixties
The 1960s brought the club one of the most gifted players in its history: Jim Baxter, a swaggering, left-footed midfielder whose arrogance on the ball became a Scottish byword — and who, playing for Scotland at Wembley in 1967, famously played keepy-uppy while beating the newly crowned world champions of England. Rangers won titles and cups under Scot Symon, and reached the European Cup Winners’ Cup finals of 1961 and 1967, losing both. But it was the following decade that would bring both the club’s darkest day and its greatest.
The 1971 disaster
On 2 January 1971, at the end of an Old Firm match at Ibrox, a crush developed on Stairway 13 as huge crowds left the ground. Sixty-six people died, many of them boys. It remains among the worst disasters in British sporting history.
The identity of the opponents played no part in it — only the numbers on the stair — and for once the rivalry fell silent: both clubs mourned together, and Celtic’s manager Jock Stein was among those who helped tend the injured. The tragedy transformed Ibrox: under the direction of Willie Waddell, the ground was rebuilt through the late 1970s and 1980s as one of the first modern all-seater stadiums in Britain, a model later followed across the country. The full account is on this site’s page on the Ibrox disaster of 1971.
Barcelona 1972
Sixteen months after the disaster came the club’s finest hour. On 24 May 1972, at the Nou Camp in Barcelona, Rangers beat Dynamo Moscow 3–2 to win the European Cup Winners’ Cup — goals from Colin Stein and a double from Willie Johnston — and became the first Scottish club to win a European trophy since Celtic’s European Cup five years before.
The celebration was marred. Spanish police, many drafted in from outside Catalonia, clashed with Rangers supporters who had spilled onto the pitch, and captain John Greig was presented with the trophy in a small room inside the stadium rather than before his own fans. Rangers were banned from Europe for two years, reduced on appeal to one. It remains the club’s only major European honour — and, for all the chaos, its proudest night.
The Souness revolution
By the mid-1980s Rangers had gone nine years without a title and Scottish football’s balance had shifted. What followed changed the British game. In 1986 the club appointed Graeme Souness — the Scotland captain, then at Sampdoria — as player-manager, and, backed by the new owner David Murray, he did something unheard of: he signed established England internationals, among them Terry Butcher and Chris Woods, reversing the long southward flow of talent and making Rangers a magnet for stars.
The transformation was not only sporting. In July 1989 Souness signed Maurice Johnston — a Catholic, and a former Celtic player — publicly ending the club’s long-standing policy of not knowingly signing Catholics. It was among the most sensational transfers in British football history, and drew anger from parts of both supports, but it drew a line under one of the most contentious traditions in Scottish sport.
Nine in a row
The revolution produced dominance. Under Souness and then, from 1991, Walter Smith, Rangers won nine consecutive league championships between 1988–89 and 1996–97 — equalling the record of Jock Stein’s Celtic. The team of the 1990s, built around Ally McCoist, Richard Gough, Andy Goram, Brian Laudrup and, in a blaze of brilliance, Paul Gascoigne, was one of the strongest in the club’s history. The tenth title, which would have taken the record outright, was denied by Celtic in 1998 — a wound still felt at Ibrox.
The new century brought more success under Dick Advocaat and, again, Walter Smith — including a run to the 2008 UEFA Cup final in Manchester, lost 2–0 to Zenit St Petersburg, for which an estimated 200,000 Rangers supporters travelled, one of the largest travelling supports in the history of the game. But underneath the trophies, the club’s finances were rotting.
The 2012 collapse
In February 2012 the company that operated Rangers — carrying heavy debts, including large unpaid sums to the tax authorities — entered administration, and was docked ten points. In June, after a failure to reach agreement with creditors, it entered liquidation. The club’s business and assets were bought by a newly formed company, which applied to join the top flight, was refused by the other clubs, and was admitted instead to the fourth tier of Scottish football for the 2012–13 season.
It was the most extraordinary fall in the history of British football: a club with more league titles than any other in the world, playing Annan Athletic and Elgin City. The episode remains bitterly disputed. Rangers, their support and the Scottish football authorities hold that the club, its history and its honours continued unbroken under new ownership; many rival supporters argue the original club died and a new one took its place. A separate, long-running dispute over the club’s use of Employee Benefit Trusts to pay players was decided in the tax authorities’ favour by the UK Supreme Court in 2017, though an earlier independent commission had ruled the club should not be stripped of its titles. This site records the argument rather than attempting to settle it.
