The three reasons Rangers fans have fallen out of love with the Scotland national team

A week before the country's biggest game in years - the nation is buzzing - and some tit for the Daily Record writes a piece for rage clicks that stereotypes our support. Regardless of your thoughts on the national team, there are a lot - and i mean a lot - of Rangers fans who still follow them. You can't just paint us all in a broad stroke like that. The guy who wrote it would do well to remember that Rangers have provided more players than any other for the country and will continue to do so, now that normal service has been resumed. It's sad, because a lot of folk want us to give up on Scotland, and some play into their hands.

It's quite funny, because the same people who claim not to care about Scotland also never fail to miss an opportunity to tell us that. When you really don't care, you won't feel the need to mention it at all. You will instead act with a removed indifference, not writing about or clicking on the thread. Someone used the term pity party, and it's right. There's this bizarre urge for some fans to tell other fans how they feel about them. It's small time as f*ck.

"But the squad is filled with Rangers haters". Right. I must have missed McLaughlin, Hanley, Jack, Patterson, McLean, Gilmour, Fleck, McBurnie et al all being involved in recent times.


It's quite funny, because the same people who claim not to care about Scotland also never fail to miss an opportunity to tell us that. When you really don't care, you won't feel the need to mention it at all. You will instead act with a removed indifference, not writing about or clicking on the thread.

As long as we have vermin like Rod Petrie, as President of the SFA having a pop at Rangers fans, yet was laughing at the 'over exuberance' after a real riot by his own fans in front of millions of viewers, then I'll be having a pop at the SFA, the whole set up anytime I feel like it.

Up until this year, as much as I despised the national set up, I'd never have wanted them to lose.

Now, especially in the aftermath of May 15th, I sincerely hope they get pumped every fecking time they play. ROI, apart.
 
For me there were three main reasons.

1. The quality of football was dire. There was clearly a policy of “jobs for the boys” with appointments like Roxburgh and Brown.
2. The way the authorities treated Rangers. This helped to demonize our players in the mind of the Scotland support.
3. I found the Tartan Army an utter embarrassment. As someone who sees themselves as British first, I find their jingoism and bigotry hard to swallow.
 
It's quite funny, because the same people who claim not to care about Scotland also never fail to miss an opportunity to tell us that. When you really don't care, you won't feel the need to mention it at all. You will instead act with a removed indifference, not writing about or clicking on the thread.

As long as we have vermin like Rod Petrie, as President of the SFA having a pop at Rangers fans, yet was laughing at the 'over exuberance' after a real riot by his own fans in front of millions of viewers, then I'll be having a pop at the SFA, the whole set up anytime I feel like it.

Up until this year, as much as I despised the national set up, I'd never have wanted them to lose.

Now, especially in the aftermath of May 15th, I sincerely hope they get pumped every fecking time they play. ROI, apart.

I for one never claim to not care. I care a lot ...that they get fucking thrashed every match they play, and that incudes Ireland..
 
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For me there were three main reasons.

1. The quality of football was dire. There was clearly a policy of “jobs for the boys” with appointments like Roxburgh and Brown.
2. The way the authorities treated Rangers. This helped to demonize our players in the mind of the Scotland support.
3. I found the Tartan Army an utter embarrassment. As someone who sees themselves as British first, I find their jingoism and bigotry hard to swallow.

The thing I've long hated about the tranny army is their unshakeable belief that everybody admires them for playing the part of utter buffoons. They have reduced the image of Scots to pantomime 'see you Jimmys'. When I used to travel for work I hated bumping into them at airports. Complete dicks of guys talking loudly in exaggerated Scottish accents while looking around at people with "whit ur we like" expressions.
 
