Home sweet home as Rangers finally return to Ibrox | OneFootball

After all the chaos, all the hype, all the lies, all the (right) and (wrong) information, Chairman John Bennett got it right and Rangers return to Ibrox very soon indeed, without October even being round the corner.

Rangers formally return to a Copland Road-less Ibrox on the 21st against Dundee in the cup, and it is viewed that all home matches will be at Ibrox thereafter, bringing an end to the Hampden nonsense which has felt so abysmally wrong from the start.

In other words, Rangers’ win over Ross County was the last fixture Rangers will play at Hampden, aside cup matches which naturally have to be at the national stadium, assuming Rangers get there of course!

But the fears and projections of this chaos spilling beyond this year have mercifully been abated, and while Ibrox won’t be fully accessible just yet, the work done on Copland has now cleared any risk to access elsewhere and the Sandy Jardine, Broomloan and Main Stands will all be restored to business again.

It does mean we won’t have full capacity, just north of 8,000 is the capacity of the Copland (or was before the renovation, it’s said to be approaching 9000 after the upgrades) so the maximum for now is ~42,000.

But it’s home.

It’s Rangers’ home and it’s where the club, team and fans should be, and the lack of Ibrox has not helped the toxic atmosphere at the club the past few months. Knowing there would be no Ibrox has definitely been a hindrance to just about everything, and now it’s a dead cert that Rangers’ first home match v Celtic in January will be in Govan and not Mount Florida. We imagine the Copland work will be completely done by then.

But the fact is Bennett’s projection was correct. True, it’s not the full complete Ibrox, but Rangers wouldn’t be the first club to play at home with renovations going on – it was just getting it safe for fans to at least be in the other three stands that was the issue.

That is now secured and Rangers are home again, with the Scottish Premiership clash with Hibs slated for Ibrox on the 21st.

Thank goodness for that, it’s one less thing to worry