49 Fun Facts About Rangers FC

In which Scottish city are Rangers based?

The club is often called Glasgow Rangers, though that has never been its official name.

Rangers took their name from an annual about which sport?

Rugby: Moses McNeil, then 16, is said to have spotted the name Rangers in an English rugby annual and suggested it to the brother and friends he was starting a football team with.

Which Tina Turner hit is played before Rangers' home games?

The Best: with the championship in sight in April 2010, Rangers fans set out to buy their club anthem to number one, and it re-entered the UK chart in the top ten.

Who designed Ibrox Stadium?

Archibald Leitch, a Rangers fan, won the job back even after a wooden terrace he had designed collapsed in 1902, and went on to build stands at Old Trafford, Highbury and many more grounds.

Rangers are nicknamed the Light Blues, but which shade are their home shirts?

Royal blue: around 1880 the club spent a few seasons in blue and white hoops before going back to plain blue shirts.

How many Scottish league titles had Rangers won by 2021, then a world record?

55: the 2021 title was the club's first in ten years, and it stopped their great rivals one short of a record ten championships in a row.

Which European trophy did Rangers win in 1972?

European Cup Winners' Cup: Rangers had lost the final of the same competition in 1961 and 1967 before winning it at the third attempt.

Which club did Rangers beat in their 1972 European final?

Dynamo Moscow, the first Soviet side to reach a European final, fought back from 3-0 down to 3-2, and Rangers' own fans held up the frantic last minute by running onto the pitch.

In which stadium did Rangers win their 1972 European final?

Camp Nou: Rangers fans poured onto the pitch at the final whistle, so the trophy was handed over in a room inside the stadium, and a UEFA ban stopped the club defending it.

Rangers lost a 1971 shoot-out at Sporting, yet went through because the referee had overlooked which rule?

Away goals: the tie finished 6-6, but Rangers had scored three in Lisbon to Sporting's two in Scotland, so their manager took the rule book to a UEFA official and the lost shoot-out was struck out.

The rivalry between Rangers and Celtic is known by what name?

The Old Firm: the two clubs first met in 1888, a game Rangers lost 5-2, and the rivalry came to mirror the split between the city's Protestant and Irish Catholic communities.

Where in Ibrox did the 1971 disaster's fatal crush happen?

A stairway: Stairway 13, an exit, had already seen deaths and injuries in crushes in the 1960s, and the inquiry that followed 1971 led to new safety rules for British sports grounds.

Which manager led Rangers for 34 years from 1920 to 1954?

Bill Struth stepped up when the previous manager drowned in a boating accident, and went on to win 18 league titles, 14 of them before the Second World War.

About how many fans packed Ibrox for a league game in January 1939, a British record?

118,000: the official 118,567 stood on vast earth-banked terraces, built after a wooden one collapsed in 1902, to watch Rangers beat Celtic 2-1 in the New Year derby.

Which player-manager, appointed in 1986, began Rangers' run of nine straight titles?

Graeme Souness reversed the usual flow of talent by luring England internationals such as Terry Butcher north, and won the first two of the nine titles before leaving for Liverpool in 1991.

Where did Rangers clinch their ninth consecutive title in May 1997?

Tannadice Park: Brian Laudrup, said to be no header of the ball, dived to head the only goal against Dundee United and match Celtic's record of nine straight titles.

Who became Rangers' first foreign manager in 1998?

Dick Advocaat, a Dutchman known as the Little General, won the treble in his first season, but his heavy spending on players left the managers who followed him far less to work with.

Which striker did Rangers sign for a club-record £12 million in 2000?

Tore Andre Flo left Chelsea because he was not playing enough, and the fee Rangers paid to get him set a new Scottish transfer record.

Who signed for Rangers in 1989 as the club's first major Roman Catholic signing?

Mo Johnston was a former Celtic striker, and Celtic had already announced he was coming back to them when Rangers stepped in. He went on to score 46 goals in 100 games.

Who became the first Catholic captain of Rangers in 1998?

Lorenzo Amoruso, an Italian defender signed from Fiorentina, led the side to a domestic treble in his first season with the armband, only to be stripped of it two years later.

Which manager won Rangers the 2003 title on goal difference on the season's final day?

Alex McLeish's side beat Dunfermline 6-1, the last goal an injury-time penalty from Mikel Arteta, to finish above Celtic by a single goal of goal difference.

In 2005 the SPL trophy helicopter famously diverted to which ground for Rangers?

Easter Road: the helicopter was bound for Celtic's game at Motherwell until two Scott McDonald goals in the dying minutes beat them, so it swung round to Edinburgh, where Rangers were winning 1-0.

Whom did Rangers lose to in the 2008 UEFA Cup final?

Zenit Saint Petersburg won 2-0, and the man in their dugout had been Rangers' own manager earlier in the decade.

Which English city did more than 100,000 Rangers fans descend on for the 2008 UEFA Cup final?

Manchester: thousands had come without tickets, and when a giant screen in the city centre failed, the party turned into clashes with riot police.

Who beat Rangers on penalties in the 2022 Europa League final?

