Rangers – quotes

Opposition | Celtic Games | Rangers

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Quotes

“This has to be said about Rangers, as a Scottish Football club they are a permanent embarrassment and an occasional disgrace. This country would be a better place if Rangers did not exist.”
Ian Archer (journalist, 1970s), for full article see: link

“The incessant bigoted chanting by Rangers fans at Hampden was shocking. Unarguably the most socially-backward fans in British football. The really damaging thing for RFC is, it’s not the mythical ‘small minority’. There appear to be 1000s upon 1000s singing these songs.”
Graham Spiers (Journalist) on his Twitter feed commenting on the Huns in their league cup final appearance (March 2011) (match)

Comedian Andy Cameron was barracked by fellow Rangers’ shareholders yesterday when he asked the club’s chairman Mr John Paton to “come out and be honest” about the board’s policy towards Roman Catholics. Mr Cameron, whose earlier remarks about the calibre of the Rangers’ team had drawn laughs and cheers from the floor of the club’s annual meeting, was heckled and told to sit down. Minutes later, a number of shareholders milled round Mr Cameron and exchanged angry remarks with him.
The Herald (Oct 2010); the above happened in 1985

“Celtic came from the poorer classes from the East End of Glasgow, to a certain extent Rangers had gone the other way because they had become popular with the aristocracy with managing directors for example, magistrates who came to Ibrox and there started to become a division between the two. So Rangers were seen to be the club of authority of the union, and Celtic had their Irish which to some extent was suppressed as well. So that’s what started to create the divisions.”
David Mason – Club historian for Rangers/Sevco; From TV Documentary “Football: A brief history of the game”

“There’s nothing worse than sitting in the dressing room at Celtic Park after a defeat, not a word being said, listening to them going mental next door.”
Ally McCoist (ex-Rangers striker)

“Rangers like the big strong powerful fellows, with a bit of strength and solidity in the tackle, rather than the frivolous, quick moving stylists like Jimmy Johnstone, small, tiptoe-through-the-tulips type of players who excite people.”
Willie Waddell, Rangers manager 1972

Brian Clough: “What team did you say you support again?”
Man in the studio audience: “RANGERS!”
Brian Clough: “That’s not a football team! That’s a gang of villains.”
The irrepressible Brian Clough on “Sport in Question”

“In every hick town in Caledonia across the pseudo nation, you can see the most ****** up scum who were shat into creation, where a blue McEwans’ lager top equals NO imagination!
“Think you’re a success?
“Your psyche’s a mess!
“Your economy is in distress, you’re HUN-believable!!!”
Irvine Welsh, the irrepressible novelist on his opinion about Rangers fans (1996)

“We are the biggest club in Britain and people had better realise it. There’s no limit to our ambition.”
As an example of Rangers’ hubris, this statement from then Rangers chairman David Murray(1993)

“If Celtic never won another game it would be a source of enormous rejoicing to me.”
DeidCo vice-Chairman Donald Findlay (Mar 1996)

“Rangers fans are different from Celtic fans in the respect that they take it badly when they lose. Celtic have gone public, many of their fans have stumped up hard money to buy shares, which in turn has helped finance their stadium. As a result, I sometimes think that their supporters feel greater loyalty to the cause. Rangers fans basically got the stadium for nothing, and some of them have had it too easy for too long.”
David Murray (1997)

“You can sing ‘Live Forever’ and get a good feeling. I don’t know whether you can get a good feeling out of ‘Follow Follow’.”
Alan McGee (Creation Records founder, 1998)

‘It’s not that they weren’t penalties – it’s just that they’re the kind of penalties nobody else gets!’
Not the View fanzine in 2003 after Rangers were awarded three penalties in their 2-2 draw with Dundee in May 2003

“I’d just come from Italy and France which are catholic countries, very warm and friendly, and here I was in Glasgow with some of my team-mates [i.e. fellow Rangers players] hating Catholics. I just couldn’t understand it and frankly found it ridiculous.”
Ray Wilkins on an ESPN documentary said about Rangers (June 2007)

