Rangers FC, a soccer club from Glasgow, Scotland with one of the largest and most loyal fan followings in the world, will play the Victoria Highlanders in an exhibition game July 21.
“Everybody in the football world has heard of Rangers,” said Highlanders striker Blair Sturrock, a native of Scotland.
The friendly will be played at Centennial Stadium. Highlanders GM Mark DeFrias said he expects a capacity crowd of 5,000. If demand dictates, the University of Victoria can expand seating to accommodate 7,000 fans for the game, he said. Tickets are on sale now through the Highlanders website or Select Your Tickets.
“Rangers have 6.3 million followers in 660 supporter groups around the world, including two in Vancouver and ones in Seattle and Calgary. So this game is going to attract a lot of people from off-Island, as well,” said DeFrias.
The Victoria fixture is among the four games Rangers will play on their North American tour while their home stadium, Ibrox, is taken over by the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games rugby sevens competition, which will include the Langford-based Canadian team.
Rangers have won the Scottish Premiership 54 times, the Scottish Cup on 33 occasions and have also made an impact in Europe, the last time in 2008 as the UEFA Cup runner-up. But the historic club ran into financial difficulties in 2012, which precipitated insolvency and a drop to the Scottish Third Division. Rangers, under legendary former player and now manager Ally McCoist, have now climbed into the second-tier Championship Division en route to eventually rejoining the Scottish Premiership.
“Their fan base has stuck with Rangers through all this, and that will be evident in Victoria,” said Sturrock, who as a player with Brechin, once played against Rangers in a Scottish Cup game.
“It is only a matter of time until they are back in the Premier Division.”
Among that diehard fan base is Steve Paton of Victoria and his 19-year-old son Cameron Paton, the latter who just returned from touring Ibrox and its storied trophy room.
“I am up at 4 a.m. every weekend to watch Rangers play [online] . . . I haven’t missed a game in eons,” said Steve Paton, who was born in Glasgow before moving to Victoria as a child.
“We will win the Champions Division this season and be back in the Premiership soon kicking the stuffing out of Celtic . . . I don’t wear anything green,” added Paton, referring to the long-simmering rivalry between Rangers and Glasgow Celtic.
Paton said he fully expects fans in Celtic green to be at Centennial Stadium for the sole purpose of rooting against Rangers.
“This will be massive,” he said. “Almost everybody born in Scotland doesn’t live there anymore.”
The Highlanders, meanwhile, are undefeated with two wins and two ties in the 2014 United Soccer League Premier Development League season and are the defending Northwest Division and Western Conference champions.
As good as the Highlanders club has been at the North American amateur level, veteran midfielder Riley O’Neill said the fixture against Rangers will be an “eye-opener” for the younger Highlanders players.
“They will see what a jump it is to the next level,” said O’Neill, a Campbell River native and former European pro.
Sturrock, the only Highlander who has previously played against Rangers, has some words of advice for his Victoria teammates: “Relax, focus on the little things, and treat it like a normal game.”
This will be the Rangers’ second game in Victoria. The first was an 8-1 victory on June 9, 1930, over Vic West. It probably didn’t help Vic West that it wears green.
Other famous British clubs to have played local clubs in Victoria include West Brom, Chelsea, Sunderland and Fulham, the latter a landmark Canadian soccer moment in 1951 with a 1-0 victory at Royal Athletic Park by the Victoria All-Stars.
