Difficult years of hurt and hardship make epic 55th title win simply the best ever for reborn Rangers

“Brother Walfrid, Scott Brown, Hoopy the Huddle Hound, the Green Brigade, Tommy Sheridan, Dermot Desmond, the President of Albania – we have beaten them all! We have beaten them all!

“Peter Lawwell can you hear me? Peter Lawwell, I have a message for you six games from the end of the league campaign. I have a message for you: We have beaten Celtic to the football Premiership.

“Peter Lawwell, as they say in your language in the boxing bars around Madison Square Garden in New York: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!”

IF only the late Bjørge Lillelien, whose madcap “hell of a beating” reaction to Norway’s win over England in a World Cup qualifier in Oslo in 1981 entered football folklore, was still with us.

Perhaps he could properly capture the unadulterated ecstasy and raw emotion of Rangers’ momentous Scottish title success among their fans.

Tom Miller, the excellent Rangers TV commentator, has developed something of a cult following over the years as a result of his, ahem, favourable appraisals of the Ibrox club’s performances.

Some of his exchanges with occasional sidekick Hugh Burns have become social media classics. Whit’s the keeper daein’ Tam? It can be light blue-tinted stuff and no mistake. 

It really, though, needs Lillelien’s fevered, delirious, demented kind of mania to encapsulate the sheer enormity and utter elation of this achievement for their followers. 

Rangers have now won no fewer than 55 titles in their 149-year history. None of them has been as big as this. Not one.

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It isn’t just winning the league that matters to supporters. Nor is it even stopping Celtic from making history by becoming the first Scottish club to complete 10-In-A-Row that is important. It is the ordeal they have been through in the past 10 years that makes this their sweetest ever success. It is the fact they flirted with extinction more than once, survived and recovered.

That they had to drop down to the bottom tier of the league set-up and work their way back up though the divisions to the top flight following their financial implosion in 2012 has been well documented. But in reality they went to hell and back.

They have been lied to, robbed, ridiculed, spat on and abused every step of the way. They had to watch their once-great side play part-time minnows in some inhospitable football outposts. Very often they had to suffer humiliating draws and embarrassing defeats. Is it really any wonder they are wallowing in this moment?

The mere mention of some of the individuals who have been involved in one capacity or another in the past decade is still enough to send Rangers fans into a fury; no tears were shed when Craig Whyte, Charles Green, Brian Stockbridge, Imran Ahmad, Mike Ashley, James and Sandy Easdale, David Somers, Derek Llambias, Barry Leach or Pedro Caixinha departed.

They had to look on helplessly from afar as their Arsenal shares disappeared, their merchandising rights were sold for £1, Margarita Trust and Blue Pitch Holdings, whoever they were, bought sizeable stakes and Sports Direct were granted security over their registered trademarks as well as their training ground and car park in return for emergency loans.

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They boycotted games, they marched on the ground, they protested outside the front door of the stadium, they refused to buy replica kits. Eventually, they got their club back in 2015. But there have been myriad humiliations and setbacks since.

Caixinha standing in the middle of a bush outside the Stade Josy Barthel arguing with irate travelling fans in the aftermath of the Europa League qualifying defeat to tiny Progres Niederkorn in 2017 was a definite low point. 

It is little surprise they idolise Steven Gerrard, the former Liverpool and England captain who has, with the support and financial assistance of Dave King, Douglas Park, John Bennett, George Taylor, George Letham and many others, transformed their on and off-field fortunes in the last three years.

Rangers have operated at a substantial loss since John Gilligan, King and Paul Murray seized control at an EGM six years ago this month. Indeed, Park and Bennett had to agree to meet liabilities of over £23m to ensure they were able to continue as a going concern this season and next. It is a far from ideal business model amid the coronavirus pandemic. Particularly with their recent history.

But the intentions and means of their wealthy benefactors are, unlike on occasion in the not-too-distant past, beyond question. They are being run by renowned businessmen who are also fans and whose only desire is to see a successful side on the park.

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The income from the Castore deal and the £5m investment from Far East property magnate Stuart Gibson will aid their cause going forward. So will the fact they have several saleable assets who they can cash in on. Borna Barisic, Connor Goldson, Glen Kamara, Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos and others can all be offloaded for considerable profits if required. There are promising young players waiting to take their places if they are.

A club that has overachieved in the Europa League in the past three seasons and will take on Slavia Prague in the last 16 on Thursday night now has the chance to make it through to the Champions League group stages in the 2021/22 campaign. It will be another significant milestone in their journey if they do. And a lucrative one.

It is a glamorous competition Rangers supports can look forward to. For now, they can enjoy every minute of this long-awaited triumph. They have earned the right to rejoice after all of the indignities they have suffered and hard times they have endured. As Kenneth Wolstenholme, another legendary football commentator, would have said: “They think it’s all over . . . it is now!”