The Rangers Football Club in Scotland is facing a massive legal and financial challenge. The club appears to be headed for liquidation and the old company will become a new one. Exactly what this means for the future of one half of the ‘Old Firm’ is not quite apparent.
The newco will most likely keep the Rangers name intact in some form, be it Glasgow Rangers or something similar. The actual name of the current club in liquidation is Rangers F.C. What happens to the tradition and history of the club when this happens? The history of the oldco ends at this point. The newco begins it’s life and it’s charge for honors and tradition.
In 2002 another Scottish club, Airdrieonians, went out of business to become Airdrie United. This was a new club, a new business. The history of Airdrieonians ended and the history of Aidrie United began. Of course traditionalists would probably say the history of both is one in the same. You can be assured Rangers fans will.
In 2004 the old Wimbledon F.C. became the new Milton Keynes Dons after their 2002 relocation . This was a relocation, renaming and rebranding of the same business organization. The history of both is the same history though the fans would argue, the tradition certainly isn’t.
Fans at the former Wimbledon F.C.’s home town created a new club entirely, called A.F.C. Wimbledon. While the former club rebranded with a new name which included the old nickname ‘Dons’ it changed colours and relocated. The new club A.F.C. Wimbledon then began it’s new history and tradition, while holding onto the old history and tradition of Wimbledon F.C. which could reasonably be considered as theirs.
What A.F.C. Wimbledon achieved was unbelievable. Within 9 years the fans of the old club had gone from the depths of despair to forming a new club and taking it from the basement of English league football to the Football League by 2011. That’s some tradition to look back on.
What has this to do with Cardiff City? As you can see the tradition of a football club can be whatever you want it to be. It can be whatever it’s supporters want it to be. Colours can change, nicknames too. Clubs can move, clubs can go out of business and return renamed, anew. But the fans will decide what the tradition of the club will be and it’s history old or new.
For Rangers F.C. there is now a heavy price to pay for trying to live up to their traditions. They will probably emerge in blue, still nicknamed The ‘Gers and playing at Ibrox but how long will it take them to emerge from under the shadow of city rivals Celtic? What’s in a name? For Airdrieonians they became Airdrie United. For Wimbledon fans there was even more drama, a split.
Portsmouth F.C. are facing their own survival issues right now. Birmingham City may have problems ahead, along with Blackburn Rovers (like Rangers, all play in blue, maybe it is an unlucky colour after all?).
For Cardiff City, what price tradition? It looks like the answer is 100 million pounds. But as I have said before, if the Malaysian’s plans fail Cardiff City may well be following the tradition of one of the models above. At that point it will be easy to return to blue, Bluebirds and old traditions as we emerge from liquidation. Hopefully though, we will be looking at a new Premier League tradition of red shirts, not red balance sheets or red faces. Who knows? We can only hope.
Two things we can be sure of. One is that traditionalists will do whatever it suits them to do, as can be seen in the examples of blue shirted Wimbledon et al and owners have the power and right to do whatever it is they want to do – after all it is their money and their price to pay.