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years of Rangers in his book. Further weight to the claim it was expedient for Allan to overlook 1872 as the year of formation comes from the fact that the earlier date does not even merit a mention at all. Surely Allan, with a reputation for such fastidious research, would have at least attempted to explain, in the first great history of the club, why the formation of 1872 that had been universally recognised up to that point was actually wrong? The fact that Allan failed to devote even a sentence to it suggests he was happy to alter history for purposes that suited himself and the club at that time, more than likely related to the constraints of time in organising a programme of events for a milestone few clubs had reached.
  Furthermore, that first written review of Rangers, by William ‘True Blue’ Dunlop in 1881, is also adamant the club was formed in 1872 – late March to be precise – by the three lads from the Gareloch and William McBeath as they strolled in Glasgow’s West End Park. Naturally, Dunlop was writing closer to the club’s birth date than anyone, so his evidence carries more authority, although, intriguingly, he claimed the young Rangers were inspired to form their club by watching the exploits of other teams at the time, including Queen’s Park, Vale of Leven and Third Lanark, yet the latter club, who survived until 1967, were not formed until December 1872. Likewise, Vale of Leven did not appear on the scene until the second half of 1872, when Queen’s Park accepted an invite to teach locals in the Dunbartonshire town of Alexandria the rudiments of the new game of association football, luring them away from their previous and long love affair with shinty.
  If Moses McNeil, writing in the 1920s and 1930s under the influence of Allan, was convinced the club was formed in 1873 then Vallance, speaking much earlier in 1887, believed otherwise. At the grand opening of the first Ibrox Park in August of that year, at the Copland Road End of today’s stadium, he toasted the future of the club. In his speech, printed in the press at the time, he stated: ‘Well, about 15 years ago, a few lads who came from Gareloch to Glasgow met and endeavoured to scrape together as much as would buy a football and we went to the Glasgow Green, where we played for a year or two. That, gentlemen, was the foundation of the Rangers Football Club.’10
  Former player Archibald Steel, who played for the club in the 1870s before moving to Bolton, wrote one of the first authoritative histories of Scottish football in 1896 under the pen name of Old International. His book 25 Years Football mines a rich seam of anecdote and first-hand experiences of playing against almost all the major clubs in the early years of the game in Scotland. Steel named 1872 as the year of Rangers’ foundation as he recalled: ‘In the west, particularly, the game quickly took root and any spare ground where football could be followed was seized upon with avidity by the eager aspirants to dribbling proficiency. Two of the earliest I may mention were the Queen’s Park juniors and the Parkgrove, besides which a year later – in 1871 – the Dumbreck and in the 12 months afterwards the Clydesdale, Rangers, Rovers and Third Lanark.’11

    The Wee Blue Book of season 1920–21 acknowledged the year of the club’s formation as 1872. No reference was made in the club publication in either of the following two years, but by 1923–24 the date had been changed to 1873, without explanation.
    If the formation date of the club has caused confusion down the years there is less ambiguity about the origins of the Rangers name. Allan’s early Rangers’ history, while largely sanitised, contains more than just kernels of truth. A flattering profile of Harry McNeil, the great Queen’s Park winger and occasional Ranger, in the Scottish Athletic Journal of 27 October 1885 reads like a Victorian version of Hello magazine and credits him with naming the club.