Walter Smith, a two-time former manager of the club and now manager of Scotland, once said to me: “There is a Protestant superiority syndrome around this club . . . you can feel it.”
Graham Spiers quoting Walter Smith (taken from his book on Paul Le Guen’s time at Rangers, 2007)

“When I came here in 1964, we had no Catholics,” he said. “Not just the playing staff, anywhere. There was no bit of paper, it was an unwritten rule. David Murray changed that and it moved on significantly in 1989 when Maurice Johnston signed. You cannot clear up 80 years of sectarianism in eight months, but we are a huge way down the road.”
Sandy Jardine

It was not until the 1960’s that the burning issue of sectarianism reared its ugly head at Ibrox. A former player, Ralph Brand, made the sectarian policy at Rangers public knowledge and around this time the behaviour of Rangers fans was a real problem for the club. In 1963, Rangers fans jeered during the minute’s silence for assassinated Catholic U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Then, in 1967, then vice Chairman Matt Taylor was questioned about Rangers no Catholics policy and he stated that he felt that they policy was “part of our tradition….we were formed in 1873 as a Protestant boys club. To change now would lose us considerable support.”
Vice-Chairman Matt Taylor of Rangers from 1960s

“I was reluctant to entertain exposing my family to the risk of a recurrence of the bigotry that I had encountered in my playing days… Cathy’s religion [she was Catholic] would probably have been enough in itself to convince me that returning to Rangers was not a good idea.”
Alex Ferguson (ex-Rangers player) on why he turned down advances to take over Rangers managers role

“The principal muck-spreader was Willie Allison, the bigoted public relations officer, who clearly felt that anybody married to a Catholic was not a fit and proper person to play for Rangers. Allison was a religious bigot of the deepest dye. I had a thoroughly Protestant upbringing but, of course, Cathy is Catholic and so were my mother’s family.”
Alex Ferguson (ex-Rangers player) on Rangers

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Alex Ferguson (ex-Rangers Player) on his time with Rangers

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“When I’m on that new stretch of motorway that takes you the other side of Glasgow, I look the other way. If Celtic Park is on my left, I can’t even look at it. I look to the right hand side!”
Ally McCoist on Celtic Park in a TalkRadio interview Show

“For every five pounds Celtic spend, we will spend ten!”
David Murry (Celtic Chairman, 1990s); Journalist Hugh Keevins in interview with The Celtic Exchange takes credit for this, from a call with David Murray.

To the Rangers fans: “Stay and vomit in your own home, urinate in the corner of your own sitting room, fight with your own neighbours Celtic (who deserve a medal for putting up with you) and foul the streets of Glasgow. Don’t come back to Barcelona, you’re an embarrassment. And while we’re at it, don’t play in the Champions League. You’re not up to scratch, either on a sporting or human level.
“There are noisy supports who, even though they drink large quantities of beer, make friends. Not you lot, because you turn everywhere you go into dumps. You are undesirables.”
El Mundo Deportivo Newspaper on Rangers after the Rangers game v Barcelona in the Nou Camp (Nov 07)
Full Article “Don’t come back to Barcelona” (Nov 07)

‘Terry Butcher had little idea of the sectarian divide he was stepping into when he arrived at Rangers in the summer of 1986 in a £750,000 deal.But he had been given an inkling as a young pro when he blessed himself before a match and fell foul of senior team-mate Allan Hunter, a Northern Ireland international Butcher said: “I recall one incident at Ipswich before a reserve game when I crossed myself, something I’d seen Alan Brazil do. “Big Allan Hunter was sitting in the stand and after the game he grabbed me and asked me if I was a Catholic. I told him I wasn’t. I was an English Protestant. Why, then, he asked, did I cross myself? “I told him it was for luck but he told me to remember I was a Protestant and warned me never to do it again – if I did, he would really sort me out. ‘
Based on Terry Butcher’s book, surprising Ally Hunter would later have Celtic down for his testimonial (in 1981)

“The people in that CCTV footage acted like a pack of wolves. Whatever happened earlier there was no excuse for this level of violence. ”
Assistant Chief Constable Justine Curran, the match commander during Rangers’ shame in the UEFA Cup Final “Battle of Piccadilly” in Manchester (see link)

