Founders Trail Research. "The Light Blues"
Over the last few weeks my colleague Gordon at the Founders Trail has been digging into the story behind our ‘’ Light Blues’’ tag and what he’s discovered is remarkable.
In the spring of 1877 a young Rangers team were to incredibly reach their first Scottish Final against the mighty Vale of Leven, it was literally men against boys.
This attracted an astonishing crowd of over 8,000 to Hamilton Crescent in Partick with many more spectators outside on top of buildings and trees straining just to get a look at the Rangers.
The first game ended 1-1, the replay a month later was abandoned amid controversial circumstances.
What has recently come to light for us leads us to this conclusion.
The series of games saw the young Rangers, mainly because of their diminutive frame and the fact that they’d managed to master the art of moving the ball very quickly between them, being referred to as ‘’The Light and Speedy’’, this through time changed to ‘’The Light Blues’’ and that’s where the tag came from.
We have never worn a light blue jersey, our colours have always been royal blue.
The team colours can be seen in the clubs bye-laws from 1875 below.
Here are a selection of the articles recently discovered.
Sheffield Daily Telegraph - Monday 12 November 1877
Athletic News - Wednesday 28 September 1881
Greenock Advertiser - Friday 14 March 1884