Former Rangers chief executive Charles Green has revealed he planned to take the club to England in a merger with Stafford Rangers. The Glasgow giants were bought by Green's consortium in 2012 as the club picked themselves up from the floor of Scottish football.
Rangers would drop to the Third Division - which would later be rebranded League Two - as fans travelled across the country from Annan to Elgin to see their club climb the pyramid. During his time at the helm of the club, Green would regularly bang the drum for his club to move south of the border - a move that never surfaced.
Green's vision for Rangers in English non-league
But Green has now lifted the lid on how close the move came in the wake of financial turmoil as he weighed up a bid to buy English non-league side Stafford. Speaking to Richard Keys and Andy Gray on their podcast, he revealed his vision would have seen the Rangers first-team play in the English non-league and attempt to climb the pyramid. That would have then freed up the heavyweights to field a reserve team in the lower reaches of Scottish football.
Asked by Keys why he tried to buy Stafford, Green responded: "Well, because if I buy Stafford Rangers then I change the name a day after I buy it, I delete the name 'Stafford' and then we become Rangers."
Reserve team plan and precedent
"And guess who the goalkeeper is for Rangers, who are now playing in the Conference league at that time? We have now got a team who are obviously the Rangers first-team, and in Scotland we have the reserves playing in the Scottish league."
"So, the Rangers reserves at the time would win the Third Division - right? But the same year, the Rangers first-team are playing, on loan or whatever, at what was previously Stafford."
"We get people saying 'the teams can't play', but we have already got Welsh teams playing in England, we have got English teams playing in Scotland - so all of a sudden because Charles Green wants to do it it's not allowed."
Regrets and potential impact
The former supremo was then pushed on if he regrets not following through with his masterplan to take the Glasgow giants south. He added: "There is a lot of regrets I have. That's life. You know, at the time so many things were being thrown at us."
Keys then quizzed Green on if he thinks Rangers would be playing in the English pyramid now, if he had pulled the trigger on the Stafford purchase. He responded - noting that rivals Celtic could also be taken south: "Of course they would. We have now got a team [had his plan and purchase gone through] that has gone through the Conference and gone to the third division of UK [English] football."
"We have now got a precedent. We have got Bury playing in this league, and Wrexham playing in this league. I have said it all along if it was sensible you would have Rangers and Celtic playing in the Premier League tomorrow."
