It has been open season on our football club for a long time and one of the many lies or accusations is that as a club we refused to sign players of a catholic faith. A lie often told is, that up until the signing of Maurice Johnston in 1989, Rangers never signed anyone of Catholic faith
What I will simply do here is answer that question with the facts, did Rangers sign a Catholic before Maurice Johnston’s arrival in 1989?
Those with agendas wish to kick us at every turn and this is one of the favourite lies told
It has long since annoyed me that this has never been formally challenged by the club but such is with these things, once a lie is told often enough it is passed along as fact. Perhaps the clubs view, of giving the lie credence by challenging it, has merit but we will quickly look at our history and dispel it easily
Rangers football club is a club founded by four young lads for the love of our game. Moses McNeil, his brother Peter, Peter Campbell and William McBeath first met in early 1872 to form the greatest club in the land and it was then our journey begun
From our very first game in Fleshers Haugh to becoming the worlds most decorated football club. The only thing these four lads wanted was to play football
So a quick look through our history shows in undeniable fact that our club has signed Catholics and that any myth or lies that our club is built on a ‘sectarian signing policy’ is exactly that, a lie and is very easily dismissed
Those players include –
Pat Lafferty 1886, Tom Dunbar 1891, Jay Tutty 1899, Archie Kyle 1904, Willie Kivlichan 1906, Colin Mainds 1906, Tom Murray 1907, William Brown 1912, Joe Donnachie 1914, John Jackson 1917.
These are players only known openly in history, as religion was not as openly discussed as it is now, as being of the Catholic faith. However even at a glance quite a few players who were openly practicing Catholic and easily dispels the myth peddled by those with an agenda
Moving on there is many more examples of players who starred for our club prior to the arrival of Maurice and these included –
Laurie Blyth 1951, Don Kitchenbrand 1955, Hugh O’Neil 1976, John Spencer 1985 (Just three years before Johnstone’s arrival!)
Of course since Johnston’s signing and the scrutiny of the media, introduction of social media the knowledge of players faiths is more open and discussed. In many ways the only issues and problems caused, seem to be by media and supporters of clubs outwith our own
Players openly practice their faith in a Rangers jersey and it has not an issue inside Ibrox, the only people making it that way have nothing to do with the club. The recent coverage players such as Jon Daly has received only go to prove that
The truth is always available and next time someone spouts rubbish about our club you can tell them how wrong they are
This isn’t an apology for our culture or an attempt to distort history, it simply answers the question
The history of our club is a beautiful and wonderful thing, four young lads founding one of the biggest clubs in the world for the love of football only
They had a dream and now we are living it
Thanks to our friends RangersHistory, @RangersFACTS on twitter, who helped to research this short article
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Four Lads Had A Dream 