Is the past years worse than the 80s

Govan Front Ger

Govan Front Ger

Well-Known Member
Just wondering how slightly older bears view the seasons since 2012 till now against what they went through as supporters in the 80s before the Souness revaluation.

As growing up then and seing a really poor unsuccessful Rangers side must have been similar to what todays young bears are going through.

I grew up in the 90s so was spoiled and have high expectations of Rangers i really feel for all younger bears having to witness the utter shambles the past 5 years have served them up and hats off to each and everyone if them for sticking with it ...The Glory Days will come again.
 
Govan Front Ger said:
Just wondering how slightly older bears view the seasons since 2012 till now against what they went through as supporters in the 80s before the Souness revaluation.

As growing up then and seing a really poor unsuccessful Rangers side must have been similar to what todays young bears are going through.

I grew up in the 90s so was spoiled and have high expectations of Rangers i really feel for all younger bears having to witness the utter shambles the past 5 years have served them up and hats off to each and everyone if them for sticking with it ...The Glory Days will come again.
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Unless we get regime change the glory days are a generation away
 
Yes much worse. The teams we had in the 80s whilst not very good were never short of effort. If you see the video of Herrera and Pena doing a so-called warm up at half time today if they tried that when Wallace was manager they'd have probably been physically thrown out the club.
 
NEVER been so bad for me....I was aware of the late 70's early 80's and it was not good...We've got to realise and take in to consideration what we have been through since 2012...in laymans terms, we did start again...an 18 month signing embargo on top of all the other sanctions ? well of course it's excruciating but we've just got to keeping digging away until 55 comes.
 
Way worse now than the 80s for me. Back then 4 teams could win the league us, filth, Sheep & Utd, now it's only one other team we need to beat to win the league & we aren't even close. Also back in the early 80s pre Souness we were at least winning one of the cups on a regular basis. So based on that for me what we have endured these past 6 years is way worse.
 
This is a million times worse than the 80’s please believe me. Back then at least we could compete with Celtic in a one off match as we had the likes of Cooper, Russell, Bett etc but we struggle to do that now. It is simply horrific to watch and I say that as one of the 9,000 supporters who attended Ibrox for a Premier League match against Clydebank in the early 80’s the week before Xmas.

Those sort of crowds are not out of the question if we continue like this but on a brighter note the man that held the majority shareholding at that time (Lawrence Marlborough) turned things around very quickly when he appointed a very strong and capable MD in David Holmes. The Souness Revolution was born and it can turn around quickly again but our current directors take an eternity to make any sort of decision.

I fear the worst.
 
This team are not a patch on the team of the early 80's and believe me that was sore on the eyes to watch.
What I would do for a Cooper, Redford, McCoist, Bett, Prytz, Jardine etc etc
 
Was born in 1970, been going to Ibrox regularly since I was 7 or 8. This is as bad as I remember in the top flight. We still had decent players in the tougher part of the 80s, players who would have walked into the other teams in the premier division without question. And as someone else mentioned, we were still taking the odd cup here and there. Just now we seem utterly uncompetitive.
 
In the early 80s we had Davie Cooper, we had Bobby Russell, we had Jim Bett, and we were up against the best Aberdeen and the best Dundee Utd team ever.
We were a mile short of challenging and were a very poor Rangers team, but we won the League Cup in 81, 84 and 85 and we won the Scottish Cup in 81. We also lost in a few cup finals.

The current team is nowhere near as good as that.
 
Teddyjohn said:
This is a million times worse than the 80’s please believe me. Back then at least we could compete with Celtic in a one off match as we had the likes of Cooper, Russell, Bett etc but we struggle to do that now. It is simply horrific to watch and I say that as one of the 9,000 supporters who attended Ibrox for a Premier League match against Clydebank in the early 80’s the week before Xmas.

Those sort of crowds are not out of the question if we continue like this but on a brighter note the man that held the majority shareholding at that time (Lawrence Marlborough) turned things around very quickly when he appointed a very strong and capable MD in David Holmes. The Souness Revolution was born and it can turn around quickly again but our current directors take an eternity to make any sort of decision.

I fear the worst.
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A real issue is the financial gap now too mate. Its much wider now within Scotland (ie between the scum and everyone else) but also between Scotland and the rest of the UK and Europe. That simply wasn't the case in the 80s.
 
We were a little unlucky in 79 but until May 86 we were lucky to be the 4th best team in Scotland. The summer always seemed full of hope which was usually extinguished before September had passed. There were some memorable performances and a handful of cup wins but I remember it as a dire time with no end in sight. DJ was finished, Cooper looked overweight and disinterested and by Wallace's second spell we had McKinnon, Dawson, Paterson and McLelland up against Fergie's Sheep and McLean's Dundee Hivs.

