FROM Barcelona to Brechin, inception to current day. Yesterday in the Ibrox Blue Room, a scene drenched with Rangers history, David Mason launched ‘The Rangers Story’. A vast, all-encompassing chronicle of the world’s most successful football team.

Every great tale deserves a teller befitting of the task and drawing on 36 years of research, nobody is better placed to herald this particular series of events than Mason, the club’s official historian. His book charts events from origin to present day, with all the information one could justifiably require and plenty more pockets of detail that will interest every supporter.

From discovering the autobiography of the man who booked the first pitch Rangers played on, to Bill Struth’s plea for an assistant manager, the true story behind the first jersey, wearing silk shirts in Paris and finding a home at Ibrox; this book has everything and more. 

Rangers Review:

Mason charts the club’s trajectory from the founding fathers in 1872, all the way up to and including the aftermath of a historic 55th league title, won on the eve of this year’s 150th year anniversary. An achievement Mason is reluctant to brand the biggest “because you could’ve said that about Walter’s team winning nine in a row”. Perhaps it is only fitting that a historian looks beyond the recent past into the distant.

 

READ MORE: How Rangers' most dramatic title decider came to match any Hollywood drama - Martyn Ramsay

The book starts at the start, from a new and unique viewpoint. Having uncovered the autobiography of David Hill’s brother, Mason was able to document Rangers’ early days from a new and previously unheard account. Hill played in the team that contested the 1877 Scottish Cup final and his brother booked the first pitches the club would ever play on at Glasgow Green, before subsequent moves eventually saw a home discovered at Ibrox.

The first fixture played at Ibrox, the manager who died in a boating accident just after winning the league title, the backstory of the founding fathers and significant Scottish Cup success in 1928 are just some of the stories told from this era.

There’s the Bill Struth era, Cup Winners’ Cup heartbreak and success, celebrations at the St Enoch hotel and the pre-season punishment inflicted by Jock Wallace and Willie Waddell. A journey through the Graeme Souness and Smith era follows alongwith the ensuing years that kept Smith’s seat warm until he returned to the dugout in 2007. The period that subsequently played out was the club’s darkest, culminating in the financial issues that caused chaos in 2012.

Rangers Review:

“The club has always had resilience,” says Mason reflecting on recording the events of that time. “It’s come through plenty of heartbreak, two horrendous disasters. You knew the fans were determined to push for recovery in 2012. I was always convinced we would get back, it was just a matter of how long it would take.”

READ MORE: Giovanni van Bronckhorst has proven he's Rangers class, now it's time to back him

European success last week would’ve offered the most romantic of ends to the tumultuous 10 years since. Even still, the trajectory travelled since Steven Gerrard’s appointment in 2018, carried on since Christmas by Giovanni van Bronckhorst has seen the reestablishment of standards and superiority woven through the club’s tapestry.

“I hope the book captures the essence of the club which is what it did for me,” Mason adds.

Rangers Review:

“Although I’ve been involved with the club for a long time and supported it for longer. I felt I knew what the club was about, but it’s only when you look at the bigger picture and start to see the thread, you can see the essence of the club. Standards, a determination to be the best, that was evident throughout the history. It was nice to reflect on that and see although times change, the key factors don’t."

The Rangers Story is available exclusively via Rangers FC until 1st August. Buy here.