This page is dedicated to one of the greatest stadiums in the world, Ibrox stadium. For information on the training facilities, click here.

Ibrox Stadium, home of Rangers Football Club, is the last word in state-of-the-art sports venues and the Club is justly proud of owning one of the leading grounds in the world. In fact, it is one of only 12 in Europe accorded five-star status by UEFA. But unlike many other football clubs, Rangers have preserved all that is valuable of the old and combined it with the best of the new.

Venture into the stadium and there, among the magnificent all-seater stands, you will find plush executive suites, conference rooms, jumbotron television screens and a superb restaurant open to the public. But step back outside along Edmiston Drive and the sweep of the imposing red brick building presents the visitor with the grandeur of a bygone age. Enter the front door and you are in a world where the air is heady with tradition. This is the home of legends, where great names of the past live on, up the marble staircase, in the famous Trophy Room and along the panelled walls.

But this is no musty museum. The business of a modern football club is all around. At the top of that marble staircase is the Manager’s Office where Dick Advocaat works, just like his predecessors. On match days, the same buzz of excitement echoes round the corridors - just as it did in the days of such giants of the game as Meiklejohn, Morton and McPhail. The Trophy Room, opened in 1959, contains all the Club’s Scottish League Championship pennants, presided over by a portrait of that great manager Bill Struth. The display cabinets feature vast quantities of silverware, porcelain, crystal and medals. There’s even a racing cycle presented to Rangers by the French club Saint-Etienne when the teams met in the European Cup in 1975. In the dressing room, the shirts bear the names of star players from all over the world, successors to yesterday's home-bred heroes.

It is a far cry from those windy public pitches on Flescher's Haugh at Glasgow Green where Rangers played their first matches in 1872. It was three years before Rangers had their first home, a field at Burnbank. They played their first match there on September 11 1875, gaining a 1-1 draw against Vale of Leven who, like Rangers, were to become founder members of the Scottish League. The Club's stay at Burnbank was brief. Within a year they had moved to Clydesdale's ground at Kinning Park and Rangers' opening fixture was again against Vale of Leven on September 2 1876, but this time they recorded a 2-1 victory. The ground capacity was about 2,000, but through improvements it was increased to 7,000. The Club, however, did not own the ground and after several hints by the landlords that they wished to develop it, Rangers played their last match at Kinning Park on February 19 1887, beating Old Westminsters 5-1 in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup. Rangers'remaining home fixtures that season took place at Cathkin Park, courtesy of the now extinct Third Lanark, before the Club moved to Govan and the original Ibrox Stadium.

That Ibrox Stadium was located where Edmiston House now stands. It had a large playing area, surrounded by a running track, and a pavilion with dressing rooms, baths and a committee room. A grandstand 300 ft long was erected with room for 1,200 people and a white wooden rail cordoned off the playing area from the spectators. The opening match, on August 20 1887, was set to be a grand affair. The opposition were Preston North End, then England's premier team who went on to win the first Football League Championship when it was inaugurated 12 months later. The capacity of the ground was around 15,000, however approximately 18,000 people turned up for the game. Spectators spilled from the cinder terraces on to the pitch and the match was abandoned after 70 minutes with Preston leading 8-1.

It was at this stadium that Rangers shared the initial Scottish League Championship with Dumbarton in 1890-91 and where they went on to win it outright for the first time in 1898-99 with the only 100 per cent League record ever achieved in world football. That was also the season that Rangers became a limited liability company with the aim of raising funds for a bigger and better ground. The move, of course, wasn't far. Just 100 yards across the road to the site of the present Ibrox Stadium.

Rangers' first match at the new stadium was a 3-1 victory over Hearts in the Inter-City League on December 30 1899. Within a few months a grandstand seating 4,500 was opened and the Club could boast two covered enclosures. The second was opposite the grandstand, where the present Govan Stand is now located, and became known as the Bovril Stand because of the large advertisement displayed on its roof. A sum of £20,000 had been spent on the stadium - a substantial amount for those days - and the capacity had reached 75,000. Behind the goals at each end were scaffolding terraces, consisting of wooden planks on an iron frame. The terraces that stood on the site of the present Broomloan Road Stand stretched up 150ft.