With the exception of Simonsen, Nicky Walker remains my least favourite Rangers goalkeeper.

For me the signing of Souness as player manager was totally unexpected. Until then we were going nowhere. I might be in the minority but I still don't think it's currently as bad as where we were within12-18 months of Wallace's return. That was our nadir. I was young, but I really thought JG resigning was when things were going to change.

I think our current situation feels worse to many because of our relative position to the yahoos. They might have won a few titles 79-86 but they were a long way from being the dominant force in Scottish Football.

If they achieve back to back trebles then it will sting like hell. I'm still convinced that we will only recover by forgetting about them, St Brenda and 10iar.
 
Definitely worse than the early 80s. We were not the most talented team back then, either (though still with class acts like Cooper), but we had a modicum of fight about us. There is no-one now who is willing to grab the players by the scruff of the neck and ragdoll them into performing like Greig, Gough or Ferguson did. What a state we're in.
 
This is far worse obviously.
We were in the lower divisions.
In the early 80's we always looked capable of winning a trophy or 2.
Results in Europe were either fantastic or embarrassing.
Beating Eindhoven and Juventus.

As Greig started to break up big Jock's team, the writing was on the wall.
Finished 5th in 1980, but went to the Scottish Cup final.

Without qualifying for Europe we were gubbed by Chesterfield, yet came out on the Saturday and thrashed the scum 3-0
Finished 3rd in the league and won the Scottish Cup.

82 we won the League cup and went to the Scottish Cup final.
Again finishing 3rd

83 we went to both cup finals and finished a distant 4th.
By now the pressure was really on Greig, who hadn't won a title.
Attendances were down to below 25,000

It should be said, Dolly and Dundee hivs were beating the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich
and appearing in the latter stages of Europe regularly.

We soon saw the departure of Greig.

McLean and Ferguson both knocked back the job.
Seeing the return of big Jock.
We beat the scum to win the League cup and went on an unbeaten run to around March.
Spirits were lifted, but Ferguson and McLean ensured their teams were a force to be reckoned with.

85 we won the League cup but the football was dire.
Dolly and Dundee hibs had all their best players tied up on long term deals.
Some were on contracts for about 7 year, to save them from the newly introduced "freedom of contract"
Low pay but huge pay outs on pensions.
Finished 5th in the league on goal difference, out of Europe in the first round and no cup finals.
Gates were down to less than 20,000.
The support had had enough.

The stadium was payed for.
David Holmes knew there had to be big changes to win the support back.

Enter Souness.

This time it is going to be harder, with the Financial Fair Play rules and the scum making money in Europe.
Fear not. To the cry of No Surrender we will be back.
 
TimzRFudz said:
A real issue is the financial gap now too mate. Its much wider now within Scotland (ie between the scum and everyone else) but also between Scotland and the rest of the UK and Europe. That simply wasn't the case in the 80s.
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I accept that but if we had had a contingency plan in place by the board after getting humiliated in Europe in the first week in July then we could have won this league. Celtic are there for the taking....

The board wrapped it in October.....threw the towell in and treated us like shite.
 
Teddyjohn said:
I accept that but if we had had a contingency plan in place by the board after getting humiliated in Europe in the first week in July then we could have won this league. Celtic are there for the taking....

The board wrapped it in October.....threw the towell in and treated us like shite.
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Totally agree. Despite everything, this season was winnable and we fucked it. In terms of our overall position though, I just don't see any hope for a quick fix a la Holmes and Souness. The English clubs being banned from Europe helped us immensely too with recruitment.
 
It's much worse. Keep in mind the level of competition. Aberdeen and Dundee United were more than holding their own in Europe never mind Scotland. The standard was much higher than it is now. Now we are playing poor Scittish competition.
 
attendances were much lower than today but the standard of football just now is dreadful. Getting turned over by diddy teams on a regular basis is a new experience for me, and my first Ranger s game was 1967.
 
It's far worse now....seriously far worse.....back in the 80s the scum were as shite as us.....

Dolly n Dundee HIVS were dominant......perhaps we had an excuse as we were rebuilding Ibrox.....

That said we did lift occasional trophy.....that won't happen under this lot!
 
Davie Meiklejohn said:
It's not as bad as it was 5 years ago, but yes, the overall experience has been worse. I appreciate we're not in a great place just now, but if everybody wasn't continually shitting the bed, it would help a wee tad.
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Dave....It's the Board that are shitting the bed.....fans are expected to clean it up with their hard earned!
 
