Rangers Football Club is a Scottish football club based in the city of Glasgow.
Numerous fan magazines, blogs and supporters' websites are dedicated to the club and the fans have a famous long-standing rivalry with Celtic, the two Glasgow giants collectively known as "The Old Firm".
Rangers supporters have traditionally been identified with the Protestant and Unionist community in Scotland, as well as in Northern Ireland. The club has a global fan-base, with a worldwide spread of over 600 supporters clubs ranging from North America, Australasia and the Middle East to those closer to home in the United Kingdom. In season 2012–13, Rangers recorded the 18th highest average league attendance in Europe. In 2006, Rangers was one of the best-supported clubs in the UK with an estimated 1.4 million supporters. Rangers have an estimated worldwide fanbase in excess of 9 million supporters.
Fanbase and attendances
Rangers, along with Old Firm rivals Celtic, have the largest support base of all the clubs in Scotland. The club's average attendance is consistently one of the highest in Europe, the figure of 45,750 for the domestic league Season 2012–13 being the 18th highest across the continent. A study of stadium attendance figures from 2013 to 2018 by the CIES Football Observatory ranked Rangers at 18th in the world during that period, even though they had been playing at lower levels for three of those five seasons. Rangers' proportion of the distribution of spectators in Scotland was 27.4%, 8th overall for national audience share across the 51 leagues studied (Celtic's figures were even higher, mainly due to their stadium holding approximately 9,000 more seats).
Record attendances
Rangers fans have contributed to a number of records for massive attendances, most notably the highest home attendance for a British league fixture, 118,567 on 2 January 1939. Ibrox hosted numerous crowds of over 100,000 during the 1950s and 1960s, prior to reconstruction following the Ibrox disaster. Rangers supporters also hold records for the highest attendance at a friendly fixture, 104,679, set at Hampden Park in 1961 vs Eintracht Frankfurt, as well as the largest crowd to watch a non-Cup final fixture, 143,570 for a Scottish Cup semi-final vs. Hibernian in 1948. Rangers hold the world record for a fourth tier match with an attendance of 50,048 against Berwick Rangers during the 2012–13 season.
List of Rangers supporters groups
2008 UEFA Cup final
In 2008, up to 200,000 Rangers supporters traveled to Manchester for the UEFA Cup final, with some issues of disturbance and disorder. The match between Rangers and Zenit Saint Petersburg was preceded by scuffles between fans.
However, serious disorder was allegedly sparked by the technical failure of a big screen erected in Piccadilly Gardens to transmit the match to thousands of Rangers fans who had traveled to the city without tickets. In addition to property damage, fifteen police officers were injured and ambulance crews attended 52 cases of assault.
2021 George Square disorder
After winning the 2020–21 Scottish Premiership title in March 2021, Rangers fans were criticised for gathering at Ibrox Stadium and at George Square in central Glasgow, despite public gatherings being prohibited due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland. Instances of violence and disorder were observed, multiple police officers were assaulted, several memorial benches were destroyed during celebrations and one Rangers fan was filmed performing a sex act on himself. In all, police made 28 arrests and handed out fixed penalty notices for a variety of offences including assaulting police officers and sectarian-related breaches of the peace. Scotland's First Minister, Sturgeon described the scenes as "infuriating and disgraceful".