“Celtc : Bohemian, Underprivileged.
Rangers : Dour, Establishment.”
FourFourTwo magazine describing the two clubs

Lionel Messi, the Barcelona striker, accused the Scottish side of indulging in “anti-football” when the same goalless Ibrox scoreline was achieved against his own team in the Champions League. Now Mutu has expressed his own distaste.
“I’ve never seen a team play like that at home before, but that is their game, their tactic, and what they believe in,” he said. “I thought maybe they would want to make more of a spectacle for the fans. For me, it was an ugly game. They were defending all the time and I just hope we see a bit more attacking, some spectacular”
Mutu (Fiorentina) on Rangers just before 2nd leg game in UEFA cup v Huns (Apr 08)

“The wife of a Rangers Supporters Club secretary from East Kilbride declared that she had been suffering from insomnia as a result of disturbing religious visions involving Johnston: “My blood is boiling. Is Mo Johnston going to run about Ibrox with his crucifix? I’ve though about nothing else all night.” David Miller, General Secretary of the Rangers Supporters Association was peddling an equally hard line: “I never thought in my wildest dreams that they would sign him. Why him above all? It’s a sad day for Rangers. There will be a lot of people handing in their season tickets. I don’t want to see a Roman Catholic at Ibrox. Rangers have always stood for one thing and the biggest majority of the support have been brought up with the idea of a true blue Rangers team. I thought they would sign a Catholic eventually, perhaps in three or four years time, but someone from the continent.”
Quotes from Not The View Fanzine

“Celtic have all the cool people supporting them. Rangers have me and Wet Wet Wet!!!”
Alan McGee’s lament on the great truth (Alan McGee was the founder of Creation Records and the former manager of Oasis (who also happen to be Man City and Celtic fans)

Interviewer: “Is Mo Johnston your most important signing?
David Murray (Rangers Chairman): “We signed him as a football player firstly, and also to break the tradition of this club in not signing a Roman Catholic. That was wrong.”
Rangers Chairman concedes the club had long had a sectarian signing policy in interview (21 Nov 08)

“He said I deserved more than that – I was going off. I’d never been sent off in my career and so I had this conversation with him. Basically I told him that, if he sent me off, he’d be demoted from Grade One refereeing – the lot. That was in the days when Rangers had a good relationship with the Scottish FA.”
Football Bloody Hell by Patrick Barclay when it mentions a tussle between Alex Ferguson and John Greig (Rangers player) that results in Greig getting sent off. Greig who felt he deserved only a booking relates. Plus ca change….

“….yes we’ve had some pretty rank poets over the years. Thomson was probably a Rangers fan in-waiting. Rule Britannia has no modern value and should be dumped in the dustbin of history. It celebrates sentiments and ideologies that have brought great shame on parts of ‘our’ collective British history. Anyone that thinks slavery is smart or justifiable or just a wind up should reconsider why this song still persists in parts of Neanderthal British life. Forget the ‘Hokey Cokey’ guff, Rule Britannia is a song that lords it over other races, celebrates institutionalised racism, and promotes racial supremacy and it should be banned. No correction it should not need to be banned. People should be so ashamed of its vile sentiments they would not knowingly sing it. Its hardly surprising that Rangers fans are the exception. No one else would want to sing this dated piece of imperialist cant. ”
Stuart Cosgrove (Journalist)

Sergio Porrini thinks Rangers could pick up a European trophy within the next three years. He said, “if we can overcome Gothenburg I think we can reach the quarter finals. And I believe that in two or three seasons Rangers could win the European Cup.”
Sergio Perrini (1997), Rangers Player… Daft idiot!