Because of its size, the ground was awarded the Scotland v England international match in 1902. But at this game, the first Ibrox disaster occurred when a section of the wooden terracing collapsed and 26 people were killed. One consequence of the disaster was the decision that solid earth banking would provide a safer basis for terracing. The wooden scaffolds were removed and the ground capacity was cut to 25,000. Constuction engineer Archibald Leitch, who had worked on Celtic Park, Hampden Park and, in England, on Portsmouth's Fratton Park and Everton's Goodison Park, was called in to advise Rangers. By 1910, Ibrox Stadium had taken on the shape of a vast bowl and had expanded to accommodate 63,000 fans.

After the First World War, the capacity was again improved to take crowds in excess of 80,000 and by the 1920s the Club was on the way to building what was undoubtedly one of the finest stadiums in Britain. The centrepiece was Leitch's magnificent grandstand which included the Club's offices,the marble staircase, new dressing rooms and a kit room. The grandstand, set off by a facade which is now a listed building, was opened for the New Year match against Celtic on January 1 1929. Rangers celebrated the opulence of their new surroundings by trouncing Celtic 3-0. The grandstand had seats for 10,500 and many thousands more could be accommodated standing in its enclosures. Bill Struth was in residency in the new Manager's Office, just along the wood-panelled corridor from the boardroom and the Blue Room. In one corner of the Blue Room there still stands a piano which Struth would play to relax after matches.

These were heady days. Rangers were in the middle of a run of five Championship title wins in a row and crowds were enormous. Later, the Old Firm game of January 2 1939 set what is still the British record attendance for a League game when 118,567 watched Rangers beat Celtic 2-1 at Ibrox Stadium. There were no major structural changes to the stadium for the next 30 years, although legislation limited crowds to around 80,000. But it was another Old Firm game, the fateful one on January 2 1971 when 66 people died in the second Ibrox disaster, that was the catalyst for Rangers' ground to become all-seater. Manager Willie Waddell had the vision. He believed that steep terracing and exits, such as the one where the disaster happened on Staircase 13, had to go. He visited the Dortmund ground in Germany and began to lay the foundations for the changes which culminated in today's Ibrox Stadium.

In 1973, 10,000 bench seats were fitted on the north terracing as a temporary measure, becoming known as the Centenary Stand. By 1978 the east terracing was being ripped up and a year later the Copland Road Stand was in its place. By 1981 the Centenary Stand had been demolished and replaced with the Govan Stand with 10,300 seats. The sum of £10 million was spent in the first decade after the disaster. The stadium was changing from its familiar oval shape into the current rectangular structure. The pace of change quickened when David Murray, the present chairman, took over the Club. In his first 10 years, £52 million was spent redeveloping the stadium. A top deck was added to the Main Stand in 1991 and the last standing areas were replaced by seats. The stadium is now completely enclosed, the ground's capacity is 50,500 and further refurbishments are planned. In the past few years, Ibrox has seen two massive screens and seating areas in the corners.

Ticketing is computerised and closed circuit television surveys the stadium to monitor spectators' safety. Rangers' matchday hospitality can cater for 1,200 people in executive boxes and suites around the stadium. The suites bear the names of legendary Rangers' players - Thornton, Waddell, McPhail, Cooper, Meiklejohn, Symon, Morton and Woodburn. The latest is the Ibrox Suite which is situated overlooking the ground between the Govan and Copland Road Stands.The Argyle House Restaurant, with views across the pitch, is open to the public on non-matchdays. The two jumbotron television screens at the northern corners of the ground provide not only pre-match entertainment, but also live pictures during games and beamback coverage of away fixtures. All these features add up to an enviable package of first-class facilities which Rangers offer. The Club Superstore, which supplies supporters with a comprehensive range of official merchandise, now stands close to the corner where Staircase 13 was once situated.




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