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it started to go wrong when Souness was caught half way down the tunnel during a touchline ban. No TV evidence was allowed at that time, it was the delegate who decided if there was a misdemeanour and he couldn’t see. Surprise surprise they said he did see it and Souness got banned.
Then there was Big Dunky, an absolute disgrace that he was banned.
then there was our players being booed while playing for our country
then there is the horrible, horrible tartan army ffs
i don’t want Scotland to lose but I can’t get to excited by us winning either
 
it started to go wrong when Souness was caught half way down the tunnel during a touchline ban. No TV evidence was allowed at that time, it was the delegate who decided if there was a misdemeanour and he couldn’t see. Surprise surprise they said he did see it and Souness got banned.
Then there was Big Dunky, an absolute disgrace that he was banned.
then there was our players being booed while playing for our country
then there is the horrible, horrible tartan army ffs
i don’t want Scotland to lose but I can’t get to excited by us winning either
Feb 17th, 1990 v Hearts.

Assuming the match delegate/4th official would have been sitting somewhere in the vicinity of the directors box, hell, he could even have been sitting in the front row, he'd have needed a neck like Reed Richards to clock anyone standing inside the Ibrox tunnel.
 
November 1965 I walked 2 hours to hampden 2 hrs home I loved it now I could not stand the sporran draggers boo our national anthem so goodbye scotland
 
November 1965 I walked 2 hours to hampden 2 hrs home I loved it now I could not stand the sporran draggers boo our national anthem so goodbye scotland
I take it that was the Italy game? Four Rangers in the side plus Baxter.

My first Scotland game, would have been some six months earlier; Scotland v Holland. I was four years of age. Obviously my old man took me.

It's a foreign country to me now.
 
Feb 17th, 1990 v Hearts.

Assuming the match delegate/4th official would have been sitting somewhere in the vicinity of the directors box, hell, he could even have been sitting in the front row, he'd have needed a neck like Reed Richards to clock anyone standing inside the Ibrox tunnel.
That was the point RFC made but it was ignored
 
Don’t fully agree with the article

for me, the biggest turn off is the tranny army and the majority which attend games

booing Rangers players, despise all things Rangers and British. No doubt the 2014 referendum made things worse as it effectively made everyone choose a side and the tranny army hate the fact the majority of bears would have voted no.

since 2014, the divide has only got worse.

you couldn’t pay me to go and watch Scotland. If they play and they win, fine. If they get beat, it has 0 effect to my mood.
 
It's quite a complex issue though the OP is pretty spot on there are a wide number of other issues and the change in society in particular in the West the last 40/50 years.

I consider myself a pretty liberal Bear but I have zero interest in Scotland and I find the culture of the Tartan Army to be cartoony and frankly embarrassing lurching from lets get drunk and wallow in being shite to being bitter and angry about being shite. Their notion that everyone loves them as they stoat about Europe is beyond irony....anyone with half a brain thinks they are drunken bufoons.

For my generation the heyday of Rangers greats in great Scotland teams started to wane badly as we hit the lows of the 80's pre-Holmes/Souness. But the original article is wrong to suggest there wasn't antipathy with who was picked and not picked for Scotland and a fair bit of disdain sometimes vocal at games depending on who was in and out.

When Rangers rebooted it was with an English slant and that anti-English backlash started to distance the support from other supporters in Scotland. You can follow the trail from here but the other side of it is true as well that for example in the 90's less Celtic fans would be interested in Scotland than was historically true.

In the Murray era Rangers and especially us as a support were under constant attack, out of vogue, demonised and of course as we moved into the Braveheart era -we've seen little credit or favour as a club in the last 20 years. As such we've largely as a support sailed alone with little regard for anyone else. Paradoxically maybe the SG revolution has for the first time in generations seen Rangers identified and credited in pure footballing terms.

The rift is deep though and with the independence era continuing I don't see a change coming anytime soon.....
 
Celtics domination of the SFA has poisoned the well as far as many in our support are concerned, the irony being a large proportion of them will more readily identify with the ROI.
 
It's quite a complex issue though the OP is pretty spot on there are a wide number of other issues and the change in society in particular in the West the last 40/50 years.

I consider myself a pretty liberal Bear but I have zero interest in Scotland and I find the culture of the Tartan Army to be cartoony and frankly embarrassing lurching from lets get drunk and wallow in being shite to being bitter and angry about being shite. Their notion that everyone loves them as they stoat about Europe is beyond irony....anyone with half a brain thinks they are drunken bufoons.

