REVOLUTION
Rangers 1986 – 1992
Once Graeme Souness walked into the Ibrox Blue Room, nothing would be the same again. What followed wasn’t just a successful season for long-suffering fans. Nor was it something inevitable. What followed was a revolution.
This is a story about change. About how Scottish football’s biggest club was transformed and how it then transformed Scottish football. About how old rules and traditions were ripped up, no matter the emotional cost.
It is not simply a story about goals, saves and transfers. It is one formed by a time of great political and social modernisation which also saw a shift in how ordinary fans consumed the game and found their own voice.
This was the most successful and exciting era in Rangers history. One where fans felt that anyone could be signed and everything could be won.The sky was the limit! Or rather, Sky was. Amidst all the glory, there was tension.
Did Rangers drive change or were they were shaped by it? Why did their modernisation stop just as it exploded elsewhere? One thing is clear: the revolution that was born in 1986 was over by 1992. Here is how it happened.
The book is richly informative on topics as varied as the media of this pre-internet age; football supporters’ culture and the phenomenon of the ‘fanzines’; and the growing commercial character of football. At root, however, it is a lucidly written account of Rangers’ playing fortunes: the players, tactics and formations, dressing room tensions and bust-ups, and the goals, the victories, and the trophies. Rangers fans who want to replay in their minds that spine-tingling Ibrox night when Rangers defeated Dynamo Kiev, the 5-1 rout of Celtic when Wilkins struck the goal ‘made in England’, the breathtaking last day title decider against Aberdeen in 1991, and so much more, need look no further for stimulation than the pages of this superb book.