The Gallant Pioneers: Rangers 1872

by Ralston, Gary

  Pictures of the first Ibrox Park are so rare as to be almost non-existent. This artist’s impression of Glasgow from the air, c.1897, shows the ground depicted bottom left. Other points of interest include the University of Glasgow tower at Gilmorehill to the north of the river and the ‘Tannant’s Stack’ at the St Rollox chemical works. The enormous Prince's and Queen's Docks on either side of the River Clyde, centre left, also dominate. Other features of interest include Central and St Enoch stations.

  (Picture courtesy of Glasgow City Archives.)

  Preston manager Major Sudell replied briefly, complimenting Rangers on the construction of such a spectacular new ground, but calling on the press in Glasgow to educate local fans in the matter of manners after the events of earlier in the day. The get-together broke up shortly afterwards and Preston players and officials boarded the last train south from Central Station. They did not look back as they headed for the border. Pretty soon, neither did Rangers, and even the brand new home that drew so many admiring glances from rival clubs would soon prove too restrictive for the ambitions of a club that would go on to earn a cherished status as the most successful in Scottish football history.

  A New Era

  Alexander Graham Bell had already invented the telephone by the time Rangers and Celtic first crossed swords on 28 May 1888, but thankfully Guglielmo Marconi still had another eight years to go before his work on wireless transmission would reach its defining stages. In truth, even if radio phone-ins had been an integral feature of the media and sporting landscape at the time, it is doubtful whether many among the Light Blues’ legions would have rushed to spin the dial and pour out their hearts in dismay at the 5–2 defeat that had just been suffered by their favourites.

  Rangers made the short journey to the east end in the spirit of sporting friendship, to help the newly formed Celtic play the opening match at their recently constructed ground at Parkhead, built in their spare time by volunteer supporters of the club. Celtic were following in the footsteps of the country’s other great outfits of Irish influence, Hibernian of Edinburgh and Harp of Dundee. The Old Firm has gone on to forge one of the most appealing yet controversial rivalries in world football, but these were more innocent times. Celtic’s 5–2 victory in front of a crowd of 2,000 against opposition featuring more second-string players than usual came courtesy of an opening goal from a former Ranger, Neil McCallum. After the match, played in an atmosphere of genuine bonhomie, both sides retired to the local St Mary’s Hall, where a supper was laid on for 70 guests and a concert enjoyed as toasts were raised to the ongoing success of both clubs. The friendship between the teams was strong. The Scottish Sport, reflecting on a forthcoming Scottish Cup tie in 1892, reported: ‘Financially, Dumbarton or Queen’s Park might have pleased treasurer Maley better, but for a genuine good match the Light Blues are favourites with the Parkhead crowd.’ 1

  Perhaps it was coincidence that brought the two clubs together that early summer evening, a quirk of fate that the two teams who would become so associated with the Scottish game, and indeed each other, would meet at the very first opportunity. It also certainly made sense for Celtic to approach Rangers to play their first match, not least because of the relationship between Celtic secretary John McLaughlin and the Ibrox side, but also because the Light Blues were a draw, a prized first opponent for any club kicking off an infant venture. However, there is a hitherto unacknowledged relationship between two of the greatest figures in Celtic’s history, Tom and Willie Maley, and Rangers players, committee members and other senior club figures, as together they helped establish the first open athletic club in Scotland, the Clydesdale Harriers, bringing the sport to a wider audience than when it had previously belonged to the elite of the university and public school system. This was Glasgow united against the likes of the Fettesian-Lorettonian Club, Edinburgh Collegiate AC and St Andrews University.

  In total, 13 clubs joined forces when the Scottish Amateur Athletics Association (SAAA) was formed in February 1883, with a bias towards clubs in the east of Scotland bitterly opposed in the initial months by athletes in the west. However, differences were soon settled and the popularity of the sport boomed, particularly on the back of athletic events sponsored by football clubs such as St Bernard’s throughout the 1870s and 1880s, where participants would compete in everything from track and cycling races to five-a-side football challenges. It was against such a backdrop that the Clydesdale Harriers were formed in May 1885 to promote athletics in general and cross-country running in particular.

