Rangers stumble south of the border
This is not how it was supposed to be. After all the years of proposals and speculation, a member of the Old Firm finally played a league game i n England yesterday. ‘Historic and momentous,’ said the man on the Tannoy before kick-off.
Unfortunately for Rangers this was a different kind of historic.
This was not England’s Premier League, t hi s was norther n Northumberland, five miles south of the border. This was Berwick- on-Tweed, this was Shielfield Park, with its brown perimeter speedway track and part-time footballers. This was the Irn-Bru Scottish Third Division.
In a phrase that Ally McCoist would use about Rangers’ display, this was ‘miles short’ of the match at Anfield yesterday.
If it all were not bad enough for the once mighty Glasgow Rangers, they almost lost. But for a curiously disallowed 90th-minute header, Berwick Rangers would have won and deservedly so.
That would have equalled the famous 1967 Scottish Cup tie here when Berwick won 1-0 and over in Glasgow, Ibrox shook.
Ibrox has been shaken enough of late but yesterday brought, at the very least, another shiver.
Rangers were outfought and outpassed to a remarkable degree for much of the game. About the only thing to admire from the boys in blue was the post-match honesty of McCoist, who described the occasion as ‘agony’.
His opinion was harsh but justified. It has been month after month of unpleasant shocks for Rangers since t hey entered administration in February. Even so, few then foresaw McCoist being here in August, at this level, grateful for a bad refereei ng decision to keep Ranger s fourth in what is the fourth division of Scottish football.
They remain unbeaten in their new world; actually, that was someone’s joke.
But McCoist wasn’t l aughing. ‘Outside the game and the draw, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am with the whole performance,’ he said. ‘That performance was miles short, I can’t tell you how far short that was for any Rangers fan or any Rangers coach. That was unacceptable and I’ve told the players that.’
Asked if those players did not possess t he appropriate attitude for this situation, McCoist replied: ‘That’s probably as big a criticism as you could level at any player, so I’d be loath to say that. But we’ve certainly got problems.
‘Every away game is going to be a Scottish Cup tie, that’s what we’re going to be faced with. Teams will be up for it. The players must realise that.
‘I’ll be letting them know. I’ll be going through it and I’ll make them watch it. Because that was agony.’
McCoist was on the opposite side of the pitch from Rangers’ fans, maybe in more than one sense. They did not hear his words.
Berwick’s average attendance last season was 396 — Rangers’ was 46,000. The blue masses swelling it to a capacity 4,000 were in Bank Holiday mood.
They were still doing the bouncy, bouncy even as a talented enamel sprayer called Fraser McLaren equalised for Berwick just past the hour. Northern Ireland striker Andy Little (below) had put Rangers ahead in first-half injury time and the loyal songs were pouring forth, also some slating the Scottish FA and the SNP. There were flags from groups from Bournemouth, Carlisle, Largs and Lothian. It was a beautiful day to watch a match, it was live on TV, Der Spiegel were over from Germany, the River Tweed looked a picture. In this parallel universe Rangers have entered, it was party time.
But when Rangers punters stare at t he l e ague table this morning, they will find it sobering. Elgin, Peterhead and Clyde are above them; i n the Scottish Third Division.
Embarrassment is preferable to humiliation, though, and Rangers avoided the former. That made yesterday better than 1967, when a few months later, Celtic won the European Cup.
But 2012 is still worse, much worse. On Wednesday Celtic are expected to confirm their return to the Champions League group stages at home to Helsingborgs — proof of some vitality in Scottish football following the SFA chief executive Stewart Regan’s summer prediction of a lingering death. The contrast for Rangers will be painful. It will be a long, long time before they can again contemplate such a scenario. For them, for now, England is as far as they go. Not so long ago, that was an ambition. After yesterday, it’s far enough.