The Fall and Rise of Rangers
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Luath Press Ltd
Amazon description:
When future generations ask who saved Rangers and revitalised the club thereafter, the fans of today can say with some confidence: We were the people.
In Follow We Will: The Fall and Rise of Rangers we hear the story of the fans. Within these essays and interviews is the uplifting tale of how they rallied to protect the club they loved and how now, against all odds, they are helping to put it back together.
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Reading
this book was like sitting in a pub having a conversation with an incredibly
intelligent, but staggeringly drunk, Rangers fan.
The
resources available to his mind are incredible: he can pull out statistics,
names, reports, headlines from any time over the last ten years. Sharp as a
tack and he speaks with a passion that cannot be ignored. But he is still drunk. He’s repeating himself, trying to coax him into empathetic feelings for those he’s scorning is useless and he’s beginning to get really annoying. And he’s bitter.
We all know
the story by now. Craig Whyte took over Rangers by deceiving fans, directors and
onlookers regarding the assets enabling him to buy the club. He then didn’t
bother paying any PAYE or NI to the Inland Revenue and the taxman forced the
old company into liquidation. The team switched holding companies and tried to
reapply to the Scottish Premier League. They were denied and would only be
permitted into the lowest tier of Scottish league football.
What Follow
We Will does successfully is dive into the complex nature of football finance and
creates a clearer picture for the reader, especially in the early chapters. One particular point it puts across very well is
the issue of the name Rangers FC and how they have been able to keep their
identity and history. What the book lacks is a sense of humility and the inability to
step back and survey the damage through the eyes of somebody other than a
Rangers supporter.
Generalisations are somewhat dangerous when examining the Follow We Will narrative. There are 12
different writers throughout this book over the space of 13 chapters. So it
would be lazy to consider them one collective voice. However, with the
exception of David Kinnon in chapter one and Richard Wilson in chapter 13,
there is a real chip on the shoulder mentality running throughout. These Rangers writers feel that their club was harshly treated by their
peers in the SPL, the national media and those running the SFA. The argument is
generally coherent and raises a number of valid points. What they fail to do is
disassociate their writing with their love of the club. It would appear,
through the marketing of the book, that this was not the intention anyway. It is a
Rangers book for Rangers fans. This is a shame because had these remaining 10
writers stepped out of a fan’s mentally and into an objective observer then
this could have been one of the most important football books of the last decade.
Gail
Richardson starts chapter six by stating, in an unintentionally condescending tone, that she
would never hurt her own club in order to hurt the reader’s. Iain Duff calls
any supporter who might prefer their own ground “deluded fools” because it
doesn’t measure up to the amazement of Ibrox. Alasdair McKillop proudly shoves
statistics back in the faces of supporters who pressurised their clubs to vote
against Rangers, ignoring the promise by those same supporters to stay away if
they were reinstated to the SPL and the trend of falling crowds in Scottish
football over the last ten years. This list could go on; there are instances in
nearly every chapter of the writer showing an unwavering devotion to Rangers, something which readers from other clubs will be unable to stomach.
Not that
there aren’t a number of pertinent topics and issues raised. John DC Gow
certainty asks some interesting questions regarding the parameters by which we
judge sectarianism in Scottish football. Richard Wilson calls for the Rangers
support to take their own initiative in the running of the club and Chris
Graham does expose a number of inaccuracies in the media.
For Rangers
supporters, this is an invaluable collection for those who are regularly
confronted by Celtic fans calling their club a “zombie” or implying that they
cheated their way to titles. The arguments are clear and coherent and should be
stashed in the arsenal of any Gers fan who likes a debate on the subject. For
everybody else, however, it is recommended you stay clear. Taking to this book with a subjective mindset will only repel with that of the writer, causing the blood to boil.