The climb back
What followed was, in its way, a demonstration of the club’s scale. In the Third Division, playing part-time clubs in tiny grounds, Rangers drew average home crowds of close to 50,000 — believed to be a world record for fourth-tier football. They won promotion, then promotion again, and though the road was rocky — a managerial merry-go-round, a lost play-off final — they returned to the Scottish Premiership in 2016, four years after the fall.
The full restoration came in 2020–21. Under Steven Gerrard, the former Liverpool captain, Rangers won the league unbeaten, with a club-record 102 points — their 55th championship, their first in a decade, and one that ended Celtic’s bid for a tenth successive title. In 2022, under Giovanni van Bronckhorst, they reached the Europa League final in Seville, losing on penalties to Eintracht Frankfurt, and won the Scottish Cup.
The modern Rangers
Recent seasons have been turbulent. Celtic have dominated domestically, and Ibrox has seen a rapid succession of managers: the 2025–26 season began badly under Russell Martin, who was dismissed, and continued under the young German coach Danny Röhl, who hauled the team back into the title race before finishing third and ending the campaign without a trophy. In the summer of 2026 Röhl left for RB Salzburg, and Rangers appointed Derek McInnes, the former Rangers player who had just taken Hearts to within a day of the championship. New American-led ownership has arrived, a rebuild is under way, and the club’s task is the one it has always set itself: to be first.
Honours
Rangers are among the most decorated clubs in world football, with more than a hundred major trophies — and, in the League Cup, the Scottish record.
| Competition | Wins | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Scottish league title | 55 | Long a world record; second in Scotland to Celtic’s 56 |
| Scottish Cup | 34 | Most recent: 2022 |
| Scottish League Cup | 28 | A Scottish record |
| European Cup Winners’ Cup | 1 | 1972 — beat Dynamo Moscow in Barcelona |
| Domestic trebles | 7 | First in Scotland, 1948–49 |
Club records
The club’s records belong to some of the greatest names ever to wear the blue jersey.
| Record | Holder |
|---|---|
| Most appearances | John Greig — 755 (1961–78) |
| Record goalscorer | Ally McCoist — 355 (1983–98) |
| Most goals in a season | Jim Forrest — 57 (1964–65) |
| Most Scottish Cup goals | Jimmy Fleming — 44 |
| Record victory | 14–2 v Blairgowrie, Scottish Cup, 1934 |
| Record home attendance | 118,567 v Celtic, 2 January 1939 |
| Most points in a season | 102, unbeaten, 2020–21 |
The greatest Rangers players
Rangers supporters voted John Greig their greatest-ever player — the one-club captain who made a record 755 appearances, led the team through the aftermath of the 1971 disaster and lifted the Cup Winners’ Cup in Barcelona. Around him stands a formidable company: the incomparable Jim Baxter; the record scorer Ally McCoist; the elegant Sandy Jardine; the beloved winger Davie Cooper, whose sudden death in 1995 at 39 was mourned across Scotland; the goalkeeper Andy Goram; and, in the 1990s, two imported talents of the highest class — the Dane Brian Laudrup and the mercurial Paul Gascoigne. In the modern era the long-serving captain James Tavernier has scored a remarkable number of goals for a full-back.
Legendary managers
No club in Britain has had a manager quite like Bill Struth, and few eras were as transformative as Graeme Souness’s.
| Manager | Era | Best remembered for |
|---|---|---|
| William Wilton | 1899–1920 | The club’s first manager; four titles in a row |
| Bill Struth | 1920–54 | Eighteen league titles; the club’s enduring culture |
| Scot Symon | 1954–67 | Six titles; two European finals |
| Willie Waddell | 1969–72 | Barcelona 1972; the rebuilding of Ibrox after the disaster |
| Graeme Souness | 1986–91 | The revolution; the signing of Maurice Johnston |
| Walter Smith | 1991–98, 2007–11 | Seven of the nine-in-a-row; the 2008 UEFA Cup final |
| Steven Gerrard | 2018–21 | The unbeaten 55th title, 2020–21 |
Ibrox Stadium
Ibrox, in Govan, has been Rangers’ home since 1899, and holds just over 50,000. Its great red-brick Main Stand, opened in 1929, was designed by the celebrated stadium architect Archibald Leitch — a Glaswegian whose work shaped grounds across Britain — and is a listed building, one of the most distinguished pieces of football architecture in the country. The stadium that surrounds it is a monument to hard lessons: rebuilt in earth and concrete after 1902, and transformed into one of Britain’s first all-seater grounds after 1971, years before the Taylor Report made such stadiums the norm.
