The enthusiasm of all concerned may waver in winter but if the experience of Brechin is anything to go by, the footballing towns of Scotland's lower leagues have an interesting – and potentially money-spinning – few seasons in store.
The peaceful Angus town was swamped yesterday as thousands of Rangers fans turned up to support a club that has come close to extinction over the past few months. How fitting, then, that the team in blue spent part of this game at quaint, tiny Glebe Park with its back to what's known as the Cemetery End.
In keeping with the morbid theme, one Rangers fan leaving Edinburgh by train likened yesterday's Ramsdens Cup game against second-division Brechin City to the moment you finally get to take a plaster off a wound and peer at what's underneath. Others were just relieved that there was a Rangers team at all.
"At the moment I think a lot of the fans are just chuffed to see Rangers playing competitive football after all the carrying-on," said Graham Laing, one of a knot of fans waiting at Glebe Park to greet the Rangers team bus. "It's great to see them still going but I think the whole thing is a shambles.
"I don't understand why a lot of the players left – Rangers are Rangers, it doesn't matter what league you play in."
Rangers supporter Linda Campbell added: "The fans just want everything to come to an end and for the SFA to act with some integrity". So how did she think towns like Brechin will cope with large influxes of Rangers fans in the coming seasons? "There'll be a lot of worry because of what happened in Manchester," she admitted. "There'll be worry that Rangers fans coming up without tickets are going to cause havoc."
Those concerns were echoed in The Stables bar, where landlord Alan Renilson was holding a special pre-match event for 150 locals fans of both Rangers and Brechin City. "I can see the bonuses because financially the town will get a boost," he said.
There was uncertainty about how many travelling fans would turn up amid fears that as many as 15,000 would arrive – more than double the town's population of 7000. Mr Renilson said that would have been a "disaster" as the police could not have handled it. In the end it was estimated around 3000 turned up for the sell-out match.
Through in the bar's snug, Brechin City season ticket-holder Brian Stewart was enjoying his first refreshment of the day. "I've followed them through thick and thin," he laughed, "though we've been having a bit more thin recently."
Stables barmaid Cari Leslie, meanwhile, is actually a Rangers fan, though she was decked out in a Brechin City top. "It's exciting," she laughed. "I'm supporting Brechin today."
Billy Samson is another Rangers fan who lives in Brechin, but there are no divided loyalties as far as he's concerned. "I was ecstatic when I found out that the first game would be in my home town," he said as he waited to enter the away end, while a grizzled barker nearby did a roaring trade in red, white and blue scarves bearing a scathing message directed at the SPL bosses. "But I'm just glad to be back. Let's just get back to supporting our team."
After a few hours in the local hostelries, any relief the Rangers fans felt had turned to defiance. By kick-off that defiance was ear-splitting and incendiary as coloured smoke bombs greeted the Rangers team's appearance on the pitch and raucous broadsides against the SPL rang out from the packed away end – and not just the away end, either, as Rangers fans also lined the length of the famous hedge that runs down one side of Glebe Park.
The new-look Rangers needed extra time before emerging victorious against the side now located a division above them. Relief was certainly the order of the day for the travelling fans.
So, just another day in Scotland's lower leagues? Hardly – and the lower leagues had better get used to it.
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