Talk:Rangers F.C.

World's Most Successful Club??

I'd like to refute this.

Rangers are the worlds most succesful club when measured by competitions won. Rangers have a large fan base, but neither fan base nor finances can be used to determing success, only success in competitions won. Rangers having won more trophies than any other team must therefore be more succesful than any other team.

Rangers are only the world's most successful club in terms of their domestic league title wins and only within the confines of their own league - not by any other measurement and not by their success in any other competitions. They have not won the Scottish Cup times more than any other club, and have never won Europe's major club prize, the european Cup. Success in global terms is measured against other clubs in the world based on performances within the club's own league, then against other clubs in competition where those clubs compete against each other. Are you seriously suggesting that Rangers are more successful on the world stage than, say Real Madrid, Liverpool or Manchester United?

I suggest that this fact as presented is a play on words. it should be amended to something more accurate.PalX 11:58, 30 September 2005 (UTC) Introduction grammar amended to make the opening factual as opposed to POV.PalX 12:35, 4 October 2005 (UTC) [reply]

RS McColl ?

A long time ago an anon added "RS McColl" as a player. Is this true, or will Rangers soon be signing John Menzies and WH.Smith too? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:43, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It certainly is true. McColl actually started his 1st shop while still a player and was known as "Toffee Bob".

100 trophies

Rangers won their 100th major trophy in 2000, the first club in the world to reach that milestone. They were specially honoured by UEFA.

I added this, but I now can't find any external reference to what that honour might have been. I'm sure there was something. Anyone remember? Sjorford 14:50, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Image Removal

I have just removed Image:Egil.JPG for the following reasons.

There is no caption. Who is it? (Ok I know after a bit of research that it's Egil Ostenstad)
He's wearing a bloody Blackburn Rovers shirt not a Rangers shirt.
There is no information about the source of this picture. The image appears to have been taken from Football-Rumours.com and copyright is claimed by that site. Mintguy (T) 11:15, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Rangers players category

Hi

Do you think that it would be worth to make a Category:Rangers F.C. players to list all the players who are playing or have previosuly played for the team? Would another category 'Category:Rangers F.C.' be neeed to list miscellaneous topics and mangers as well? - Master Of Ninja 12:07, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Page protected

This page has been protected against edits because of the hour-long incessant edit war which has just been conducted by large numbers of anonymous users here and on Celtic F.C.. The protection will be lifted when it is judged safe (presumably when all the little primary school kiddies have gone home). -- Arwel 17:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The original section which was added about sectarianism was by me. I am not a Celtic fan, but Rangers have a controversial relationship with Irish sectarians, and you will notice that in the original, outside references to reputable newspapers were included. If this is not included, you are excluding a very important facet of the club's culture.

I'm not excluding anything, I'm merely protecting Wikipedia's NPOV policy. 15+ vandalism edits to both this and the Celtic pages in an hour and a quarter was utterly unacceptable behaviour and guaranteed to draw Administrators' attention, hence the lock-down. I'm not able to positively identify your contribution, since you seem to be on a dynamic address -- please consider creating an account -- but if you're referring to the edits made on Thursday by 81.155.214.145, while at least they were civilly phrased as far as I can see they're certainly of debateable POV (Scottish, N. Irish & English flags non sectarian? Well, it depends on history and ones' POV doesn't it?). In any case, that's irrelevant,I have little interest in Scottish football but I will enforce Wikipedia's site policies, particularly NPOV, when required. -- Arwel 00:09, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You obviously have absolutely NO experience of this matter. Why would Scottish born and bred people fly English and NI flags at a Scottish league game? There's obvious reasons. Why would they should F the Pope, and sing "We are the Billy Boys"? I suggest you find out more about this, the involvement between sectarians and Rangers is a controversial one, and although not every Rangers fan is sectarian, many are. I linked to two (respectable) newspaper articles, which have been removed. Because of the obvious attacks on various people on this article, do you actually think it would be wise for me to edit it with a named account, and receive umpteen pieces of hatemail, for actually documenting some things which have actually happened and on a large scale?