Rangers have been dubbed “the stupidest club in Europe” by France Football magazine. Senior correspondent Christophe Larcher condemned Rangers in a scathing attack on Strasbourg’s opponents in the UEFA Cup first round. He said, “Rangers have spent fortunes on second-rate players and they keep getting knocked out in the first round of European competition. For these reasons they deserve the title of the stupidest club in the continent. As if further proof was needed, they went out against Gothenburg in the European Cup qualifiers after a 3-0 thrashing in Sweden.”
Christophe Larcher (France Football) 3 September 1997

“The famous Rangers Iron Curtain of the 1940s derived from the emphasis on physical strength which Struth had developed in the previous decades. Another potent factor was they were all Protestants, to a man (with suspicions over one or two). And it mattered, deeply. Hardly an eyebrow was raised in Scottish society about this exclusivity during the Struth reign. People largely acquiesced as simply a fact of life. And Struth himself, with a penchant for made-to-measure three-piece suits, a stern countenance and a master of moral rebuke, seemed to be the epitome of the Presbyterian High Tory for whom the tugging of the forelock was expected in an orderly, unchanging society.
“Certainly people from both sides of the divide had a high regard for him as a man of principle, including Paddy Travers of Clyde, a Catholic with whom Struth had holidayed on the Isle of Man. And, ironically, there was a great bond between the man who effectively brought Stein to Parkhead, Jimmy Gribben the Celtic trainer, for whom Struth kept a “wee hauf” at Ibrox any time Celtic played there.
“At that time he was not being forced to engage himself with the highly dubious morality of valuing people of another religion as not fit for purpose. With ample Protestant talent available to him, on the principle of “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”, life simply rolled on.
“That is why the Struth legacy contains a crucial paradox for the modern Rangers. It can be interpreted in two ways. Without doubt the triumphs, the longevity, the production of great players, all point to a man of distinction and talent. On the other hand, from the baseline of supremacy and triumphalism set, he bequeathed the club a dilemma. The temptation to maintain the tradition was initially overpowering. Waddell and Wallace in the 1970s and 1980s began to see their recruitment options diminishing but were shackled by their own personal inclinations.”
The Herald article on Bill Struth (link)

“On the Rangers terracing on Saturday there was congregated a gang, thousands strong, including the dregs and scourings of filthy slumdom, unwashed yahoos, jailbirds nighthawks, won’t works, burro-barnacles and pavement pirates, all, or nearly all, in the scarecrow stage of verminous trampdom. This ragged army of insanitary pests was lavishly provided with orange and blue remnants…. Practically without cessation, the vagabond scum kept up a strident howl of the “Boyne Water” chorus. Nothing so bestially ignorant has ever been witnessed, even in the wildest exhibitions of Glasgow Orange bigotry……”The reporter went on to describe the assembled throng of Celtic fans.
“These complaints do not apply to the Celtic brake-clubs (supporters’ clubs) whose members, reasonable sentient human beings, are models of decorum and possess official testimonials to their blameless behaviour…..They are fond of singing, and to this no-one can reasonably object. On Saturday, the boys sang to their heart’s content. They gave us so many rousing choruses. “Hail Glorious St. Patrick”, “God Save Ireland”, “Slievenamon” “The Soldier’s Song”…. When Cassidy’s goal made victory sure, it was fine to hear the massed thousands at the western end of the Ibrox oval chanting thunderously “On Erin’s Green Valleys’..”
Man in the Know” from the 1920’s Glasgow Observer in one of his reports relating to an Old Firm game in 1924, (1924)

“Friendly against Rangers , no such thing they’ll be on the rampage they are hooligans!”
“The Likely Lads” (English TV show, 1970s)

“Assault with a deadly weapon, GBH and attempted murder……….what are they? Rangers Fans”.
“The Sweeney” (English TV Show, 1970s)

“This is like a scene now out of Apocalypse Now… We’ve got the equivalent of Passchendaele and that says nothing for Scottish football. At the end of the day, let’s not kid ourselves. These supporters hate each other.”
Archie MacPherson (1980 Scottish Cup final, match commentator)

“Even if Rangers offered me a new contract and a guaranteed place in the team I’d still want to leave. I hate the place.”
Erik Bo Anderson

“There was no problem as far as [the English Players] Ray Wilkins, Chris Woods, Mark Walters, I and some others were concerned. But the Scottish players – Davie Cooper, Ian Ferguson, Ally McCoist, John Brown and the rest – declined because they had received so many calls from friends telling them not to become involved.
“Jimmy Bell didn’t want to become involved at all.
“Mo [Johnstone] roomed with Ally McCoist, as he had done for the national team, and it was Jimmy’s practice to put fresh kit outside everyone’s room for the next day.
“But he refused to do so for Mo, just leaving Ally’s, forcing Mo to go down three flights of stairs to the kit room to fetch his gear.”
Ex-Rangers Captain Terry Butcher’s Biography on the bigotry at Ibrox when ex-Celt & Catholic Mo Johnstone joined them

