WITH nine games remaining in the Scottish Premier League, it’s unlikely that Celtic will equal or beat their 2016/17 record-setting margin of 30 points, set in Brendan Rodgers’ first season in his first spell as manager.
Celtic are 16 points ahead with a whopping goal difference advantage of 37, and while it would take a collapse of historic proportions for Rangers to cede another 14 points between now and May, Hoops fans can be forgiven for not worrying too much about setting another points record given that this season may turn out for them to have been the greatest season so far in what have come to be known as ‘the Banter Years’.
For non-football fans, or perhaps for those more interested in English football, the Banter Years is the period between today and October 2012, when Rangers FC collapsed under the weight of epic financial mismanagement and went into liquidation. The club – newly dubbed ‘Sevco’ by the other Scottish Premiership fans – was punished with banishment to the lowest tier of Scottish football. During those years, the cash-strapped Govan club’s unending on- and off-field misery spawned a ceaseless supply of comic misadventures which continue to this day.
But even by the wince-inducing standards of the past 13 seasons, the past few weeks at Ibrox –the Crumbledome in Banter Years-speak – have been special for Celtic fans who enjoy their league success with a side order of schadenfreude. The latest in a procession of Rangers meltdowns began with the jaw-dropping Scottish Cup home defeat to Queen’s Park on February 9. It was one of the most embarrassing results in the club’s history and the days of gormless Belgian manager Philippe Clement in the Ibrox hotseat were numbered as his team trooped off the pitch with a cacophony of boos ringing out around a half-empty Ibrox. It was the final chance for Rangers to claim a domestic trophy – the league being well beyond their grasp and having suffered a festive season penalty shoot-out sickener against Celtic in the final of the League Cup.
ON THE BRINK: Rangers manager Philippe Clement suffers in front of the fans as Queens Park take the lead at Ibrox
A 0-2 home defeat to St Mirren two weeks later merely confirmed the inevitable and the Ibrox board sacked a manager who had received the dreaded vote of confidence from club CEO Patrick Stewart just a week before the Queen’s Park debacle. During his two-year spell at the club, Clement piled fuel on the blazing Banter Years bonfire with an almost weekly series of post-match press conferences during which he would painstakingly cite game stats to prove “we were the better team” after every latest dreary draw or defeat. If Clement’s shaky excuses had Rangers fans shaking their heads in frustration, they had guffawing Celtic fans holding their ribs.
The revolving door of the Rangers manager’s office has been a cartoon blur since 2012, with 14 bosses of varying duration and job description having taken charge of the team:
Ally McCoist.
Kenny McDowall.
Stuart McCall.
Mark Warburton.
Graeme Murty.
Pedro Caixinha.
Graeme Murty.
Jimmy Nicholl.
Steven Gerrard.
Giovanni Van Bronckhorst.
Michael Beale.
Steven Davis.
Philippe Clement.
That’s more than the number of managers the club has had since its formation in 1872. Or is it 2012? And the life cycle of each and every one of the bosses has followed the same path with the fans and the Rangers-adjacent Scottish media.
•New manager gets bounce.
•Receives wild acclaim.
•Interest from English Premiership.
•Performances drop off.
•Expresses confidence in squad.
•Exits cups.
•Announces reset.
•Concedes league.
•Is biggest tube since last tube.
•Wins vote of confidence.
•Stays.
•Leaves.
•Rinse.
•Repeat.
It’s an incredibly familiar process but new man Barry Ferguson is in his early days already threatening to shatter the template. The first 45 minutes of his first game – away to Kilmarnock – was one of the direst displays of football put on by the Teddy Bears throughout the long, grey Banter Years. But club legend Ferguson – a famously combative figure – sparked an unanswered four-goal second-half blitz to seal a famous win and send the faithful wild. Not surprisingly, anticipation ahead of his second game, a home match on the club’s Armed Forces Day against Motherwell, was at fever-pitch, viz pre-kick-off posts on the Rangers fan site Follow Follow:
•We're on a roll with Barry & Co. Let's keep it going. 3-0 Rangers.
•I think we're going to go Tonto tomorrow. Rangers 7-0 Motherwell.
•Demolish this mob today Rangers and finish the season strong. 4-0.
•Still feels a bit surreal having Barry as manager, one of my childhood/early teens heroes. 4-1.
•We always win on Armed Forces Day. Add to that Barry’s first home game and Tav’s 500th game and this has all the hallmarks of a good result. 4-0 to the Famous.