For my generation the heyday of Rangers greats in great Scotland teams started to wane badly as we hit the lows of the 80's pre-Holmes/Souness. But the original article is wrong to suggest there wasn't antipathy with who was picked and not picked for Scotland and a fair bit of disdain sometimes vocal at games depending on who was in and out.

When Rangers rebooted it was with an English slant and that anti-English backlash started to distance the support from other supporters in Scotland. You can follow the trail from here but the other side of it is true as well that for example in the 90's less Celtic fans would be interested in Scotland than was historically true.

In the Murray era Rangers and especially us as a support were under constant attack, out of vogue, demonised and of course as we moved into the Braveheart era -we've seen little credit or favour as a club in the last 20 years. As such we've largely as a support sailed alone with little regard for anyone else. Paradoxically maybe the SG revolution has for the first time in generations seen Rangers identified and credited in pure footballing terms.

The rift is deep though and with the independence era continuing I don't see a change coming anytime soon.....
Where I don't agree with the OP is that Rangers fans switched supporting Scotland to England because of Woods and Butcher. Taking a shine to a couple of top class players and not hating the English like the filth and the rest of the tartan fuds does not, or did not make you an England supporter.

I do think though that in the nine years between Woods and Butcher through to Gascoigne a lot of poisoned water had passed under the bridge and it's been a torrent ever since and there's no sign that it is going to end.
 
Where I don't agree with the OP is that Rangers fans switched supporting Scotland to England because of Woods and Butcher. Taking a shine to a couple of top class players and not hating the English like the filth and the rest of the tartan fuds does not, or did not make you an England supporter.

I do think though that in the nine years between Woods and Butcher through to Gascoigne a lot of poisoned water had passed under the bridge and it's been a torrent ever since and there's no sign that it is going to end.

I agree but it's also true we were hungry for success nah make that starving we had watched some real dross..Butcher and Woods were giants of the type we hadn't seen in a generation or longer at the club-so the affection and elation was huge and we would defend these guys to the hilt. It coincided as I said as well with pretty much a Rangers free Scotland (Cooper aside). Also it's not logical to want your key players to perform badly for their country as a fair chance it would impact on club form.

You are right it didn't turn us into England fans but it's also true that was the start of a change in the fabric of things. My grandfather who would tell me tales of Alan Morton was also incredibly anti-English in footballing terms but also paradoxically wasn't always a fan of non-Rangers Scotland players-he was probably typical of that generation. I suspect your background was similar.........we've traveled a strange road since then and became strangers to some extent in our own land.
 
Not many on here who will react to a difference in opinion in the way you've just reacted, so fair play to you.
My comparison didn't work. You pointed that out and I agreed. Always good to admit you're wrong. Even when you don't like to lol.
 
McLean is a Rangers fan, then there’s Patterson. Mcglaughlin

I’d say there’s enough in there to say it’s not a team full of Rangers hating wanks

Stuff like Rangers hating wanks is just crass..........there are quite a few in the stands normally though.
 
McLean is a Rangers fan, then there’s Patterson. Mcglaughlin

I’d say there’s enough in there to say it’s not a team full of Rangers hating wanks
Again how many of those players are going to start or even get brief sub appearances?

With the exception of Jack who’s injured of course. And is Kenny McLean a Rangers fan? Or is this based solely on 2yrs with the youth set up before he left for St Midden
 
It never ceases to amaze me how many defend Scotland fans with the “there’s lots of Rangers fans among them”

so how come no one can answer the question about Ryan Jack being booed by the tranny army? Or was that one of the days Rangers fans didn’t make it to a Scotland game?
 
Definitely the SFA didn't help with having fannies like Farry in charge then having Roxburgh and then Brown as manager put a lot of people off.I know for me they really put me off with their negative crap tactics and constant loyalty to shite players.The decline started with them tbh.
 