Teddyjohn said:
I accept that but if we had had a contingency plan in place by the board after getting humiliated in Europe in the first week in July then we could have won this league. Celtic are there for the taking....

The board wrapped it in October.....threw the towell in and treated us like shite.
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The Board wrapped it by appointing Hedgerow.....astonishing decision on their part......a total galoot employed by galoot!
 
Shengus Malengus said:
John Greig's managerial years were without doubt our worst, but we still went into every season thinking we could win it.

That seems a long way off now.
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Absolute bullshit, John Greigs team came within 20 minutes from winning the treble until we imploded against a 10 man Celtic team, also got us to the quarter finals of the European cup when we beat the Italian national team (Juventus) on the way only to go out unluckily to a very good Cologne side.
 
This is worse for me , in the late 70s and 80s growing up I could at least relate to our players , and I always felt we could give the rotten mob a game. I struggle to relate with nearly all of this batch.
 
I remember going to watch us at Ibrox in the early 80's (pre-Souness against St Mirren) and the place was empty, fans were voting with their feet and we were torture to watch...but having said that....i think that team from then would beat our team now as we had players then who knew what it meant to play for Rangers and although they gave everything they had, it ultimately wasn't enough as other teams around us were slightly better....the players we have now have given up, we have players like Niko, Alves etc who know what the expectations are but there is no motivation there, they simply don't care enough.

Other players simply aren't good enough which is why it was so important to bring in a proper, no BS manager who can boot arses into shape....Murty will never be that guy so we will only go one way with him in charge of these players and that is down the way, forget bringing players in during January, pull out all the stops to bring in a proper manager, let him do what he can with the players that are there then give him a good transfer budget in May, by appointing Murty the board have effectively given up on this season, we can't wait until may and go through this again.

...and that's if Murty will last until then, the board have backed themselves into a corner as we all know Murty won't last until the end of the season and who do we bring in next...the under 17's coach, it's ridiculous.
 
I recall being in the Blue Star club prior to a game against Dundee Utd iun the 80's.Guys hearing my accent asked why we were over.To see The Rangers was my reply.Was told,I live up the street and wouldnt go to watch that mob the guys said.
12,000 were at the game for a turgid 0-0 draw.
This is worse now as back then I never ever feared a doing of that mob,every time we play them now I fear a doing.
 
The majority of the team that were lucky to finish 5th in 86 went onto win a league title with the addition on the park of mainly Woods, Stevens, Butcher and Roberts in December.

I very much doubt that any of the current lot will play in a title winning Rangers side.

It's a sad indicment of where Scottish Football is when a relatively average Celtic team is walking away with the title unchallenged.
 
Personally think this is amongst the worst ever Rangers teams to play in the top division. The early eighties were horrible but we were up against an Aberdeen team that won a European trophy and a Dundee Utd team that narrowly missed out on the European Cup final. Now we’re up against an average Celtic team a league full of rank pish yet we still get beaten (outclassed even) on a regular basis.

Add to that the fact that there is very little hope of improvement and you’d have to say now is much worse!
 
Much worse. Although we were poor at least we had a wee bit of pride,passion and guts in the side. We also had a player in Cooper who was worth the admission fee alone. Honestly can't say that these days. Genuinely feel it's gonna get worse before it gets better.:(
 
doc holliday said:
In my opinion definitely not..I remember the extremely poor attendances at Ibrox...the worst ever.
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I remember them too, but one of the main reasons for that was that in those days, pre-Souness, we only had about 4,000 season ticket holders so Bears voted with their feet on a week to week basis. If not for the season tickets we would be seeing much the same now.
 
The players we had early 80’s with limited ability at least fought tooth and nail for the cause.
The results might not have been there often but they never gave up.
This insipid bunch of non performers couldn’t lace their boots.
 
I have now come to the realisation that it’s worse now than it was back then. Today we have an incompetent Board which foolishly continues to make ludicrous football decisions for which they are patently not qualified, a sub-standard squad, expensive foreign imports on whom we will lose a great deal of money, an inexperienced manager, and a team which routinely takes to the field without discipline, organisation or a plan. Back then, we still won cup competitions and had a sound Board which we trusted to put things right. The only saving grace today is the incredible support of the fans - back then, the fans drifted away in their thousands. I fear that might happen again after the next 2 games.
 
We had players with skill and heart in the 80s add to that the opposition were far better then too.
 
Yes. Certain players then were limited but most would get steamed in.

They also won the odd cup or two.


This collection of players cobbled together are rotten.
 
I believe the key difference between 80 - 86 and now is what is required to fix the problem. We had stability
then and our issues were on the park and team manager only. Today we find ourselves with major issues off and on the park and sadly, there seems to be plenty more pantomime to come before stability at board level returns.
 