MO Johnston turned Scottish football on its head when he sensationally snubbed Celtic to join Rangers in July 1989 Gers’ first high-profile Catholic signing in the modern era made nationwide headlines. But Terry Butcher has revealed how Johnston was initially treated as an outcast by some of his Scottish team-mates at Ibrox.
And Rangers kitman Jimmy Bel, made sure he got the message, refusing to leave Mo’s training kit outside his hotel door at their Italian pre-season base, as he did with other players.
Former club captain Tel explains in his autobiography: “It was, as far as I was concerned, a fabulous signing for the club because Mo was such a good player, while Souness had achieved his ambition of beginning to break down the sectarian barriers at Ibrox.
“Our only doubt was we knew Mo was fiercely proud of being a Celtic fan and we wondered how he would settle. We need not have worried – he was terrific.
“Next day, the club wanted the Scottish and English players to hold a press conference to tell the media what a good signing he was.
“There was no problem as far as Ray Wilkins, Chris Woods, Mark Walters, I and some others were concerned. But the Scottish players – Davie Cooper, Ian Ferguson, Ally McCoist, John Brown and the rest – declined because they had received so many calls from friends telling them not to become involved.
“Jimmy Bell didn’t want to become involved at all.
“Mo roomed with Ally McCoist, as he had done for the national team, and it was Jimmy’s practice to put fresh kit outside everyone’s room for the next day.
“But he refused to do so for Mo, just leaving Ally’s, forcing Mo to go down three flights of stairs to the kit room to fetch his gear.
“Mo did so stoically and without complaint. In fact, in the end he made a joke about it.
“But this was a complete upheaval for the club. Even at meal-times there were a number of Scots who would not sit with him.
“What had happened to the moral high ground claimed by Rangers?
“They always used to say it was Celtic who were intolerant and unable to cope with the mixing of religions. Wrong.
“There were no such difficulties for the English players, of course.
“All we knew was that we had signed a good player who was going to help us retain our title
Ex-Rangers Captain Terry Butcher’s Biography on the bigotry at Ibrox when ex-Celt & Catholic Mo Johnstone joined them

“Football has moved on to a different planet and Scottish football has got to go with it.”
Rangers chairman David Murray, (1997)

“[Rangers are] the second most important institution in Scotland after the Church of Scotland.”
David Murray (2010), Delusion and trying to pander to their knuckle-draggers with this kind of statement. Decent members of the CoS keep their distance.

“I feel very sorry for Airdrie and their supporters but we’re running a business. We have given them repeated warnings and felt they were playing on our good nature.”
Rangers Chairman David Murray on Airdrie during their liquidation. Interesting in light of Rangers later financial debacles (2002)

“The club simply cannot shake off the stigma of bigotry. It is excruciating.”
Graham Spiers (2011)

“They have a church, too. In their illiterate and incoherent scheme of things, Calvary is probably a collective for horses and maybe Gethsemane is something mysterious that happens in a sperm-bank. No, their real religion is Rangers Football Club.
“Glasgow Rangers is the sporting icon for loyalist bigots. The club’s own words are irreproachably neutral. It is law-abiding. It is patriotically British. Its outward message is of harmony and ecumenism. But to the large thug element amongst the Rangers fans the key to their identity is almost like the Third Secret of Fatima. It is this: NO FENIANS here.
“There is a congenial, indeed government-backed myth, in both Scotland and in Ireland, that “one side is bad as another”: that Sinn Fein-IRA are pretty much the same as the UDA/UVF. This is simply untrue. There is no republican equivalent to the Romper Rooms of the UDA, wherein men were routinely beaten to a pulp by loyalist thugs, and from which both the term and the practice became celebrated. And then there was Lenny Murphy and his merry gang, the Shankill Butchers, who for years in the mid-1970s abducted, tortured and murdered Catholics — usually by cutting their victims’ throats.
“This culture did not emerge simply as a response to IRA violence. It was there already. It was feckless, violent, drunken, lost, lumpen proletarians for whom a perverted tribal identity conjoined with a Godlessly Calvinist sense of superiority, even as they stewed in their ghettoes of suffocating illiteracy and economic failure. But they were nonetheless elevated by the insane delusion that they are the chosen people, who have been deprived of their birthright by some vast conspiracy between the Catholic Church and the British government.”
Kevin Myres (Independent.ie)

