Rangers’ fan poll: to boycott away matches next season or not?
I try to make my articles both interesting and informative, however this next topic really does split opinion in our loyal support. So much so that a poll to find out the true percentage of the fans feelings would probably help everybody to decide the way forward – and what is best in the long term for our beloved club. I would like to address the outstanding question for a lot of the Rangers supporters for the forthcoming season.
Should Rangers fans boycott away grounds? At the end of the day, we are all individuals and we support our team in so many different ways.
Some families buy strips, but don’t go to games, some invest money in Rangers, others watch games on television but are still die-hards; we also have world-wide Rangers supporter’s clubs in Dubai, America, Australia and many other far-flung countries. Last, but not least – the loyal fans I admire most, are the fans that go to nearly every game and give loud vocal support to the team, which definitely spurs the team on to better things, and makes the atmosphere at Rangers games so good to go to, and all this by the best supporters in Scotland – a big thanks to all of you!
Ibrox Noise has discovered through the fans’ comments and replies that we receive, and trust me, we all enjoy reading them, that there is a definite split of opinions with this subject. Some fans want the past to be exactly that – in the past, so let’s move on! Others say, “We have to pay the b*st*rds back”, for what they did to us in 2012!
Apart from Celtic, Hibernian and Dundee United were two of the worst offenders for decrying anything decent about Rangers and why we should not be allowed back in the SPL. Both were very vocal in declaring that Rangers deserved any punishment and that the SPL should throw the book at us. This led to the start of our journey, of course, and look what has happened to them since – good riddance! We have also lost St Mirren, another team who didn’t stand up for us. A Championship side for at least another season.
For all our long distance Rangers fans who live up north, I predict that most of them will want to go to Inverness, Ross County (Dingwall), St Johnstone (Perth) and dare I say – Aberdeen v Rangers games, as they are highly competitive battles at times, and they have to travel so far to support us at Ibrox every other week.
The same argument could be made for all our very loyal fans from the east of Scotland with the brilliant, competitive and hugely exciting – Heart of Midlothian v Rangers games.
The Celtic games will look after themselves, as only 8,000 tickets are allocated for Rangers fans, which is a total disgrace as Celtic Park holds 62.000. With these figures we are only allowed 6.375% of the total crowd.
When Celtic supporters come to Ibrox, they get the Broomloan Road Stand to themselves, which holds just over 8,000 in a stadium that holds 51,080. With these accurate figures they are allowed as much as 7.75% of the fans.
How is this same situation allowed to happen every season?
For all the other teams that make up the Scottish Premiership for season 2015-16 – we have: Kilmarnock, Partick Thistle, Motherwell, Dundee and Hamilton Accies.
We appreciate you taking the time to vote and I will give you the result of the poll in a follow up story in a few days.
If you feel strongly enough about the past behaviour of any of the above teams, then press YES or NO to a boycott of away games.