  Immediately, the influence of Rangers on the fledgling venture was there for all to see, not only in the membership list but also on the choice of venue for the club’s first event on 3 June 1885. It was a 300-yard handicap which attracted 54 entrants to Kinning Park, with athletes such as a certain William Wilton cheered on by approximately 500 spectators. Wilton failed to emerge from his heat, finishing sixth of seventh runners – scant consolation, surely, that he just held off R. Shiels, ‘a plucky little youngster of 12 years,’ according to the Scottish Umpire.2 The judges that summer evening included the notorious honorary match secretary J.W. Mackay, the handicapper was committee member W.W. Tait and clerks of the course included former 1877 Scottish Cup Final forward James Watson, who would go on to become vice-president and president of Rangers, further underlining the commitment of the Light Blues to the new cause.

  The 300-yard distance was marked around the pitch at Kinning Park and the event was hailed as an enormous success by the Scottish Umpire, which had been in business for less than 10 months under publisher Mackay. It came as no shock that his arch-rivals, the Scottish Athletic Journal, took a more mischievous tone and criticised the fans and the grass track in particular. In another stern editorial it lectured: ‘I should strongly advise the Clydesdale Harriers to switch their quarters from Kinning Park. Several prominent athletes have told me that so long as these handicaps are run on the Rangers ground they will not compete. I expect several names will be absent from the next handicap on account of the language used by the crowd and also because Kinning Park is not well adapted for running purposes. I know the Clydesdale Harriers are not of the Rangers stamp and hire Kinning Park because none other is available.’ 3

  The editor of the Athletic Journal needed only to glance at the membership list of the Harriers to recognise the folly of the last part of his statement. Indeed, he recognised it later that year and took a backwards leap on his earlier criticism as he slated Clydesdale for relying too heavily on the Kinning Park influence. ‘The Clydesdale Harriers are not doing so well as one could wish. I am afraid the members are not pulling very well together,’ he lamented. ‘A very attractive programme of club runs was arranged a couple of months ago but only two have come off through the failure of the members to turn up at the rendezvous. A meeting of the club is to take place this week at which some plain speaking will take place. If the truth must be told, the members are finding the Rangers clique in the club more than the other members can bear. I feared this from the very first.’4

  The Journal needed weep no more crocodile tears for the Harriers, as any teething problems it encountered in the early months were soon overcome. By 1887 they boasted 120 members, rising to 650 and then more than 1,000 before World War One. The Rangers influence was striking, from the appearance in the early years as life member of John Stewart of Belmore (one of the brothers credited with gifting Willie McNeil that first ball with which the young Light Blues played on Glasgow Green) to John Mellish, who rose to become vice-president of Clydesdale Harriers and president of the football club. The membership lists of Clydesdale in its first decade are packed with great names from the history of Rangers. Peter McNeil was a member and H. and P. McNeil were official outfitters to the Harriers. Brother Willie was also a Harrier, although there is no record of Moses, a gifted runner in his youth, ever becoming part of the club. Tom and Alick Vallance were Clydesdale Harriers, as were other players including, but not exclusively, Scottish internation
als James ‘Tuck’ McIntyre, John Cameron, Donald Gow and his brother, John Robertson Gow.

  The Clydesdale Harriers’ membership list 1887–88 highlights the common love of athletics the Maley brothers of Celtic shared with their Rangers rivals – John Mellish, J.W. Mackay, Peter McNeil and A.B. McKenzie were all influential members of the football club during its time at Kinning Park and Ibrox.

