When Rivalries Turn Petty: How Rangers Sparked the Away Fan War

Both clubs share blame, but only one fanbase is pretending to forget how this sorry saga began.

There was a time when the roar of thousands of Celtic fans filled the Broomloan Stand at Ibrox and a similar number of Rangers supporters spilled across the corner of the Lisbon Lions end at Parkhead. A time when, even amid hostility, the rivalry carried a sporting spectacle unmatched anywhere else in Britain. That period has been reduced to a memory, replaced by a sterile and hypocritical arrangement few outside the decision-makers and a militant band of bitter Rangers fans on social media wanted in the first place.

The roots of the away fan lockouts lie in pettiness disguised as “safety.” When Rangers first cut Celtic’s allocation at Ibrox from 7,000 to barely 800 seats in 2018, it had nothing to do with stewarding pressures or risk assessments. It was about control, optics, and insecurity - an attempt by Rangers’ hierarchy to reclaim the image of their home ground as a “sea of blue”, fed up of watching thousands of Celtic fans celebrating at their home ground every derby game. Celtic responded in kind, restricting Rangers fans to the same token corner. Since then, both clubs played tit-for-tat, punishing their own supporters while hollowing out the derby experience.

In 2021 and 2022, the situation deteriorated further - Rangers withdrew opposition allocations completely, citing “safety concerns” that were never explained all the while the inept and limp SPFL sat back doing nothing to prevent their show piece fixture being diluted. For several years, the away end was non-existent during the biggest fixture in Scottish football. It was an unprecedented low for a rivalry that once prided itself on its fierce yet world famous atmosphere. Only recently did the 800-cap arrangement return, a meagre gesture that satisfied no one.

Now, as the Scottish Cup quarter final approaches, Rangers fans have found their outrage again - this time because Celtic, under cup competition rules, demanded the full Broomloan Stand of around 7500 capacity - as Rangers’ hand was forced by Scottish Cup rules despite their protestations. The irony is astonishing. Many of the same voices who once gloated about “locking out the mhanks” are now demanding a return to “proper” Old Firm atmospheres, lamenting the silence that they themselves engineered.

This hypocrisy exposes a deeper malaise in Scottish football, one where emotion outweighs principle, and the collective punishment of fans becomes acceptable collateral. Rangers’ decision to cut Celtic’s allocation was never about respect or safety; it was about asserting dominance after years of being second best in their own ground. Celtic’s reciprocal action was merely a reflection of Rangers’ initial spitting the dummy act. Yet the backlash today, with Rangers supporters demanding parity only when it suits them, reflects how warped the conversation has become.

Football thrives on rivalry. The atmosphere of the Glasgow derby was built on the knowledge that nearly 10,000 fans were roaring their team on in the enemy’s backyard. That atmosphere - raw, unnerving, unforgettable - gave Scottish football a global audience they can ill-afford to lose. What we have now is a sanitised parody version initially sterilised by the powers-that-be at Rangers looking to placate a militant band of their own disgruntled bitter losers of a fan base.

Instead of facing up to the facts, Rangers’ support continues to posture as victims of Celtic’s supposed “greed” for wanting up to 20% at Ibrox while not getting the reciprocal allocation at Celtic Park in the league - despite it being a right enshrined in the Scottish Cup’s own competition rules differing from SPFL rules. You can’t spend years celebrating exclusion, then wail about fairness when those same gates swing against you.

The excuses are tired, the hypocrisy palpable. Eight hundred fans in a corner isn’t an atmosphere - it’s an embarrassment to those who spat the dummy and pulled the plug on away fans all because they had enough of watching them celebrate while trying to placate a fan base with survivors guilt after watching their old club die and doing nothing about it - while pointing the finger at everyone else but themselves.