The Rangers support and identity
Rangers’ support grew from the industrial working class of Govan and the Clyde — the shipyards, the engineering shops, the tenements — and, historically, from the Protestant and Unionist tradition of the west of Scotland and Ulster. That identity, expressed in the royal blue, in the club’s Union symbolism and in its songs, is central to Rangers’ story, and it is also the source of the sectarian dimension of the Old Firm rivalry, treated more fully on this site’s page on religious conflict in Glasgow. The signing policy that expressed it institutionally ended in 1989, and the modern club runs campaigns against sectarian behaviour among its supporters. Today Rangers’ following is a global one, with hundreds of supporters’ clubs around the world, and a travelling support — 200,000 to Manchester in 2008 — of a scale few clubs anywhere can match.
The Old Firm
Rangers’ story cannot be told apart from Celtic’s. The two have contested the Old Firm since 1888 — the oldest and fiercest rivalry in the world game, in which the two clubs have shared the overwhelming majority of Scotland’s honours and, in more than 450 competitive meetings, remain almost exactly level.
Interesting facts and lesser-known stories
- A perfect season. In 1898–99 Rangers won every single one of their eighteen league matches — a clean sweep unmatched in British senior football.
- The first treble in Scotland. Rangers won Scottish football’s first domestic treble in 1948–49, under Bill Struth.
- A crowd of 50,000 in the fourth tier. During the 2012–13 Third Division season, Rangers averaged home crowds close to 50,000 — believed to be a world record for that level of football.
- The world’s biggest away day. An estimated 200,000 supporters travelled to Manchester for the 2008 UEFA Cup final — one of the largest travelling supports football has seen.
- The record league gate. The British record attendance for a league match — 118,567 — was set at Ibrox on 2 January 1939, for the New Year Old Firm game.
- Nine goals in a cup tie. Jimmy Fleming scored nine in Rangers’ record 14–2 Scottish Cup win over Blairgowrie in 1934.
Timeline of significant events
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1872 | Founded by four teenagers; first match on Glasgow Green |
| 1873 | The royal blue jersey adopted |
| 1890 | Founder members of the Scottish League; share the first title |
| 1894 | First Scottish Cup, beating Celtic in the final |
| 1899 | The present Ibrox Stadium opens |
| 1902 | First Ibrox disaster: a terrace collapses, 25 die |
| 1920 | Bill Struth appointed manager |
| 1949 | Scotland’s first domestic treble |
| 1971 | Second Ibrox disaster: 66 die on Stairway 13 |
| 1972 | European Cup Winners’ Cup won in Barcelona |
| 1986 | Graeme Souness arrives; the revolution begins |
| 1989 | Maurice Johnston signs, ending the signing policy |
| 1997 | A ninth successive title equals Celtic’s record |
| 2008 | UEFA Cup final in Manchester; 200,000 travel |
| 2012 | Liquidation; the club restarts in the fourth tier |
| 2016 | Return to the Scottish Premiership |
| 2021 | The 55th title, won unbeaten with 102 points |
| 2022 | Europa League final in Seville; Scottish Cup won |
| 2026 | Derek McInnes appointed head coach |
Frequently asked questions
When were Rangers founded?
Rangers were founded in 1872 by four teenagers — the brothers Moses and Peter McNeil, Peter Campbell and William McBeath — who conceived the idea while walking through the West End Park, now Kelvingrove Park. The club played its first match in May that year at Fleshers’ Haugh on Glasgow Green.
Who founded Rangers?
Four teenage boys, all keen rowers and sportsmen: Moses McNeil, his brother Peter, Peter Campbell and William McBeath. Moses McNeil is credited with proposing the name after seeing it used by an English rugby club.
Where does the name ‘Rangers’ come from?
