Inverness Trip

The hotel is the Ramada Encore not the Jarvis, apologies my mistook. It still in the city centre.

Dundee United v Rangers

If you want tickets for this match on 17th March let me or Rory know asap so they can be ordered.

 

Rangers v Hearts

Names being taken for the next home match against Hearts on Saturday 3rd March 15.00. Let myself or Rory know if you require a seat on the bus.

Inverness Away Weekend

The bus  will leave Blair at 1.00 pm on Saturday stopping at the Tipsy Laird in Kingussie for a break around 3.00pm. We are staying at the Ramada Jarvis in Church Street. We have been invited to a function in the Masonic rooms on Saturday night,tickets are £4 [let Rory know if yo require some]. The match is at 12.45 on Sunday so the bus will leave the hotel at 12.00. We will leave from the ground after the game for the return journey.

 

The Rangers of World War One

 

 

 

 

 

James ‘Jimmy’ Spiers

 

 

 

 

Ninety three years ago today, a war which claimed the lives of sixteen million, including almost a million Brits, was ended with the signing of a document. The Armistice put an end to one of the bloodiest conflicts in world history, as Germany and the Allies agreed to end all fighting. Since then, on this day and Remembrance Sunday, we take a few minutes to sit back and reflect on those who have fallen whilst answering the call of duty from their country.

It’s hard to truly grasp the atrocities of war, especially when you have no first hand experience. It’s impossible to truly take stock of such a widespread loss of life. To understand better, your only hope is to listen to those who were there, those whose stories were not buried with them. During the First World War, there were a few such stories directly linked to Rangers.
The club certainly played an active role in the war effort. As well as dozens of players signing up to fight, then manager William Winton helped care for injured soldiers at Bellahouston Hospital. His assistant at the time, a certain Bill Struth, joined him in doing so. The duo worked around the clock to treat the war victims, putting their voluntary jobs above the small matter over presiding over the on-field success of Rangers Football Club. During the war years, the club was also honoured with a visit from King George V on the 17th of September 1917, as he came to Ibrox Park to hold an investiture.

In total, over thirty Rangers players, past and present, served their country in the war, with six being honoured with distinction for their bravery. Dr. James Paterson and Fred Gray both received the Military Cross, Finlay Speedie and James Speirs the Military Medal, Jock Buchanan the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and Walter Tull the British War and Victory Medal.  The case of Walter Tull is an interesting one, as he joined James Speirs, David Murray, and John Fleming in making the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Sadly, the stories of David Murray and John Fleming seem to have been buried with them. All that is known about Fleming is that he played four games for Rangers in the 1915-16 season, before dying of wounds received from the Battle of Langemarck two years earlier. However, with Speirs and Tull, there is much to be said.

James ‘Jimmy’ Speirs was an enterprising inside forward who played for Rangers between 1905 and 1908, making over sixty appearances for the Royal Blues. He was fairly prolific; he managed to net a goal almost every other game. It was this form that led to Speirs receiving a call up for the national team, who he helped beat Wales 2-1 in 1908. After moving on from Rangers, he played for Clyde, Bradford City, and Leeds City (the dominant team of the city until the war broke out), before retiring at the end of the 1914-15 season.

Upon ‘retirement’, Speirs enlisted in the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders’. It is noteworthy that Speirs had no requirement to enlist; indeed, his two young children would have made him exempt from the subsequent involuntary nationwide conscription. A year and a promotion to Lance Corporal later, he was sent to fight on the Western Front, where the British Army had endured heavy losses. Within a few months, he had been promoted to Corporal.

In April 1917, not two years after signing up, Jimmy Speirs was involved in the Second Battle of Arras, a conflict which took place over the course of a few days, killing two thirds (197) of the 583 British servicemen involved. Speirs won the Military Medal for his bravery in this battle, though the precise action he took to merit this distinction is unrecorded. The Military Medal is the equivalent of the Military Cross for the military’s ‘rank and file’, whereas the Cross is an officers only club. On the first of June, a promotion to Sergeant followed, and Jimmy returned home to see his wife and children. Sadly, he would never return.

