GLASGOW — “Rangers then, Rangers now, Rangers forever,” shouted the Scottish soccer club’s new owner, Charles Green, in front of almost 50,000 fans on hand for the team’s home opener Aug. 18. “Today is just the start of the journey,” he went on defiantly.
Actually, Rangers had begun their downward path a week earlier, and it has taken the club to the very bottom of Scottish soccer. Having suffered bankruptcy and forced exile from Scotland’s top division, the club, normally one of the top two in Scotland alongside its archrival, Celtic, will play a schedule this season that is more than mildly surreal. It is as if the Yankees were suddenly consigned to spend a summer in Class A.
Graham Ruthven 