Free The Gallant Pioneers: Rangers 1872 by Gary Ralston Page B

round, Rangers defeated Third Lanark 1–0 at Cathkin Park, but their opponents protested that the visitors had kicked-off both halves. The appeal was duly upheld and the game was ordered to be replayed at Burnbank, with Third Lanark winning 2–1. This time it was Rangers’ turn to appeal on the grounds that the opposition keeper wore everyday clothing and could not be distinguished from the crowd, that the winning goal was scored by the hand and that the game had been ended seven minutes early as a result of fans encroaching on the field of play. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. The result stood and Rangers were out.

    This image is looking west across Burnbank in the 1870s. Who knows, that may even be a Rangers game going on in the foreground. The land has been dominated by tenements for well over a century.
    Nevertheless, there was further cause for optimism as Rangers headed into season 1876–77 and a campaign that would not only underline their new-found reputation as a club of substance, but would also earn them their ‘Light Blues’ moniker that stays with them to this day. Firstly, they secured a 10-year lease on a ground at Kinning Park that had recently been vacated by the Clydesdale club, who had first played cricket on the site in 1849. The cricketers originally rented fields next door from a Mr Tweedie for up to £9 per annum but they were evicted within a year (after playing only two matches) when they literally refused to allow the grass to grow under their feet, thus denying his herds valuable nutrition. The Clydesdale lads had better luck when they approached a Mr Meikelwham for permission to build a club on the fields he was leasing in Kinning Park and the precious acres were to remain dedicated to sport until Rangers moved to the first Ibrox Park in 1887. Land which, less than 125 years ago, was given over for agricultural use and sporting prowess now forms part of the M8. It is something for present day fans to think about as they crawl towards the Kingston Bridge from Ibrox in their cars and supporters’ buses at the end of every matchday.
  Rangers’ move to Kinning Park in the summer of 1876 took them to the south of the city for the first time and it has remained their spiritual home ever since. For their part, Clydesdale had located to a new ground for their favourite pastimes of football and cricket further south at Titwood. Memories of football at Clydesdale have long since faded, although they boast the honour of playing in the first Scottish Cup Final in 1874, a 2–0 defeat to Queen’s Park. The crack of willow on leather can be heard at Titwood still. The reasons behind Clydesdale’s desire for a new home away from Kinning Park have never been recorded, but the creep of industrialism and demand for space across the south side of the city in the period is likely to have been a factor. As late as the 1860s, the eminent Scottish sportswriter D.D. Bone reckoned: ‘Kinning Park was…a beautiful meadow surrounded by stately trees and green hedges, a pleasant spot of resort for the town athletes, away from the din of hammers and free from the heavy pall of city smoke.’6 In 1872 it sat in splendid isolation, but within 12 months the Clutha Ironworks had been constructed on its doorstep and by 1878 a depot for the Caledonian Railway had been built across the street. The dimensions of a cricket field being considerably larger than a football pitch, maps of the time show that Rangers occupied only a portion of the land originally allocated to Clydesdale.
  Rangers had been boosted in the summer of 1876 by the arrival of several new players, most notably George Gillespie. A former player with the Rosslyn club based in Whiteinch, he was a back who later converted to goalkeeper and went on to win seven caps for Scotland between the sticks with the Light Blues and Queen’s Park. He was never on the losing side in an international and luck appeared to be on his side in his debut season with his