Moses McNeil took it from an English rugby club, Swindon Rangers, whose name he had seen in a sporting annual and liked. The club has never officially been called ‘Glasgow Rangers’, although the name is widely used, particularly abroad.
Which club is older, Rangers or Celtic?
Rangers. They were founded in 1872, fifteen years before Celtic, who were established in 1887 and played their first match in 1888. Rangers are the fourth-oldest club in Scotland.
How many league titles have Rangers won?
Rangers have won 55 Scottish top-flight league championships, the second-highest total in Scotland behind Celtic’s 56 — and, for many years, a world record for any club. Their most recent title came in 2020–21.
How many trophies have Rangers won?
More than a hundred major honours. As of 2025–26 the tally stands at 55 league titles, 34 Scottish Cups and a record 28 Scottish League Cups, along with the 1972 European Cup Winners’ Cup and seven domestic trebles.
Did Rangers win a European trophy?
Yes — the European Cup Winners’ Cup, on 24 May 1972, beating Dynamo Moscow 3–2 at the Nou Camp in Barcelona, with goals from Colin Stein and a double from Willie Johnston. Captain John Greig lifted the trophy. It remains the club’s only major European honour.
Why did Rangers get banned from Europe after 1972?
Because supporters invaded the pitch in Barcelona amid heavy-handed policing, Rangers were banned from European competition for two years, later reduced on appeal to one. It cast a shadow over the club’s greatest European night.
Where do Rangers play?
At Ibrox Stadium, in the Govan district on the south-west side of Glasgow, where the club has played since 1899. Ibrox holds just over 50,000 and its red-brick Main Stand, designed by Archibald Leitch, is a category-B listed building.
Who is Rangers’ record goalscorer?
Ally McCoist, with 355 goals between 1983 and 1998 — a total that also brought him 20 major honours and two European Golden Boots. He also holds the record for goals in the Scottish League Cup, with 54.
Who has made the most appearances for Rangers?
John Greig, with 755 appearances between 1961 and 1978. He captained the club through its greatest European night and through the aftermath of the 1971 Ibrox disaster, and was later voted the club’s greatest-ever player.
Who is Rangers’ greatest ever player?
In a supporters’ poll, Rangers fans voted John Greig their greatest-ever player. Other Ibrox icons include Jim Baxter, Ally McCoist, Davie Cooper, Sandy Jardine, Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne.
Who was Bill Struth?
Rangers’ greatest manager, in charge from 1920 to 1954. He won eighteen league championships and set the club’s enduring culture of discipline, smartness and self-belief — players were expected to dress and behave impeccably. The Bill Struth Main Stand at Ibrox is named in his honour.
What is ‘nine in a row’?
Rangers’ run of nine consecutive league titles from 1988–89 to 1996–97, under Graeme Souness and then Walter Smith — equalling the record set by Jock Stein’s Celtic. A tenth was denied them by Celtic in 1998.
What was the Souness revolution?
The transformation of Rangers after Graeme Souness became player-manager in 1986. Backed by chairman David Murray, he signed established England internationals such as Terry Butcher and Chris Woods — reversing the usual flow of players south — and made Rangers a major force again.
Why was signing Maurice Johnston so significant?
Because for most of the twentieth century Rangers had operated an unwritten policy of not knowingly signing Catholic players. In 1989 Graeme Souness signed Maurice ‘Mo’ Johnston, a Catholic and a former Celtic forward, in one of the most sensational transfers in British football — publicly ending the policy.
What happened to Rangers in 2012?
The company that ran the club, carrying heavy debts including large unpaid tax bills, entered administration in February 2012 and was subsequently liquidated. The club’s business and assets were bought by a new company, which was refused entry to the top flight and had to start again in the fourth tier.
Did Rangers get relegated in 2012?
Not in the sporting sense. The newly formed company was refused admission to the Scottish Premier League and was instead admitted to the fourth tier (then the Third Division) for 2012–13. Rangers won successive promotions and returned to the top flight in 2016.
Are Rangers a new club or the same club?
This is one of the most contested questions in Scottish football. Rangers, their supporters and the Scottish football authorities regard the club, its history and its honours as continuous under new ownership; many rival supporters argue the original club died in liquidation and that a new one took its place. This site records the dispute rather than trying to settle it.