<sigh>. You obviously have no experience of the word "sarcasm". I am very well aware of the history of sectarianism in Scottish football, thank you. However, if you are unwilling to identify which versions of this article you are referring to it becomes extremely difficult to hold a meaningful discussion since you are editing under a different IP address every time. I deduce – possibly incorrectly, I don't know – that you are referring to the section "Rangers and sectarianism" added by 212.23.24.94 on 7th February and removed by 81.155.214.145 on the 11th. That seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable addition to the article. Note that it was removed by another anonymous IP user, and then the article got caught up in the great edit war noted in yesterdays' Sunday Herald (I do have issues about being referred to indirectly in a newspaper as an anorak, but that's by-the-by!). The removal had nothing to do with administrative action, and there's no call to go around complaining that it's been excluded by an administrator's fiat. The lock-down was to stop the edit war, and your section was merely caught up as collateral damage. There's nothing to stop you putting that back into the article now as long as you don't fall foul of the Three Revert Rule in a 24-hour period. By the way, if you are not willing to use a named account (and it need not be your own name - people using their own name as I do are very much the minority here, and you don't need to enable receipt of emails and can always ignore comments on the user talk page), would you at least please timestamp your comments by ending with four tildes (~~~~)? Thanks. -- Arwel 14:17, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Arwel, unlike you presumably I do not spend all my time on Wikipedia (but still more than is socially healthy), so do not know all the ins and outs of the thing. I am going to set up a user name, but in editing articles like this, I intend to remain anonymous, since I do not fancy death threats etc. I know of some extremist fans of the Old Firm who actually threaten Referees and even have their home addresses on file. Do I want that? No thanks. The dark side is partly illustrated by this editing war, but it goes far deeper. Deeper than the usual international football fan hooliganism in many cases. - ("RB")

You do realize it's much easier to find out your identity from your IP address than from your wikipedia username, right? Demiurge

Only when you use your home IP.

This page has fallen victim to vandalism by Celtic Suppoters, a complete section had crept in on Rangers and Roman Catholic players. This has been removed as it has nothing to do with Rangers

This dispute may raise some questions about what we mean by NPOV e.g. should we aim for NPOV on Holocaust Denial? It was common knowledge in the west of Scotland for many years that Rangers had a ban on Catholic players, I can quote you several sources e.g. Danny McGrain's autobiography. In case you are wondering, I am not a Catholic or a Celtic supporter. PatGallacher 02:13, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

How would you be able to know for sure that Rangers never signed any Roman Catholics? The only way you'd know is if you had saw all the ex-players' birth certificates. I mean, why do you care what religion they were? I don't think it' reasonable of you to come on here and say this only making reference to Rangers. Danny McGrain, who you mention, has also said that people working for Celtic during his time there didn't take to him because he was a protestant. Indeed, you might ask yourself why he was never given a coaching role at Celtic Park when he finished playing. Judging by what certain ex-Celtic players have said, Celtic mainly signed Roman Catholics excluding the period mainly where Stein was manager (and why was Stein never given a place on the Celtic board?). I think you're probably referring to the period 1960ish to 1989ish. At that time almost all players in both Rangers' and Celtic's team were Scottish. Throughout this period of time, roughly 85% of the Scottish population were protestant, with the remaining 15% being mostly Roman Catholic. Therefore, I'd imagine that most of Rangers' players then were protestant. Can the same thing be said of Celtic's? If the Celtic team were mainly Roman Catholic, wouldn't this indicate a sectarian employment policy?

Come off it! This is a bit like Holocaust denial. Actually, I don't think Scottish birth certificates state the child's religion. If you, or Rangers F.C., want to refute the allegation that Rangers had a ban on Catholic players from roughly World War I to the signing of Mo Johnson then you have one perfectly simple solution. Name one openly Roman Catholic player they played during that period! You can't, can you! Why did Rangers never sue the umpteen people who said they had a ban? Why, when in the 1970s it was floated that they might lift this ban, did some fans writing in the Sunday Post make comments about their "great tradition"? Why, when they did sign Mo Johnson, did some supporters burn their scarves and season tickets outside Ibrox? I am not claiming that Celtic's record has been squeaky-clean, merely that it is a matter of common knowldedge that they did not have a rigid ban on Protestant players, and that the most successful manager in their history, Jock Stein, was a Protestant. You cannot have it both ways, pointing to any problems McGrain and Stein may have experienced as evidence of Celtic's sectarianism, and the ignoring the much stronger evidence with Rangers. Although, thinking about it, Billy McNeill could have been badly treated by the Celtic board as well, even though he was a Catholic. He was the most successful captain in their history, during the Stein era when they won 9-in-a-row and the European cup, he became manager later on but did not last long. So maybe the Celtic board just had a bad record of treating former stars, regardless of their religion. PatGallacher 11:12, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

John Spencer, was Catholic and played for Rangers before Maurice Johnson

I added this little bit (The club has traditionally been identified with the Protestant community of Glasgow) before the part about the rivalry with Celtic. Feel free to change it if you find it unsuitable. Funnyhat 07:48, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am open to persuasion how this issue is handled, but it's not reasonable not to mention it at all. It's not POV to say that this allegation was widely made, it's a matter of common knowledge in the west of Scotland. This is an encyclopedia, not a collection of fans' websites. I'm not singling out Rangers, I have contributed on a wide range of issues, my contributions are a matter of public record, but like the Watergate investigators I don't like cover-ups. PatGallacher 17:47, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

Vandalism of article

The anonymous person who removed the NPOV flag without addressing the issues has now been reported for vandalism. PatGallacher 16:31, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

