Rangers 2015 – an alternative history

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Rangers 2015 – an alternative history


Today on Ibrox Noise we’re taking an alternative trip through history, a ‘what if’.

We watched with interest last night the first leg of the play-off final between Dundee United and St Mirren, and it invoked memories of 2015, and the ultimate failure to secure promotion suffered under then-interim manager Stuart McCall.

To be fair to him, he did a man’s job taking that roughshod squad as close as he did to securing promotion and overcoming Motherwell, but the match v Fir Park’s finest was a stage too far for the squad we had.

But… what if? What if a team filled with Bilel Mohsni, Lee McCulloch and Ian Black had actually managed to overcome Motherwell? What if that ragamuffin crew of SPL dirge had actually beaten Motherwell and got promoted?

Well, if ever a cloud had a silver lining, failure in that playoff final was it – can we imagine how badly a Rangers squad, thinking it was WAY better than it was, would have actually done in the SPL?

We’d have deluded ourselves into thinking guys like Black, Law, Aird and McCulloch were up to the standard required in the SPL – after all, three of them were experienced SPL players in the first place.

We really fear where our club would have ended up in the surprising event of beating Motherwell, and suspect bottom half of the table at absolute best.

Just imagine – we’d think our ‘SPL standard’ players were good enough to handle the league and not invested heavily in the summer transfer market – and we’d have been lucky to be higher than bottom three.

Of course, it’s complete supposition, and it’s not what happened, so why go there?

Because it matters – our history matters, and while languishing in the Championship for an extra year hurt like hell, long term it was the best outcome.

Mark Warburton’s reign overall was a bit of a failure, but the one thing it gave us was a clean promotion – and a squad that was at least top 6 in the SPL the following season.

We can’t see that having happened with David Templeton…

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3 COMMENTS

  1. Your right, 2115/16 could have been a humiliating disaster with the quality of players we had and with the scumbags who had controlled our club at the start of the year

    Despite many failures the big change that has altered the history of the club that we love happened in March 2015 when control of our club was dragged back from people who saw us as a financial transaction, to people who love the club & were willing to pay to get us back to where we belong.

    God knows where we would be if we had remained under the control of the fat cockney b*astard & his minions but I'm sure we would not have SG as manager and be going into a season believing that we might, just might be able to make it to 55.

    I'm aware that this site is no lover of Dave King but as you point out 2015 was the major turning point for the club and despite many bad decisions since then we are at a point where we know success is close. The journey won't be done until we achieve 55 but when we do the people who took control in March 2015 should be acknowledged as the people who really made it happen

  2. I don't do what if's although i can see what your getting at but it still never happened. On the subject of Du and St Mirren though i will be paying close attention and i sincerely hope united are stuffed with a last second winner by Sts. Its personal.

  3. Pointless. Utter pointless. We might still have hired Warburton in the summer. McCall was never going to get the job and we would have still had an overhaul of in playing and back room staff.

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