The Rangers Brand - what does it stand for?

[Bill 13,717]

17 minutes ago, Malangsob said:

Yeah...because he got dumped by his dream date.

 

Celtic were not.

 

Of course he had a chip.
 

Some guys can take defeat, and move on but that is not Alex's psychology.

 

Look, I bet you anything, if you and me could hop in a time machine, and go back to 1960's Glasgow the only thing on young Alex's mind would be playin for Rangers.

 

The kid came from a rough place, dreaming of football, Rangers football, and when he got there it didn't work out.

 

Some guys can say "meh...movin on", some guys can't.

 

Some guys it destroys, and some it is like puttin a rocket engine under their ass. 

 

Rangers rejection was that rocket engine.

 

Now was it ALL Rangers?

 

No...but it sure was a nice piece. 

 

You gotta take the bitter and the sweet...it all makes the man.

 

Rangers rejection was like eating a box of lye for Alex.

 

That's a badge in my book.

He wasn't "rejected" by Rangers. He was scapegoated and ostracised to train on his own for a cup final humiliation in which John Greig was demonstrably guilt of far bigger errors. Much like Jim Forrest before him, Rangers at the time wasn't a great place to be.

[Scott7 6,004]

4 hours ago, Bill said:

What exactly is the Rangers brand?

I’ve been thinking about this. My answer is I don’t know. Sixty years ago the easy answer is Protestantism and Unionism but that’s more to do with the club’s adherents than the club itself. I don’t think any club had a brand other than football with the exception of the two Greens. Perhaps Rangers and Hearts developed brands so as to be in contrast to the two others. I don’t think there is much overt Protestantism nowadays. Unionism flourishes but it’s not sold as a club brand.

 

Anyone know what the Arsenal brand is?

[compo 7,038]

I think to have a brand you need a product to sell you need success and sadly these past 20 years we haven’t done well on that score the hooped horrors have left us in the stalls when it comes to winning the league.

I won’t even hazard a guess as to how old Dougie and the rest of the run the business but we never seem to me to do well in the buying and selling stakes .

As for that old Drumchapel amateur well he did alright as a player 41 games 25 goals as Bill said he took the derry for the cup final defeat very unfair when we had another 10 tits that day .

Oh and by the way we have done extremely well with players from Drumchapel amateurs,very well .

[Malangsob 1,264]

2 hours ago, Bill said:

He wasn't "rejected" by Rangers. He was scapegoated and ostracised to train on his own for a cup final humiliation in which John Greig was demonstrably guilt of far bigger errors. Much like Jim Forrest before him, Rangers at the time wasn't a great place to be.

When one is ostracized...they are rejected. 

 

If you suck...Rangers is never a great place to be. 

[Bill 13,717]

31 minutes ago, Malangsob said:

When one is ostracized...they are rejected. 

 

If you suck...Rangers is never a great place to be. 

Why do you say he sucked? 25 goals in 41 games is far from sucked.

[Sutton_blows_goats 5,335]

To me our brand is hard work leads to success and keeping true to our core traditional values. Little things like our manager still wearing a suit on the side-line.  Its a bit of a meme within some of the support but goes back to the days of Struth and some of the values he instilled that should still be there today.

 

 

 

 

[ranger_syntax 4,321]

23 minutes ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

To me our brand is hard work leads to success and keeping true to our core traditional values. Little things like our manager still wearing a suit on the side-line.  Its a bit of a meme within some of the support but goes back to the days of Struth and some of the values he instilled that should still be there today.

That stuff is all long gone.

 

I seem to remember some fellow saying that the team that drinks together wins together.

 

Maybe it disappeared some time before then.

[Gonzo79 15,293]

6 minutes ago, ranger_syntax said:

That stuff is all long gone.

 

I seem to remember some fellow saying that the team that drinks together wins together.

You can have a drink with workmates and also work hard - the two aren't exclusive. 

 

However, I do think a lot of the core values aren't what they used to be.  More of a facade than anything of substance nowadays.

[JohnMc 2,750]

Great question.

Separating the 'club' from the 'support' for a moment, although both are intrinsically linked in reality. Our claims to be the 'world's most successful club' might be factually accurate but don't really hold much value under serious scrutiny, I mean are we really claiming to be more successful than Real Madrid or Liverpool? I could check but I think Linfield have now won more domestic titles than Rangers and no one is claiming they are the world's most successful club. But domestic success is still clearly a part of our 'brand'. You ask any football supporter in Europe to name a Scottish football club and they'll know Rangers. When we reached the Europa League final last season the Chairman of Frankfurt welcomed our semi final victory by saying something like 'it's great the final is being contested by two traditional clubs'. This was partly a dig at RB Leipzig who are universally disliked in Germany, but also a nod to our history. There are not many organisations who reach 150 years old, we had a history with Frankfurt, having famously played them in the 1960s, and they knew this. Add this to Ibrox Stadium, again an organisation that has had the same home for over a century, and a home with a building as magnificent as our Main Stand, is impressive. So I'd venture that 'tradition' is part of our brand. We're not Man City, or PSG or Chelsea where everyone knows that success has been bought by oligarchs and sport-washing, and while success brings fame and adulation, none of those clubs have what we have now. So 'tradition' being a 'real' football club that exists purely for the love of the sport for me is key to the club's brand today. 