Rangers detractors

This page is frequently victim to vandalism, most notably by PatGallacher, who claims not to be a "Catholic or a Celtic fan", it does have to be asked what is your fascination with Rangers Pat? Why don't you go on a variety of English teams pages and catigate them for their fans behaviour in europe? Why not go on Celtic's page and be negative about them? Jimbo79 18:18, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NPOV removal

It was me who put the NPOV flag on this article, I have decided very cautiously to remove it. I remain convinced that Rangers did have a ban on Catholic players from roughly WW1 to the Souness era, it is beside the point whether Mo Johnson or John Spencer was the first Catholic signed by Souness. However I also recognise that there are many younger Rangers supporters for who this must seem like a historical issue, there are also many who did not burn their scarves when Souness signed Johnson. As a matter of concrete assessment, although I reserve my right to change my mind on this, given that this was about 20 years ago, I think it would be better not to deal with this in the main Rangers article, although it would be perfectly legitimate to deal with this in biographies of some individuals who played an important role in events of that time. PatGallacher 21:56, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

Well I just put it back, you were right to have it there in the first place!

John Spencer was not signed by souness, he came through the youth set up. You obviously have a very twisted view, and know nothing about Rangers football club other than what you have read in Danny McGrain's book. Why don't you find out the facts and come back when you know what you are talking about

I think the Rangers scout who spotted John Spencer may not have been aware that he was a Catholic since he came from a mixed marriage, his father was a Protestant. But I could be confusing him with someone else. I will check my sources on these issues. PatGallacher 09:37, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

I am surprised at this Pat, surely if there was a sectarian signing policy at Rangers, they would have asked John Spencer what religion he was before they signed him, just to check. So if this question was not asked can we assume that religion was not an issue? Karatekid7 23:24, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Spencer went to St Ninians High school, so it was no secret what religion he was.Karatekid7 23:59, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't bite the newbies. PatGallacher 11:41, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

Editing page while protected

How the hell did anonymous user 82.153.107.78 manage to edit this article while it was protected? I'm calling in the developers. -- Arwel 14:18, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can't believe this page has to be protected. There are some sorry people out there who want to abuse this, I guess. My question: who decides when it is OK to edit?

Don Kichenbrand was a Catholic too and he played for Rangers in the 50s/60s.

Error

Vandalism etc aside, there is an error on the page currently. Most league goals: Ally McCoist, 54 goals. Considering he scored 355 in total and 100 ish in cups, this figure must be wrong !!

Yeah this figure is indeed incorrect. He scored 251 League goals, looks like it was confused with Most League Cup goals. Forbsey 02:57, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

When is this page going to be unprotected? Parts of it are growing increasingly out of date, particularly the squad list.--82.41.236.68 00:33, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No idea. The Heart of Midlothian F.C. article is still protected also. Both are out of date. Forbsey 19:06, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see it's over 3 weeks since this page was protected now. I think it's about time it was unprotected, if people can be ready to guard against vandalism. I have to say it's disappointing how the Rangers, Celtic and Old Firm articles act as vandal magnets - I've got dozens, if not hundreds (since I create stubs for all teams in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League and UEFA Cup) of football club articles on my watchlist, and these 3 are by orders of magnitude the worst vandalised articles - far worse than Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool, which are moderately vandalised. OK, I did do a revert just now on FK Partizan, but that's rare, and nobody seems to vandalise FC Kairat Almaty! I just wish these Old Firm vandals would bloody well grow up. If nobody objects, I'll unprotect this article tomorrow night. -- Arwel 22:23, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

np. I totally agree with you Arwel. The frequent Vandalism of the Celtic and Rangers articles, and to a lesser extent the Hibernian and Hearts articles, is shocking. It's a pity that we have such sad uneducated folk in our society. Hopefully this time the vandalism will be kept to a minimum. Forbsey 08:24, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rangers DID sign Catholics prior to Mo Johnston!

Pre-Johnston Catholics include: Pat Lafferty, Archie Kyle, "Doc" Kivlichan (who, like Johnston, was an Ex-Celtic player), Joe Donnachie, Johnny Jackson, John Spencer, Hugh O’Neill, Laurie Blyth, Constantine McGhie, James Tutty, Colin Mainds, Tom Murray, Tom Dunbar, Don Kichenbrand.

Note that this is a short list. Also of note is that no Catholics were signed between 1920 and 1950, and between 1960 and Mo Johnston. It's bizarre that Rangers supporters continue in this game of denial. Rangers had a de facto 'No Catholics' signing policy for large parts of their history. It's a fact. Why deny it?

There may have been more Catholics that played for Rangers between WWI and the Souness era, however, disclosing your religious persuasion was never a prerequisite as a Rangers player. This surely dispells the myth that Rangers pursued a sectarian signing policy. Bazton#

The above statement is nonsense.

I would like to know more about Don Kitchenbrand. I believe he was South African and chose to conceal his religon. can anybody add to this ?PalX 12:03, 30 September 2005 (UTC) [reply]