Today we remember the birthdays of two very important men in the history of Rangers, founding father Moses McNeil and Ibrox legend Ian Durrant.
On this day in 1855, Moses McNeil was born in Rhu on the Gare Loch. Just seventeen years later Moses was talking with his brother Peter and friends William McBeath and Peter Campbell about the possibility of starting a football team and naming it after an English rugby team he'd seen in a book, called Rangers.
Moses was the first Rangers player to represent Scotland and he played for the club he helped to found for ten years, playing in the 1877 and 1879 Scottish Cup Finals and being a member of the first Rangers team to win a trophy, the Glasgow Merchants Charity Cup in 1879.
Supporters website 'The Gallant Pioneers' has undertaken much great work to build a better profile of the men who founded Rangers, here's a short excerpt of how they describe Moses as an exceptional athlete (you can read the full profile on their website here)
"Moses was a natural athlete. Powerful and stockily built, he was known for his pace but he had stamina, too. In the Ibrox trophy room today is the cup won by Moses for the half-mile at the Garelochead Athletic Sports on 1 January, 1876. Earlier newspaper reports tell of his victories in age-group races, against boys older than he. Moses also enjoyed being on the water, being a keen oarsman."
Rangers first team coach Ian Durrant is also celebrating a birthday - turning 46 today. Durrant made 347 appearances for Rangers scoring 45 goals from midfield between 1984 and 1998. After finishing his career at Kilmarnock, Durrant came back to Ibrox in 2005 to firstly run the under-19 side then the Reserve team.
Durrant was a prodigious talent who enjoyed a tremendous Rangers career but it could have been so much better had it not been for Neil Simpson's horrendous challenge in 1988 which put him out of the game for nearly three years. Elegant, skillful and a man of vision on the football field. You can read Durrant's hall of fame profile here and his staff profile here.
