Rangers 0 - 1 Kilmarnock: Rangers fail to repay fans despite record turnout

A SORRY end to the sorriest of weeks for Rangers. It was somehow expected that administration and the ensuing adversity would inspire Rangers on the field.

In normal times, that might well have been the case. But these aren’t normal times. Aside from the fact the stadium was full and in, at times worryingly, full voice, this really was a return to the 1980s for the club – but with the added grimness of possible financial oblivion.

In past seasons, through all sorts of crises, the pitch has proved a sanctuary for Rangers. Yesterday, it was a purgatory. They certainly weren’t helped by losing Sasa Papac to a straight red card for a reckless challenge on Liam Kelly three minutes before the interval, or being denied a goal when referee Iain Brines ruled out a Lee McCulloch header for a foul elsewhere on goalkeeper Cammy Bell, but they didn’t help themselves.

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Now 14 points adrift of Celtic and only six in front of third-placed Motherwell, it is an easy get-out for them to claim that the ten-point deduction and the threat of redundancies ate into energy or concentration. But the reality is that with yesterday being the eighth time this season they have failed to win at home, their latest shapeless, directionless display was merely a continuation of the deficiencies at their core.

Manager Ally McCoist lamented that they could not register a victory for their beleaguered support. “It is really, really painful,” he said, acknowledging that up front, without the departed Nikica Jelavic, and injured Kyle Lafferty and Steven Naismith, they lacked “class and power”. He praised their application in the second period, as they sought redress following Dean Shiels’ 12th-minute strike, but conceded it was “huff and puff” more than anything else.

Kilmarnock were so much more measured and menacing, at least in the first half, than their hosts.

As both their manager Kenny Shiels and his goalscoring son said afterwards, they broke quickly and purposefully on an opposing defence that were left flat-footed when Paul Heffernan worked his way down the left channel and crossed for his strike partner. Shiels, from the edge of the area, cut inside Lee Wallace and slid a low drive past Allan McGregor’s right.

The Ayrshire club then had opportunities to add to their advantage, Heffernan and Jamie Fowler passing up good openings, and the frustration felt by a Rangers team simply unable to get going was perhaps reflected by Papac going with his foot up on Kelly to end his afternoon. When referee Brines followed this up by disallowing a McCulloch header into the roof of the net, chants of “who’s the Fenian in the black?” rang round the ground. It continued a tone set earlier on.

Initially, the manner in which a packed Ibrox put throats and feeling into their shows of support for team and club was genuinely heart-warming.

It was surely in a knowing fashion they gave extra decibels to the “spend your last dime” line in their anthem Penny Arcade. That segued into “Super Ally”, “We Love You Rangers” and then “Derry’s Walls”, with its apposite theme of “no surrender”. So far, so acceptable.

It didn’t last, though. Soon, they spat out “Fenian bastards” in their “Super Rangers” ditty, following that up with the “Billy Boys”, with their “up to our knees in Fenian blood” phrase that is proscribed in the SPL’s acceptable conduct charter and landed them in bother with UEFA.

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The fact is that a section of the Rangers support crave their club’s survival so they have an outlet for their bile and are as unpalatable as their current, gone-to-ground owner.

Kilmarnock manager Shiels praised the Ibrox support but admitted his euphoria from the day came in silencing them after the title was won at Rugby Park on the final day of last season. “I’ve been hurting inside since last May, as have the players,” he said, labelling his team’s efforts “fantastic”. “When you watch Rangers coming to Kilmarnock and after seven minutes I see our supporters walking down the steps to leave the ground, I thought I would never be able to pay them back. Ayrshire is a Rangers area – to have them come to our patch and win the championship was fantastic for them but for our supporters it was hard to take. I didn’t think I could ever be able to make amends for that. Now we’ve done the double over them for the first time as an SPL club so I hope that has gone some way to paying them back.”

Rangers could be suffering payback time for their recent travails for a long time to come, meanwhile.