But hardly had British soldiers finished abseiling down the Ibrox stands to deliver the match ball to the referee than Motherwell had taken the lead; when Rangers went two down on the half-hour, the pre-match Bazza acclaim was replaced by silence. And when the final whistle sounded the silence was shattered by a chorus of boos and jeers. It could have been worse for Ferguson – the disgust would have been considerably louder if half the fans hadn’t fled the stadium after 70 minutes.
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM: Barry Ferguson promotes Armed Forces Day before the painful home defeat to Motherwell
Back at Follow Follow the early enthusiasm hadn’t subsided – it had disappeared in puff of red, white and blue pyro smoke:
• We looked very much like a side who needed a lift and a positive managerial change and were instead provided with a rush job consisting of three failed managers that shout a lot.
• Complete and utter basket case of a club, if the buyout doesn’t happen we’re f***ed.
A shambles of a club and all coming home to roost
• We are run like a Sunday league outfit, I could say it’s embarrassing but it’s been going on far too long now.
• New manager bounce lasted long!
• Barry wanted consistency. Well he f***ing got it going down 0-2 twice.
With a two-legged Europa Cup tie against Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce next up (first leg tonight, Thursday), followed closely by an away match to free-scoring Celtic, Ferguson has his work cut out to restore that short-lived post-Kilmarnock buzz. And with most Rangers fans realistic enough to expect Bazza’s reign to be short and temporary, attention has switched to a mooted takeover of the club by the San Francisco 49ers and the coronation of the highly-respected former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez.
But, these still being the Banter Years, there has to be a catch, and sure enough it turns out the the owners of the 49ers – the fabulously wealthy York family – are the most significant donors to the Catholic Church in the United States. Such is the desperation around Ibrox, fans traditionally allied to the Reformed faith and partial to songs uncomplimentary to priests and Papists have remained generally sanguine about a Vatican-linked takeover. Any port in a storm and all that. And San Francisco has had its name changed by other Scottish Premiership fans to... San FranSevco.
Premium Banter.
The Banter Years: Some highlights:
April 2013: Almost as soon as he joins Rangers, striker Francisco Sandaza is sacked after being pranked by a Celtic fan into talking about moving to another club.
April 2014: Raith Rovers score an extra time cup final winner against Rangers – in the Ramsden’s Challenge Cup. Manager Ally McCoist is bitterly criticised for singing in a karaoke bar that night.
December 2014: Winning 2-0 away at Alloa, Rangers are looking forward to the final of the (checks notes) Petrofac Training Cup. They concede three goals in the last 15 minutes and are knocked out. Days later the Rangers AGM is held in a B&Q gazebo on the Ibrox pitch.
August 2016: Rangers emerge from the Ibrox tunnnel for their first game back in the Premiership to be greeted by a huge stadium display reading ‘Going for 55.’ Manager Mark Warburton admitted: “My heart sank.” Rangers scrape a 1-1 draw with Hamilton Accies.
July 2017: After Rangers are dumped out of the Europa League, beaten 2-0 in Luxembourg by Progrès Niederkorn, manager Pedro Caixinha becomes a viral sensation after arguing with furious fans while standing in a hedge.
March 2018: ‘Whit’s the goalie daein’, Tam!?’ This famously furious Rangers TV commentary of a Celtic goal against Rangers at Ibrox has come to be used by Celtic fans to refer to anything that goes wrong at Ibrox. And the T-shirts are still popular.
August 2018: Rangers’ plans for a huge ‘Our Club, Our City’ banner are leaked to St Mirren fans, who turn up at Ibrox with a ‘Your Club is Dead, Your City is Shite’ banner.
May 2020: Rangers release their long-awaited ‘Dossier of Corruption’, outlining how everyone in Scottish football had been out get them over the past eight years. A report by accountants Deloitte finds that “not a single shred of evidence” has been produced and the report is quietly forgotten about.
November 2022: Rangers’ joy at being back in the Champions League isn’t long wearing off and as the team exited the competition they became officially the worst team in the history of the Champions League history. The Gers lost all six of their group stage games and scored just the one goal, ending up with a points haul of zero and winning the unwanted title from a handful of other zero points teams by dint of an eyewatering goal difference of minus 20.
October 2022: As manager Gio Van Bronckhorst wrestles with fan fury and a jumpy board after poor league form and that disastrous Champions League campaign, QPR manager Michael Beale does his best to keep news of the club’s interest secret by taking applause at a Rangers home game with Gio in the dug-out. Former fans’ favourite Derek Ferguson labels Beale “a snake” even before he joins the club. Beale lasts 10 months.
February 2025: “I believe these players want to do the right things,” says Rangers boss Philippe Clement after the two humiliating defeats to Queen’s Park and St Mirren. “I believe I can get the right results with these players.” He’s sacked the next day.
The Banter Years continue. For now.