I agree but it's also true we were hungry for success nah make that starving we had watched some real dross..Butcher and Woods were giants of the type we hadn't seen in a generation or longer at the club-so the affection and elation was huge and we would defend these guys to the hilt. It coincided as I said as well with pretty much a Rangers free Scotland (Cooper aside). Also it's not logical to want your key players to perform badly for their country as a fair chance it would impact on club form.

You are right it didn't turn us into England fans but it's also true that was the start of a change in the fabric of things. My grandfather who would tell me tales of Alan Morton was also incredibly anti-English in footballing terms but also paradoxically wasn't always a fan of non-Rangers Scotland players-he was probably typical of that generation. I suspect your background was similar.........we've traveled a strange road since then and became strangers to some extent in our own land.
That last sentence nails it absolutely. In saying that, I was getting told that back in the late 90s in the mag. But hey-ho.

I agree that in the early to mid 80s, the national set up was a wasteland due to the dearth of home talent we had at the club, Cooper apart. Obviously McCoist and Durrant and then McPherson would come through.

My granda told me thatI'd never see a more majestic, elegant player than Gordon Smith of the Hibs famous five but he couldn't do it for Scotland the way Willie Waddell did. So there was always that pride in what Rangers players achieved for Scotland. And Morton and Meiklejohn were his favourites.


In my lifetime, although only a toddler, Scotland for the only time in the 20th century beat England three times in succession (62, 63 and 64) and it was Rangers players in general and Baxter in particular who were the powerhouse of the teams, supplying four players in each of the years.

Even in the mid 60s, it was always Rangers fans who would be wearing the Scotland strip as their second strip. It was the same strip anyway, with only the shade of blue for the top being different.

That was the country I grew up in. As they say in some circles, the past is a foreign country.
 
I think the last time that I watched the national team with any real care was up to the Burley/Levein era - then the fall out with 2012 happened and that was it for me, along with the treatment of our players - there is a clear division between our fan base and theirs with a minor element that would consider themselves “staunch” national fans. The SNP dont help matters either.
I have an unnatural hatred of Bagpipes, Flower of Scotland (basically a dong of hatred against the English - maybe Humza should look at that) and the tartan “army”.
 
It's not really unique to Rangers and Scotland. Most of the biggest clubs in any given country don't have a great relationship with the national team.

United/Liverpool and England, Barcelona and Spain.

It's pretty rife.

I don't really see much evidence of people who don't care though. I don't care about wrestling so never comment on the wrestling thread yet every time Scotland play these threads pop up for weeks.
 
But your equating English fans hating the actual game to the Tranny Army booing a player because his parent club is Rangers

can anyone show me proof of English fans booing one of their players because of the team they played for?
Think I remember John Terry getting pelters from them.
 
The reason I don’t care about the national team is because it’s not Rangers. How could I possibly celebrate a goal scored by Griffiths? My interest increased when Walter was the manager. But that was only because I wanted him to do well.
 
My comparison didn't work. You pointed that out and I agreed. Always good to admit you're wrong. Even when you don't like to lol.
Haha same here mate. I hate being wrong:D this might be the first time I've ever been told I'm right actually. Good excuse to open a (another) beer:D
 
Well that game was at Pittodrie so a majority of the crowd were likely Aberdeen fans. Even if a bunch of Rangers fans were at that game they can't do much to stop a stadium full of Aberdeen fans booing.
So there aren’t many Rangers fans in Aberdeen then? Or there is but they just sat on their hands while the booing happened?

amazing the ready made excuse to defend them
 
The way we were treated and the fact it's essentially an SNP rally at every game put me off. I feel nothing for the national team but I don't say so in the match threads!
 
This is 2021. No Rangers players play for England now.

So why would a Scottish person support them?