Walt Longmire said:
I remember them too, but one of the main reasons for that was that in those days, pre-Souness, we only had about 4,000 season ticket holders so Bears voted with their feet on a week to week basis. If not for the season tickets we would be seeing much the same now.
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I think you have hit the nail on the head.on the pitch yesterday along with the Hamilton,dundee and St Johnstone was as bad as anything I seen from 82/83-85/86 seasons when I was going to games most weeks.at least back then we might pick up a league cup and run the yahoos close.the huge difference is there wasn’t a season ticket culture back then and unhappy punters voted with their feet.the support would turn out for cup finals and games v the yahoos so you knew we still had a huge support but they protested at the board and what we were seeing on the pitch by staying away.
 
We still managed the odd cup and even some wins against them back in the day.

Now, it's just an endless clusterfuck.
 
I view the 80's with a perverse fondness, having been taken to see the Treble winning Teams of the late 70's, I started going to the games with my mates, home and away never missed a game for years. It could be torture to watch and times were tough, but the players were in my opinion better than what we have today, played better football when it clicked and guess what actually still managed to win things and skelp that mob.

Davie Cooper may not have been the consistent but on his day he was unplayable, Bobby Russell, etc..we had a team who were prepared to dig in, that's because we had gaffers who knew what was required. Our board got grief, punters voted with their feet, but it was more enjoyable than this dross. I could identify with the club. Mr Holmes was the saviour, he had the vision.

Not sure if my memory is playing tricks but pretty sure we had our own songs to show our displeasure:-

All we are saying is give us a goal
What a load of rubbish
We want our money back we want our money back...

Oh the gold old better days.
 
Blue Lew said:
I agree with this^^^^

I think too many people are getting misty eyed about that’s period. I was a very young kid at the time and even I could see that it was awful.
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Going to Ibrox was soul destroying when it was around ten thousand on a Saturday.
 
dublinbluenose said:
I think you have hit the nail on the head.on the pitch yesterday along with the Hamilton,dundee and St Johnstone was as bad as anything I seen from 82/83-85/86 seasons when I was going to games most weeks.at least back then we might pick up a league cup and run the yahoos close.the huge difference is there wasn’t a season ticket culture back then and unhappy punters voted with their feet.the support would turn out for cup finals and games v the yahoos so you knew we still had a huge support but they protested at the board and what we were seeing on the pitch by staying away.
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Been thinking that a lot recently, 60s 70s 80s the support could show their displeasure a lot easier than today.
 
54ncounting said:
I view the 80's with a perverse fondness, having been taken to see the Treble winning Teams of the late 70's, I started going to the games with my mates, home and away never missed a game for years. It could be torture to watch and times were tough, but the players were in my opinion better than what we have today, played better football when it clicked and guess what actually still managed to win things and skelp that mob.

Davie Cooper may not have been the consistent but on his day he was unplayable, Bobby Russell, etc..we had a team who were prepared to dig in, that's because we had gaffers who knew what was required. Our board got grief, punters voted with their feet, but it was more enjoyable than this dross. I could identify with the club. Mr Holmes was the saviour, he had the vision.

Not sure if my memory is playing tricks but pretty sure we had our own songs to show our displeasure:-

All we are saying is give us a goal
What a load of rubbish
We want our money back we want our money back...

Oh the gold old better days.
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Cup semi final v forfar in 82,we were singing what a load of rubbish and one Jock Wallace long before the end.in the enclosure at Ibrox punters would be screaming for John Greig’s head on a plate as soon as he appeared out of the tunnel before a ball was kicked
 
Govan Front Ger said:
Just wondering how slightly older bears view the seasons since 2012 till now against what they went through as supporters in the 80s before the Souness revaluation.

As growing up then and seing a really poor unsuccessful Rangers side must have been similar to what todays young bears are going through.

I grew up in the 90s so was spoiled and have high expectations of Rangers i really feel for all younger bears having to witness the utter shambles the past 5 years have served them up and hats off to each and everyone if them for sticking with it ...The Glory Days will come again.
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It is worse now I'm sure...though one thing springs to mind...during the unsuccessful period you speak of, the fans simply didn't turn up!!!
I can remember crowds as low as 10,000!...maybe that would effect change now?
I used to turn up every home game and literally choose my seat in the main stand....then be bored to death for the next hour and a half!!
There's something quite different now though...it seems everything about the club is wrong, everything seems smaller somehow. Back then it was just a period of not very good players!
 
The early 80s were glory days compared to the last 6 years,The only advantage and plus points of today is the attendances and if there is no obvious improvement over the next couple of seasons they will drop significantly.
 
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