Eintracht Frankfurt won the shoot-out 5-4 in Seville after a 1-1 draw. The only miss came from Aaron Ramsey, sent on late precisely to take a penalty.

Rangers went into administration in 2012 on which day of the calendar?

Valentine's Day: administrators were appointed on 14 February amid a dispute over unpaid tax, and the automatic 10-point penalty all but ended the champions' title defence.

In which division did the re-formed Rangers start again in 2012?

Third Division: top-flight chairmen refused the re-formed club a place, and a plan to slot it into the second tier failed too, so it began in Scotland's lowest division.

Rangers' first home league match of 2012-13 drew 49,118 to see a 5-1 win over which club?

East Stirlingshire silenced Ibrox with a third-minute penalty before losing 5-1, and the crowd was a world record for a league at that level.

Which Luxembourg club knocked Rangers out of the 2017-18 Europa League qualifiers?

Progrès Niederkorn had scored only once in Europe and never won a game there, yet overturned a 1-0 first-leg defeat as Rangers hit the woodwork three times.

Which former England captain took his first senior manager's job at Rangers in 2018?

Steven Gerrard had coached only Liverpool's under-18s before Rangers hired him, and in his third full season his side won the league without losing a game.

Who captained Rangers through their unbeaten 2020-21 league season?

James Tavernier lifted the trophy as a right-back who scored like a striker: by the time he left the club in 2026 he had 144 goals from 565 games.

Which former Rangers player returned as the club's manager in November 2021?

Giovanni van Bronckhorst came back 20 years after leaving as a player, reached the Europa League final and won the Scottish Cup within six months, and was still sacked a year after arriving.

Which Italian club beat Rangers home and away in the 2022-23 Champions League group stage?

Napoli won 3-0 both times as Rangers, Europa League finalists months earlier, lost all six group games with the worst goal difference the stage had then seen.

Which NFL team's investment arm bought into Rangers in 2025?

San Francisco 49ers: their investment arm joined businessman Andrew Cavenagh in buying 51% of the club, and its president, who also chairs Leeds United, became Rangers' vice-chairman.

Which Rangers manager was sacked after just 123 days in charge in 2025?

Russell Martin lasted only 17 games. After a 1-1 draw at Falkirk, fans tried to block the team bus, he left the ground under police escort, and he was sacked the same day.

What kind of animal is Broxi, the Rangers mascot?

A bear: Broxi's name is simply the letters of Ibrox rearranged, and he shares his mascot duties with two more bears, Roxi and Boris.

What single word is Rangers' club motto?

Ready sits beneath the lion rampant on the club crest introduced in 1959, yet the team's shirts carry a different badge, the older scroll of the letters RFC.

Why were five stars added to Rangers' scroll crest in 2003?

One per ten league titles: the stars went on after the club's 50th championship, which was won on the last day of the season by a single goal of goal difference.

Who is Rangers' all-time record goalscorer?

Ally McCoist, the club's record goalscorer, later became its manager and led the team through liquidation in 2012 and two straight promotions back up the leagues.

Which striker became Rangers' record scorer in European competition in 2020?

Alfredo Morelos equalled the old mark of 21 with the winner against Lech Poznań, then took the record outright a week later by scoring away to Benfica.

Which Rangers player was voted 'The Greatest Ever Ranger' by supporters in 1999?

John Greig captained the side that won the club's European trophy in 1972, and his bronze statue now tops the memorial to the 66 fans who died in the 1971 disaster.

Whose hat-trick against Aberdeen clinched Rangers' eighth straight title in 1996?

Paul Gascoigne scored all three goals in a 3-1 win after Aberdeen had gone ahead, two of them solo runs and the last a penalty.

Before joining Rangers in 1994, Brian Laudrup was on loan at which Italian club?

Milan took Laudrup on loan when his own club, Fiorentina, were relegated in 1993, and Rangers signed him the following summer.

Which English club did Walter Smith manage after leaving Rangers in 1998?

Everton sacked Smith in 2002 with the team a point above the relegation zone, yet after a spell in charge of Scotland he returned to Rangers in 2007 and won three straight league titles.

Who became Rangers' first manager in 1899, after ten years as match secretary?

William Wilton had already overseen three Scottish Cup wins as match secretary in the 1890s, and he remained manager until he drowned in a boating accident in 1920.

Rangers shared the first Scottish League title in 1890-91 with which club?

Dumbarton finished level on points with Rangers, and when a play-off between them ended 2-2 the title was shared, each club keeping the trophy for six months.

Which Northern Irish club do Rangers supporters share a long-standing fan friendship with?

Linfield showed what the friendship meant in May 2012, staging a specially arranged match in Belfast that raised a six-figure sum for Rangers while the Scottish club was in administration.

Rangers' training centre in Milngavie was originally named after which chairman?

David Murray, then the club's owner and chairman, gave his name to Murray Park when it opened in 2001. The manager of the day had insisted that Rangers build a training base of their own.

Which Dutch club beat Rangers in the first, unofficial European Super Cup?

Ajax, the European champions, won 6-3 on aggregate. UEFA would not endorse the tie because Rangers were serving a ban, so it was played as part of the Scottish club's centenary celebrations.