  The organisation that had helped bring Rangers to the fore in the decade or so preceding the establishment of the Harriers was also evident in the development of the athletics club. In some cases, future Rangers office holders cut their teeth in the athletics division – for example James Henderson, president of the football club in 1898–99 when they went through the season without dropping a point in the League, was a Clydesdale Harriers committee man in 1887, as was John C. Lawson, Rangers’ honorary secretary between 1891 and 1892. In 1887–88 the Harriers’ membership list also included T.C.B. Miller and J.F. Ness, who had each held honorary treasurer positions at Kinning Park. The Clydesdale Harriers even had a short-lived football division in the late 1880s as Celt Maley joined forces with Rangers men John C. Lawson and A.B. McKenzie (a director at Ibrox between 1899 and 1911) to oversee a new enterprise. The Harriers attracted players from most senior clubs, although Rangers were in the majority. Athletic members also played for clubs including Queen’s Park, Third Lanark, Cowlairs, St Mirren, Morton, Hamilton Accies and Celtic. When arranged, football matches were mostly of the challenge variety and clubs such as Third Lanark and even the mighty Preston North End were put to the sword. Clydesdale Harriers also entered a team in the 1889 Scottish Cup and knocked out Celtic from the competition, but football was soon dropped to allow members to focus more fully on the track and countryside run.

  Certainly, Tom and Willie Maley were likely to have had more pressing sporting concerns on their minds in 1887, when Celtic were officially formed following a meeting at St Mary’s Hall on 6 November. Within a month the founders of the new club, including Brother Walfrid, made the capture of Tom a priority, banking on his sympathies with the charitable Catholic principles of Celtic, initially at least, and relying on his talents as a player with clubs such as Hibs, Partick Thistle and Third Lanark. On a visit to the family home in Cathcart, Brother Walfrid was also impressed by the maturity and physical strength of younger brother Willie, whose stature had grown, in part, as a result of his endeavours on the track as a sprinter with Clydesdale Harriers. A trainee accountant, he also worked at the time for Andrew Dick, then secretary of the Harriers. Willie was thus invited to join his brother at the new club and he accepted the invitation with alacrity. He kept his membership at Clydesdale long after he joined Celtic and also became a promoter of athletics at Parkhead. His career in the sport culminated with him being elected president of the SAAA in 1921.

  Rangers had also become members of the SAAA in 1886, in part to facilitate the hosting of their own sports, which remained an integral part of the British athletics calendar until the early 1960s. In the early years at least, the annual athletics meeting was organised with the Harriers. The handbook of the athletics club in 1889 states, for example: ‘It is hoped that the same arrangements regarding the joint sports with our good friends The Rangers Football Club [will be in place] at which some of the English cracks will be invited to show their paces.’ The links between Rangers and the Clydesdale Harriers remained strong until the 1920s. Admittedly, it is still a source of frustration to some club members in the present day as they search for a permanent and suitable home around the Clydebank area that they never took the opportunity to act earlier in their history. For sure, the club handbook in 1889 discussed sourcing their own ground with a cinder track ‘but so long as the present friendly relations are maintained with the Rangers FC, the committee consider there are no grounds for moving in this matter.’ That is only one of many glowing references made to Rangers over the years in the Harriers handbooks, still lovingly treasured by their club historian, Brian McAusland. For the most part, Clydesdale Harriers trained at the first and second Ibrox Parks and their annual meetings were held on the Rangers’ grounds bar a couple of years at the turn of the 20th century when they switched to Parkhead and also Meadowside, then home to Partick Thistle.

  The last reference to Rangers hosting the Clydesdale Harriers came in 1921 and the sports day ended on a financial high, but the balance in the bank could not be maintained by the athletics club and they cancelled the meeting the following year as a result of the industrial depression and uncertainty surrounding the response from the paying public. Attempts were made by Clydesdale to resurrect the annual sports in 1923 and 1924, but they were in vain and nothing came of the efforts. Rangers had only recently celebrated its jubilee season, but the Harriers were already on their way to being relegated to a footnote in the history of the football club.