It's no different to a Scottish Celtic supporter choosing to support the Republic of Ireland over Scotland. That is also tragic.
Our country is Great Britain so we have 4 teams to pick from to support , with your theory if your born in marryhill you have to support thistle , Scotland shouldn’t even have a national team they only have 1 because national games between the home nations started before uefa fifa etc and they Wete allowed to keep there teams but faced massive opposition from spain Germany France etc
 
Eh.... no thanks. Why any of us would want to sit amongst Rangers hating scumbags who have infiltrated the tranny army is beyond me. The same dullards who openly boo and spout their bile and pish at the Gers players in the Scotland team. All the poisonous virtriol from a large majority of Scottish clubs ‘fans’ when we were being shafted by the spivs while the SFA looked on with glee and done NOTHING to help one of their member clubs. All the talk of title stripping and expulsion from the league. The scottish cup final when the spoonburners ran amok and openly attacked our club captain, players and staff and NOTHING was done by the SFA. The endless politicising of the National team by the separatist Snatzis in the support while the SFA do just what their initials mean …. Sweet Fu(k All! Just some recent examples of why we should never forgive, never forget.


Fu(k the SFA and all the Rangers hating scumbags in this shitey little Rhepublic of Scotland.
 
I still want Scotland to win but my heart is not in it. When they lose it doesn't bother me. When Rangers lose I move from having a temper like a wild animal, to sorrow and depression.

There are a multitude of other instances where Rangers are treated differently. I'm sick of it. The "wee man syndrome" has ruined Rangers fans relationship with Scottish football.

I can relate to this .

I wonder if its an age thing . I can still remember the World Cups of old , the Home Internationals , and eras where half the Scotland team was made up of Rangers players , and its a period that never leaves you .

Younger bears have missed out on all that , and can rightly point out to the way we've been treated by the authorities , other clubs , and their fans . The political climate has further divided the country in recent years so I can fully understand them feeling alienated from the national team.

Like you, I still want Scotland to win but , if truth be told , there's very little interest left there anymore for me .
 
Also to add - this phucking 'happy to turn up" and "let's be loved by all" stance of the tartan army - as a Rangers supporter that is alien to me
 
I remember Scotland v England June 1984 and the Scotland fans were chanting “ Argentina” “ Argentina “ and this was just after the Falklands war.
I must admit I have a soft spot for anyone playing England at football.
Can't help it. Just love to see them get beat.
Nothing against the English people though so probably just petty jealousy on my part :)
 
I’m 23 & I’ve genuinely never been interested in Scotland, don’t think I’ve ever had a strip either. Just something that doesn’t interest me and never will.
 
I was happy to see Walter and big Eck do well ( for them ), re the Scottish National Team, I never want to see them do well, they are The SFA’s team.

Totally cool with Bears who still enjoy supporting Scotland, just not for me.

Re the “ it’s our country too “ I d t feel proud to be Scottish, post devolution Scotland - the country has never failed to disappoint - I’m Scottish by birth, but it really doesn’t mean a great deal to me.

I’m also happy that my Scotland supporting mates are happy, when Scotland do well.

I also think that national football in general should be beholding to the clubs that provide, train and fund their player pool, not the other way about,
Some of the so called Scotland team,has English players,who can't get a game, and couldn't find Scotland on a map
 
Agree mate - it is response like his that are defeatist and allow others walk all over us.

I have been to Scotland games and stood up and challenged anyone who has a pop at our players. Believe it or not, when I do so there are others who back me up.

I will still attend Scotland games but I will not sit quietly in Hampden and listen to scum have a go at any one of our players.
Yes, but having to stand up and openly challenge grown adults at a game is a ridiculous place to be. There is a lot of anti-englishness and nationalism, be it the SNP, Donald Trump’s or the English version will always breed division. I, like you, will support Scotland and want us to do well, but the core values of many of the TA are way, way off attracting the lost generation of Scotland fans back to the games.
 
Well that game was at Pittodrie so a majority of the crowd were likely Aberdeen fans. Even if a bunch of Rangers fans were at that game they can't do much to stop a stadium full of Aberdeen fans booing.
But that is the point that is being made, they were playing for Scotland not Rangers, which actually makes those that booed frauds as Scotland fans. They were supposed to be supporting Scotland not Aberdeen
 
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