RANGERS will end their season in a packed stadium after starting it at a deserted training ground.
When Lee McCulloch, the captain, lifts the Irn-Bru Third Division trophy after playing Berwick Rangers on Saturday there will be nearly 50,000 fans in the ground. Everywhere he looks there will be supporters, team-mates, staff, friends and family. Back on June 28, when Rangers returned for pre-season training, they had only five senior players, five juniors, and three players out of contract. Tumbleweed blew through Murray Park.
After weeks of intense media coverage of Rangers' financial implosion they were then slapped in the face by the cold reality of the club's collapse: a bare skeleton of a squad, stripped to virtually nothing. Rangers had too few players nor did they have an SFA licence to play: meaning no right to play friendlies, and uncertainty over whether they would be able to compete this season at all.
"Knowing I will lift a trophy is a reward for what we went through last summer," said McCulloch at the Ibrox launch of his autobiography. "Pre-season was weird, with only a handful of players turning up, not knowing what was happening. It was pretty tough. Sometimes I was even training by myself. We had no idea what was coming, so it will be good to lift the trophy on Saturday to banish all those negative memories. That is the first bit done in regards to getting back to where we actually belong."
McCulloch was voted Rangers' player of the year earlier this week but his enormous popularity around Ibrox is based not on form, but on his decision to stay with the club in the bottom tier when so many other senior players fled. He was rewarded with the captaincy. "I had won three leagues, three Scottish Cups and two League Cups and wanted to give something back. I had other offers but I just didn't see myself leaving. I've never been captain before. I've never lifted a trophy so having gone through a hard season, and now I'm wearing the armband, this is my favourite."
Rangers will have more bodies available when pre-season training starts this season, and their SFA registration embargo will end on September 1. Old boy, Nacho Novo, has touted himself for a return. "Nacho is energetic, he gives the fans a lift, he is Rangers mad," added McCulloch. "To get him back would be a real positive."
Simp-Lee The Best, my autobiography by Lee McCulloch, Black & White, £17.99
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