“Rangers had an unfortunate historical legacy with regard to the religious issue. When we signed Mo it became clear it was no longer a pre-requisite that you belonged to one religious persuasion, but not another, in order to sign for the club.”
Walter Smith tries to belitte his club’s long-held old sectarian signing policy (Dec 2012)

“Glasgow Rangers had their fans barred from entry, played pig-ugly football and behaved like swine.
“The Scots realized that they would not be able to eliminate Malmö from the Champions League fairly. Therefore they resorted to intimidating, kicking and fighting them. It was pathetic.
“Edu should have been sent off having been well warned. McCulloch’s yellow card when he kicked Durmaz from behind should have been a red – Durmaz should have been red carded when he retaliated, but wasn’t even warned – and when Majid Bougherra assaulted Dardan Rexhepi leaving him almost unconscious, the sending off was indisputable.
“This was how Rangers acted.
“Their fans were banned from European matches. Their team should also be.”
Mattias Larsson (following Rangers defeat to Malmo in Aug 2011; from www.expressen.se, source: http://www.expressen.se/sport/1.2517731/kanslan-efterat-sa.-jakla.-rattvist)

“Rangers are a big club but unfortunately they are behaving like a little one.”
Steve Lomas (St Johnstone Manager, self-admitted Rangers fan as a kid, Jan 2012)

“For every five pounds Celtic spend, we will spend ten.”
Rangers Chairman David Murray

“What the rest of the world will never understand unless they experience it first hand is that Rangers Football Club is a religion, in itself, built on centuries of religious bigotry.”
The former director also accused Police Scotland of being “an establishment institution which itself is deeply rooted and immersed in Rangers Football Club’s history for well over 140 years”.
“I firmly believe Police Scotland have their own agenda and are deeply emotionally connected to Rangers Football Club. In my view Police Scotland have a clear conflict of interest.”
Ex-Sevco Director Imran Ahmed (2015)

“I remember coming back from Vancouver in 1980 and I got a call from John Greig, who was Rangers manager. I told him I was going back to Kirkcaldy to play for Raith Rovers and would open a pub.
“But he asked me to go back to Rangers. I knew I shouldn’t have gone back but I did.
“Anyway, there I was in the office signing and he said ‘I’m looking for a centre forward’.
“I told him to go for Cyrille and it was clear that the fact he was black might be an issue for Rangers. These were different times. I just said ‘dye his hair red’, if that helps.
“The next question John asked was ‘is he catholic?’ I had no idea whether he was.
Willie Johnston of West Bromwich Albion.
“Again, I said ‘he’ll be a protestant if you want him to be’. But that was a big thing back then. I said Cyrille would be the first player I would sign if I was Rangers manager – but it didn’t happen.”
Willie Johnston (2017) (B’ham Mail)
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rangers-cyrille-regis-willie-johnston-6403627

“I played there for four years and didn’t say a word about it. They [the Rangers Supporters] probably would have killed me.”
Don Kitchenbrand (ex-Rangers player 1950s) that he would have been ‘killed’ had Rangers fans found out he was a Catholic.

“I can understand why they were unhappy at the sending off because in Scottish football, the Rangers [sic!] player wouldn’t have even have received any of the yellow cards. They are used to playing that way in Scotland.”
Ex-Rangers Player Oleg Salenko on Sevco in their defeat to Dynamo Kiev (Aug 2024)

“Well Celtic Park is still standing, David Murray tried to convince jouranlists that it was built of cheap steel! As if it was some kind of mecanno set! Impish bullish, and an absolute loftiness, oh how he loved looking down Celtic ‘the scrawny beggars’ from across the city.”
Jouranalist Graham Spiers on Rangers chairman David Murray commenting on Celtic (Apr 2023)

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