All the stats you could possibly want about Rangers
and their opponents over the years.
Thanks to Rangers Media & Kayloom for their kind permission to reproduce this section.
The Scottish Premier League (SPL) is the top league in Scotland, and consists of a single division of 12 teams. It has existed since 1998 (before then the top league was the Premier Division of the Scottish Football League).
The Scottish Cup is the world's second oldest national cup competition, first contested in 1873 and only being predated by the English FA Cup. It is a pure knockout tournament with single matches, with replays being held if the first match is a tie. All 12 Scottish Premier League clubs automatically enter the tournament, as do all Scottish Football League clubs. A number of non-league clubs participate by virtue of having qualified through one of two regionalised qualifying cups, or since 2007-08 by having won the Scottish Junior Cup or one of the three regionalised Junior leagues. The final is usually played at Hampden Park.
The Scottish League Cup is open to members of the SPL and SFL, and has been contested since 1947. The Cup has its origins in a regional cup competition called the Southern League Cup which was introduced in 1940 when wartime restrictions led to a suspension of the Scottish FA Cup. This tournament was largely regional and did not involve all of the teams who comprised the Scottish Football League prior to the outbreak of war.
Scottish League football now consists of four tiers with a total of 42 clubs - the Premier League with 12 clubs and Divisions One, Two and Three each with 10 clubs. Each team plays the other sides in their division four times during the season, twice at home & twice away.
Full stats of every League Club in the Top Four Flights of Scottish Football for 2009-10. Includes links to every club's official web site & Wikipedia.
Scotland maintains its own national side that competes in all major professional football tournaments, with the exception of Olympic Football as Scotland is not a member of the International Olympic Committee. The majority of Scotland's home matches are held at the national stadium, Hampden Park, with friendlies sometimes hosted at club stadiums. Scotland have qualified for the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Football Championship several times, but have famously never progressed beyond the first stage of any tournament.
Scotland's football supporters are collectively known as the Tartan Army. Their traditional rivals are England, who they played annually from 1872 until 1989, but there have only been four senior level fixtures since then. The last competitive match between the sides was the second leg of a Euro 2000 qualifying play-off at Wembley in 1999, which Scotland won 1–0, although England won the tie 2–1 on aggregate.
The appointment of German Bertie Vogts in 2002 did little to help the Scottish cause and they dropped to a record low in FIFAs World ratings of 88th. Vogts was succeeded by Walter Smith and Alex McLeish before George Burley was appointed in 2008 and Scotland's fortunes took a turn for the better with the team returning to FIFAs top 20.
Burley's reign came to an end in November 2009 after Scotland failed to make the 2010 World Cup play-offs and suffered a 3-0 defeat to Wales in a friendly match. Craig Levein was appointed manager and his Scotland career got off to a winning start with a 3-0 victory over the Czech Republic at Hampden Park - Scotland's first friendly win there since 1996.
Kenny Dalglish holds the record for the number of full international Scottish caps won at 102. Dalglish also shares the Scottish goalscoring record at 30 goals with Denis Law.