Rangers have sprung something of a surprise on supporters with a statement today that in fact slightly reversed on an earlier statement by the club.
Revealing that the Copland Road Stand will in fact now be open v Dundee in the cup from CF1 to CF5, the club has confirmed that all fans can now return to Ibrox with the ‘minor’ exception that CR1-CR5 remain closed for now while work finishes there.
It’s a huge breakthrough – after the earlier statement announcing that all other three stands would be available except Copland, it has turned out all the ITK claims were far too pessimistic, and the work is 90% complete.
While the Copland Rear still needs finished with the club confirming final concourse works aren’t quite there yet, it does still mean that there can be a near-full attendance for Dee in the cup, and that definitively Rangers are now returned to Ibrox and have played their last home match at Hampden.
Chairman John Bennett will be relieved at all this, he made a very ‘caveated’ prediction in July that the team would be back in Ibrox after September’s international break, but was incredibly cautious about committing to this.
He was cautious because he was aware what a fail the original scheduling has been, and committing to a date was risky.
But he’s been vindicated – while Copland Rear isn’t there yet, the rest basically now is, and Rangers fans can consider themselves delighted to be back home at long last.
Ibrox Noise can also take this one on the chin quite happily – our information suggested that this could still be months away, but thankfully, the work has been much much quicker and we’re back in Ibrox on the 21st.
At last that is one less thing to worry about.