What was the EBT tax case?
A long-running dispute over Rangers’ use of Employee Benefit Trusts to pay players in the 2000s. After years of appeals, the UK Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that the payments were taxable earnings, finding in the tax authorities’ favour. A separate independent commission had earlier ruled that the club should not be stripped of titles.
When did Rangers win their 55th title?
In 2020–21, under Steven Gerrard — their first championship in a decade, won unbeaten with a club-record 102 points, and ending Celtic’s bid for a tenth successive title.
What are Rangers’ colours and nickname?
Royal blue shirts with white shorts, worn since 1873. Rangers are known as the Gers, the Light Blues and the Teddy Bears, and Ibrox is sometimes called the Big House.
What is the Ibrox disaster?
There have been two. In 1902 a wooden terrace collapsed during a Scotland–England international, killing 25. The disaster most associated with the club came on 2 January 1971, when 66 people died in a crush on Stairway 13 as fans left an Old Firm match. It led to the rebuilding of Ibrox as one of Britain’s first modern all-seater stadiums.
Who is the Rangers manager?
Derek McInnes, appointed in the summer of 2026 after Danny Röhl’s departure to RB Salzburg. Röhl had taken over from Russell Martin in October 2025 in a turbulent season that ended without a trophy. Managerial situations change quickly, so it is always worth checking the latest news.
What is the Old Firm?
The Old Firm is the collective name for Rangers and Celtic and, above all, for the fierce rivalry between them — one of the oldest and most intense in world football, first contested in 1888 and bound up with the religious, national and political divisions of the west of Scotland.
Why is Ibrox in Govan?
Because Govan was the heart of Clyde shipbuilding, and Rangers’ support grew from the industrial workforce of the yards. The club moved to the Ibrox area in 1887 and to the present stadium in 1899, and remains rooted in the district.
Who designed Ibrox Stadium?
The famous red-brick Main Stand, opened in 1929, was designed by the great stadium architect Archibald Leitch, himself a Glaswegian, whose work shaped many of Britain’s most famous grounds. It is now a listed building.
What was Rangers’ biggest ever win?
Rangers’ record victory is a 14–2 defeat of Blairgowrie in the Scottish Cup in 1934, in which Jimmy Fleming scored nine. Their record league win is 10–0, achieved more than once.
Did Rangers reach a European final recently?
Yes — twice in the modern era. Rangers reached the 2008 UEFA Cup final in Manchester, losing 2–0 to Zenit St Petersburg, with an estimated 200,000 supporters travelling; and the 2022 Europa League final in Seville, losing on penalties to Eintracht Frankfurt.
How many fans travelled to Manchester in 2008?
An estimated 200,000 Rangers supporters travelled to Manchester for the 2008 UEFA Cup final — widely described as one of the largest travelling supports in football history. Serious disorder in the city that night marred the occasion.
What was Rangers’ average crowd in the fourth tier?
Remarkably, close to 50,000. During the 2012–13 Third Division season — playing clubs such as Annan Athletic and Elgin City — Rangers drew average home crowds of nearly 50,000, believed to be a world record for fourth-tier football.
Who was Jim Baxter?
One of the most gifted players ever to wear the Rangers shirt — a swaggering, left-footed midfielder of the 1960s, famed for his arrogance on the ball and for tormenting England at Wembley in 1967 while playing for Scotland.
What is the Rangers crest?
Rangers use two badges: the scroll crest bearing the letters RFC, and the club crest featuring a lion rampant above the motto ‘Ready’, with five stars above it representing the club’s fifty-plus league titles.
Who was Davie Cooper?
A supremely gifted winger of the 1980s, regarded by many Rangers supporters as the most naturally talented player they have seen. He died suddenly in 1995, aged just 39, and is mourned across Scottish football.
Have Rangers ever played Celtic in Europe?
No. Despite both clubs’ long European histories, Rangers and Celtic have never been drawn against each other in a UEFA competition. Every Old Firm match has been played in domestic Scottish football.
From four boys on Glasgow Green to fifty-five championships, from the ashes of two disasters to a European trophy, and from liquidation in the fourth tier back to the summit of the Scottish game — Rangers’ history is one of the most dramatic in football. Ibrox still stands in Govan, where the shipyards were, and the blue half of Glasgow still expects to win.