Post by Waverley on Nov 9, 2008 23:16:13 GMT 1
A short history of Rangers and Rutherglen
Taken from the programme for yesterday's dinner...
The Royal Burgh of Rutherglen has always had a huge Rangers support. As long ago as the early 1900s football specials were ran from the train station to take Rangers fans to Ibrox and away games. That in itself tells a story: despite the town being closer to other teams and not in the immediate catchment area of Ibrox, the support for Rangers that it has produced is recorded as going back over 100 years, something which will be a fairly rare occurrence.
Football specials took off in the 1920s and it wasn’t uncommon for Rutherglen to be the main hub of where the Rangers support departed from in travelling to Ibrox and away games, with hundreds from the town cramming onto the carriages to follow their team. Football specials continued to leave the town up until the 1960s when Rangers Supporters’ Clubs became the favoured method of travel for Rangers fans. Rutherglen, of course, had plenty of them with the number probably reaching a peak in the mid – late 60s. Some of them sadly are no more with the names like Rutherglen Marlowe and Farme Cross Rangers Supporters Club existing only in the records books.
On a happier note, though, there are still a number of RSCs in the area with the Toryglen True Blues being an established name throughout the Rangers Family. The bus has been running in various guises for about the past 25 years and has been represented in one form or another at virtually every game Rangers have played in that time. During the heyday of bus travel to Europe in the 1980s and 1990s it was a very rare away game that transport wasn’t arranged to take members to some far-flung spot in Europe in support of Rangers. The stories of the Toryglen bus, especially on the many trips to Europe the bus has undertaken, are legendary although some of them are probably better left on the bus!
Despite the rising costs of following Rangers and reduced ticket allocations in this day and age, the Toryglen True Blues RSC continues to take a much larger than average contingent, regularly taking double deckers to places like Dingwall and Berwick for midweek fixtures. Ultimately, though, the committee and members of the RSC are continuing a long and proud tradition of the Royal Burgh of Rutherglen being able to call itself a Rangers town and carrying on a tradition that is more than a century old of people leaving the town to Follow, Follow Rangers.
Taken from the programme for yesterday's dinner...
The Royal Burgh of Rutherglen has always had a huge Rangers support. As long ago as the early 1900s football specials were ran from the train station to take Rangers fans to Ibrox and away games. That in itself tells a story: despite the town being closer to other teams and not in the immediate catchment area of Ibrox, the support for Rangers that it has produced is recorded as going back over 100 years, something which will be a fairly rare occurrence.
Football specials took off in the 1920s and it wasn’t uncommon for Rutherglen to be the main hub of where the Rangers support departed from in travelling to Ibrox and away games, with hundreds from the town cramming onto the carriages to follow their team. Football specials continued to leave the town up until the 1960s when Rangers Supporters’ Clubs became the favoured method of travel for Rangers fans. Rutherglen, of course, had plenty of them with the number probably reaching a peak in the mid – late 60s. Some of them sadly are no more with the names like Rutherglen Marlowe and Farme Cross Rangers Supporters Club existing only in the records books.
On a happier note, though, there are still a number of RSCs in the area with the Toryglen True Blues being an established name throughout the Rangers Family. The bus has been running in various guises for about the past 25 years and has been represented in one form or another at virtually every game Rangers have played in that time. During the heyday of bus travel to Europe in the 1980s and 1990s it was a very rare away game that transport wasn’t arranged to take members to some far-flung spot in Europe in support of Rangers. The stories of the Toryglen bus, especially on the many trips to Europe the bus has undertaken, are legendary although some of them are probably better left on the bus!
Despite the rising costs of following Rangers and reduced ticket allocations in this day and age, the Toryglen True Blues RSC continues to take a much larger than average contingent, regularly taking double deckers to places like Dingwall and Berwick for midweek fixtures. Ultimately, though, the committee and members of the RSC are continuing a long and proud tradition of the Royal Burgh of Rutherglen being able to call itself a Rangers town and carrying on a tradition that is more than a century old of people leaving the town to Follow, Follow Rangers.