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Rangers: Where it all began Saturday, 08 May 2010 13:35 Written by McBoyd

Recently I did a mini 'Founders Tour' by myself, it turned out to be a nice Sunday walk actually. I walked along Great Western Road to the site of our Burnbank pitch from the 1875-76 season, between Dunearn Street and Blythswood Drive (Now Woodside Drive), dominated by Tenements in the modern day.

I walked around the block, down Dunearn Street and behind the buildings, having taken a few photos of the area, I was just about to leave when I noticed an alley way between them.

I walked down it and took some more photographs, it was exactly between the buildings, and I figured without going into the flats themselves, this would be the closest I could get to being 'on' the modern day equivalent of The Rangers Burnbank pitch.

After that I made my way towards St Georges Cross and followed the M8 all the way down to the river Clyde, upon where I headed east and kept walking towards Fleshers Haugh/Glasgow Green, bearing in mind I'm new to Glasgow still, so I really was riding on luck as to whether I actually made it there or not.

On my way to the place where Moses and Co first played a game as The Rangers in 1872 (or 15th July 1873 according to John Allan, I go with 1872 myself) I came across the Clyde Amateur Rowing Clubs boathouse. The team themselves weren't rowing today but Clydesdale were, I photographed the building and headed back into town. I was going to chance walking to the location of our Kinning Park ground, but after a few hours of walking and photographing, I figured I'd save that for next weekend.

Fleshers Haugh pitch where The Rangers spent their first two seasons as a Junior Club. In the early days Peter McNeil would get to the pitch at 12 noon just to get the best spot on the green for the lads, but as the team grew over the first two years it became known as The Rangers pitch. The team would get changed in the shrubbery to the left of the image.

An alleyway between the tenements which now stand where The Rangers Burnbank ground was. This I figured was the best and closest I could get to being 'on the pitch', considering the buildings on the ground now.

Who knows, the fence at the end (2nd picture) could even be the same ones visible in the Mitchell Librarys picture of the Burnbank ground in the 1870's (also in The Gallant Pioneers book) - but thats just me daydreaming.

The Clyde Amateur Rowing Club boathouse, on Glasgow Green. (http://www.clydearc.org.uk/). This boathouse pictured is a listed building even though it was only built in 1904. The founding fathers that were part of Clyde ARC,  Tom Vallance that we know of, wouldn't have known this building.

Nevertheless, as you can see, the famous mystical blue star is on it, (albeit painted oddly) which is the same star presumably that is on the 1877 Scottish Cup Final teams shirt (as seen on the first image with this blog).

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