  The relationship with Celtic, of course, was to become enduring. The new club had quickly established itself as a major player in the Scottish game and brought new enthusiasm to the scene at an exciting and turbulent time for the development of the sport. Celtic were formed to provide assistance where needed among the Catholic population of the east end of Glasgow, most of whom were first or second generation Irish and many of whom, like local Protestants, suffered appalling living conditions. The main objective of the club was to provide the St Vincent de Paul Society with funds to maintain dinner tables for needy children in the local St Mary’s, Sacred Heart and St Michael’s diocese, and the Catholic community in the city quickly rallied around their club. Brother Walfrid was also motivated by the fear that his congregation would also be moved to abandon their faith, particularly with a number of Protestant soup kitchens also established in that part of the city.

  As latecomers to the scene and with strong political and business acumen to guide them, Celtic decided to go for revolutionary growth rather than organic progress and players were quickly lured from the country’s most prominent Catholic club, Hibs. Undoubtedly, financial inducements were offered and the Edinburgh side lost six players to an act of footballing larceny those at Easter Road with long memories and a keen knowledge of their club’s history still recall bitterly today. Celtic were admitted to the SFA in August 1888, alongside long-forgotten sides such as Temperance Athletic from Glasgow, Britannia from Auchinleck, Whifflett Shamrock from Lanarkshire and Balaclava Rangers from Oban, and their on-field strength was highlighted in the first season when they reached the Scottish Cup Final, only to lose out to Third Lanark.

  Inevitably, perhaps, the cash cow potential of the Parkhead outfit became a source of friction between those labelled by Celtic historians as idealists or opportunists. Celtic had quickly become one of the best-supported clubs in Britain, and in only its second season was attracting attendances of up to 25,000, such as witnessed a Scottish Cup tie against Queen’s Park. By December 1897 the club had managed to buy Celtic Park outright from their landlord, even though the lease still had four years to run. Brother Walfrid, the strongest supporter of the club’s charitable ethos at its foundation, had been transferred to London by 1892 and the idealists lost their strongest ally. Celtic became a public limited company in March 1897 and within a year they boasted a British record turnover of £16,267 (approximately £3,000 more than Rangers in the same season) and paid a dividend of 20 per cent, but no donations were made to charitable causes.

  If Rangers had been blessed with such a privileged existence, their move to the first Ibrox Park in the summer of 1887 would have heralded the beginning of a happy ending to the 19th century for the Light Blues visionaries. However, this was a club to whom nothing had ever come easy. In a short period of time the rise of Celtic undoubtedly focused the minds of the Ibrox hierarchy – between 1889 and 1894 the income of Rangers quadrupled from £1,240 to £5,227, for example. Initially at least, things would have to get worse for the Light Blues before they got better, and their silverware collection would extend to some of the game’s other major prizes. As it was, the memory of
their sole success in the Charity Cup Final of 1879 was fading fast in the minds of many club members as the 1890s approached.

  That 8–1 trouncing against Preston North End in August 1887 apart, the season immediately following the move to Ibrox was not without its merits, financially at least. The club reported an annual income of £2,232 – an impressive sum – almost half of which was allocated to offset the cost of building the new ground. The turnover was boosted by gate receipts of £400 from a demanding five games played at various venues across the city from November 1887 to January 1888 against Springburn side Cowlairs in the inaugural Glasgow Cup. Rangers eventually prevailed, winning the fifth match 3–1, but the tie was not without the element of protest pantomime that was so widespread in the Scottish game in the period. This time, Rangers were chided by Cowlairs after the fourth game, which they won 2–1, for playing a professional striker, Bob Brand. Cowlairs brought evidence to the SFA claiming Brand had received £1 from his former club Queen of the South Wanderers to buy a suit in 1885. Their allegation was as threadbare as the cloth would have been after almost three years of wear and was dismissed, but Brand was suspended for two months anyway after the officials discovered he had been paid £1 to play for Hearts earlier in the season. Almost inevitably, a replay was ordered. Rangers lost the very first Final played in January 1888 to Cambuslang, going down 3–1.