Now we're obviously not the only club who can claim that. but we should be careful about protecting it. 

 

Another term that's often used to describe Rangers is 'the quintessential British club'. I've never been entirely sure what that meant, as 'British' is such a difficult term to define. Undoubtedly a good percentage of our support embrace this, and while in recent times the club hasn't made any statements that were overtly political or about national identity, we do fly the Union flag and, famously, toast the monarch. So being 'British' however complicated that might be, is currently part of our brand. 

 

Is being 'Scottish' part of our brand? It was when I started following Rangers. As ridiculous as it might seem today the bulk of the Scotland support was made up of Rangers fans up. I went to every Scotland home match from the early 1980s to the early 90s. Something changed then. I don't know if it was the influx of English players under Souness, something that had never happened in Scotland before, or the start of the decline of the Scotland team as a force in international football, but something changed. I'd still watch the games but no longer attended, but I never missed a Rangers match. Gradually my interest has wained and I don't think I'm alone in that. I was barely aware we were even playing earlier this week. That's me, and I fully accept others will feel differently. But I don't think it's inaccurate to suggest a gulf lies between the Scotland side and many Rangers fans. Many of us don't feel an ownership of the national side, and we should, it's our side too. I lived in Belfast for a while and Linfield supporters see the Northern Ireland side as theirs, as do Glentoran and Crusader's fans, in a way that I don't think we do anymore. Indeed I'd say NI based Rangers supporters feel an ownership of their national side.

We can analyse the many cultural, footballing and political reasons for this and never solve it. But once you leave Scotland there is no doubt at all that the rest of the world see us as a Scottish side. Whatever our slightly complicated relationship might be, to a German or a Dutch football fan Rangers are Scottish, indeed often we're one of the few things they associate with Scotland. We're based in Scotland, most of our support is based in Scotland, we play in blue and have a lion rampant in our badge. So, Scotland is part of our brand.

 

Is Glasgow part of our brand, or even Govan? To an extent it is but it’s not something we make enough of I feel. But both are closely associated with us so it’s part of our brand.

 

Is Protestantism? It wasn't at the beginning, or indeed for the first 3 or so decades of our existence. But it would be mendacious to pretend it didn't become a defining tenet of who we are. But is it today? I'd venture that the club like to keep it at arm's length. That said we have a club chaplain from the Presbyterian tradition and whenever services are conducted around the Ibrox disaster for example they are normally officiated by the Church of Scotland. But today I don't think our club is any closer to reformed Christianity than say Hearts or Aberdeen are, both of who I suspect would also look to the main denomination for guidance when the need arose. 

In my opinion the support are a bit schizophrenic on this. While I'd say the majority of our support are at least culturally or traditionally 'Protestant, I suspect most don't darken the doors of their local Kirk very often. Religion plays a smaller and smaller part of most Scot's daily lives, I'd say most Rangers supporter's have no real religion if you pushed them on it. Yet, we're still seen by many people as being a 'Protestant' club, whatever that means. Clearly part of this is connected to our main rival's clear association with Catholicism. If they are one thing we must be the other. It's also true that some supporter's have an association with organisations like the Orange institutions and much of the trappings of that, such as songs, have become associated with Rangers too, and still are. Songs and chants with a strong Loyalist influence, largely from Ireland, are still popular with a large section of the support, as are some that can only be described as 'anti-Catholic'. 

 

For me I don't believe we're in really a 'Protestant' club anymore, but it would also be wrong to pretend others might disagree. It's part of our 'brand' in some shape or form. I worry being ‘anti-Catholic’ is also seen as part of our brand by some and I’ve personal experience of some who think we’re ‘anti-Irish’.

 

My biggest frustration is I don’t think we can genuinely associate any clear football related themes to our brand. We’re not Ajax for example and their association with producing their own players. We’re not Liverpool or Man Utd or Spurs where a particular type of attacking football is associated with them. If anything in modern times I think we’re seen as a club who buy success, who can outspend most of their rivals. We don’t have a reputation, at least in modern times, of producing our own players and our style of football changes with every new manager. I’d say that was different 100 or so years ago when we were the ‘speedy and light blues’ and viewed as one of the most attractive and progressive footballing sides of the time. I suppose in Scotland we’re still viewed as a side who ‘wins trophies’, even if it’s not so accurate in the last decade. But that’s a domestic brand and rather than an international one.

 

It’s a mixed bag. We could, and should, have some footballing themes to help define our brand. Certainly developing young players is something the board are actively pursuing but it takes a lot of successes and a while for that to become a reality.

 

[Sutton_blows_goats 5,335]

54 minutes ago, ranger_syntax said:

That stuff is all long gone.

 

I disagree, the manager does not wear tracksuits, the old managers office is used for signing contracts.

 

Not all of it will still be in place. Struth took over 100 years ago. Things change over time. 

 

If its all gone then we just sell up Ibrox and build a 70k stadium somewhere. Stadium expansion problem sorted.