Football At War

As the clamour to strip titles from the now defunct Rangers Football Club's historical record grows, I'm seeing increasing references on social media to Rangers now, "Going for 62."

 We're seeing this because if seven titles (1998-99, 1999-2000, 2002-03, 2004-05, 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11) are stripped from Rangers' record as they undoubtedly should be, their precious 54 will become 47, leaving them one behind Celtic, even if we are not allotted the seven titles.

The reasoning behind this claim to 61 titles is classically flawed Sevco logic and it goes something like this:

Celtic "claim" league titles won during the First World War, but the league titles won by Rangers during the Second World War are not counted.

Therefore, because Celtic "count" WWI titles in their trophy haul, so too should Rangers be allowed to "count" their titles won during WWII."

Here's why this claim to 61 titles is patently ridiculous.

1) When war broke out in August 1914, the Scottish Football Association immediately suspended the Scottish Cup competition for the duration of hostilities. Therefore, the tournament was not competed for from 1915 to 1918.

However, it was thought that football had a role to play in maintaining civilian morale during wartime, so the (at that time) less prestigious League was allowed to continue.

The Scottish Football League was in full operation during World War One and all clubs competed for it throughout the war years. Celtic were the Scottish Football League Champions in seasons 1914-15, 1915-16 and 1916-17.

Celtic do not, "claim" to have been Champions in those seasons, and Celtic do not "count" those titles in our role of honour unilaterally. Celtic were the winners of the League in those seasons and so the Scottish Football League recognise Celtic as the winners of their competition in those seasons because that is what they were.

2) When war broke out in September 1939, the third round of fixtures of the Scottish Football League for season 1939-40 had just been completed. At that point, ALL official football competition was suspended for the duration of hostilities.

The 1939-40 Scottish Football League season was never completed.

In place of the Scottish Football League during WWII, two leagues were set up - the Southern League and the North-Eastern League.

These two leagues were not official competition but were allowed by the authorities to keep up civilian morale. Due to the disruption caused by the war which saw so many professional footballers called up to the armed forces and so unable to play for their own teams, "Guest Players" were permitted, meaning people like Stanley Matthews was able to turn out for Morton and Matt Busby for Hibernian when they were stationed temporarily in the vicinity.

Rangers won the Southern League every season during the war years and such was their commitment to keeping up a professional operation they were also uniquely able to field an "A" team in the North-Eastern League!

So to address the claim of the Sevco revisionists that Rangers should be allowed to "count" titles won during World War Two in their historical record, there are two reasons why they cannot.

Firstly, they were not official competitions and cannot be retrospectively declared as such. No one at the time was under the illusion that those matches were anything other than glorified friendlies.

Secondly, and possibly more importantly,  they were not even national competitions. Rangers won the Southern League during WWII. They were not Scottish Champions at all during WWII.

So if you see or hear Sevconians claiming Rangers are, "Going for 62," you can treat that with the derision is deserves.

Be very clear to them that the Scottish Football League continued during WWI but not WWII and that during WWII, there was no national Scottish League so they weren't even unofficial Scottish Champions in those years.

So Rangers must (for now) be content with 54, and soon to be 47.