Fast forward to the 20th of August, and the Battle of Passchendaele was well underway. That evening, Jimmy’s battalion were getting ready to step up and relieve the Worcester regiment. Before he went into action, he wrote a postcard to his wife, Bessie, informing her that his men would be ‘going over the parapet tomorrow’. Hours later, Jimmy was shot in the thigh, and, like the rest of his battalion, never made it back.

nother to suffer the same fate was the aforementioned Walter Tull. Born to a Barbadian father and an English mother in 1888, tragedy touched Tull’s life from an early age. After his mother’s death when he was just seven, his father passed away two years later, meaning that the nine year old Tull had to go to live in a Methodist orphanage in London. Despite this troubled start to life, Tull managed to complete both his schooling and an apprenticeship as a printer. However, Tull’s true passion in life was to be found on a football pitch.

Walter Tull

Following a string of promising performances for amateur outfit Clapton, Tull signed on at Tottenham Hotspur in 1909, becoming just the second black player to play professional football in Britain. However, though he enjoyed a promising start at White Hart Lane, Tull soon became disillusioned with life in the capital, transferring to Southern League outfit Northampton Town (the equivalent to a transfer to a Championship side nowadays) who were managed by a certain Herbert Chapman. At the County Ground, Tull made over 100 appearances, attracting the interest of a certain team from Glasgow.

A move to Rangers certainly suited Tull down to the ground. His brother, Edward, was a dentist in Glasgow, and often travelled to Ibrox to watch the Royal Blues in action. The chances are, he might have even seen a certain Jimmy Speirs strutting his stuff in Govan too. However, before the move could be finalised, on the 4th of August that year, Britain declared war on Germany. Naturally, Tull abandoned football in order to sign up to fight for his country.

His battalion of choice was the 17th Service Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, better known as the Football Battalion. Including other professionals, such as England international defender Frank Buckley, the Football Battalion aimed to bring together all footballers, professional and amateur, who wanted to join the British Army.  Before long, Tull’s qualities in the trenches were recognised with a promotion to Sergeant. In the July of 1916, not two years after enlisting, Tull took part in the infamous Battle of the Somme, the four month long trench battle which claimed the lives of over a million troops overall. Luckily, Tull would survive this particular conflict, only contracting trench fever that December. That being said, trench fever is not a particularly nice thing to have. Headaches, high fever, muscular pain….if you have it for too long, it could cause heart failure. So Tull was sent back to England to recover. It was at this point when he would make history.

British Army regulations at the time dictated that ‘no negro or person of colour’ could hold the role of officer. After completing an officer training course in Gailes, Walter Tull became the first black officer in the history of the British Army. His first active service in his new role would take place in northern Italy, where Tull’s regiment joined the British Army in helping their Italian counterparts fight off the Austro-Hungarian empire at the Battle of Piave. It was due to his actions in this battle that he was recommended for the Military Cross. However, before he could be awarded this honour, his unit was sent to France to continue the fight against the Germans.

On the 25th of March, 1918, just months before the Great War would end, Second Lieutenant Walter Tull would commit his final act of bravery for Britain. In an effort to gain ground on the German, he and his men were ordered to go ‘over the top’. Seconds after entering No Man’s Land, Tull was shot in the head, and died almost instantly. Tull was such a popular figure amongst his men that they tried to recover his body, knowing fully well that they were most likely dragging a corpse back to their side. Unfortunately, this attempt was unsuccessful, and the body of Walter Tull was never recovered.

War is a horrible, disgusting, loathsome beast. The motives for it should aways be questionable. The amount of deaths, injuries, and grief it causes makes it difficult for it to ever be totally justified. However, what must never be called into question is what these soldiers are putting on the line. Forget all club divisions. Today let’s pay tribute to the likes of Walter Tull and Jimmy Speirs. But let’s give equal thanks to the seven former Celtic players who gave their lives fighting for Britain in World War One. Equal thanks to the seven former Heartsplayers who died fighting for the same cause. Equal thanks to each and every one of 886,939 British soldiers who died in this awful conflict. They deserve nothing less.

Lest we forget.

With thanks to all at Rangers Media.

Friday, 11 November 2011 06:00Written by djw1992

Poppy Day At Ibrox

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Blairgowrie RSC Polos on tour

Scott Burnett models his Blairgowrie RSC shirt while on honeymoon in Rio. Anyone one got any snaps of any other destinations if so send them in and I’ll add them to the site.

 

Steven Naismith presentation

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Some pictures from sunday

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Club baseball caps and pin badges

Pin badges are now in stock. Orders are being taken for baseball caps, t-shirts and polos.

Pin badges are 20mm and are £2 each

Baseball caps will be £12. Only available in

 red white and blue.

Polos and t-shirts are available in

 red,white,blue,orange and black

 Polos £15 and T’s £12

 

 

 

Contact me with your requirements, next order will be sent on Monday 12th September.