Everyone Anyone: Shabir Beg's Story

RANGERS Football Club are exceptionally proud of their diverse fanbase, which is made up of supporters from countless backgrounds not just here in Scotland, but right around the world.

The club’s ground-braking Everyone Anyone campaign exists for so many reasons, with a key one being to highlight the fantastic stories Rangers supporters have of their experiences supporting the Glasgow institution.

Shabir Beg is the Chairman of the Scottish Ahlul Bayt Society, and is a lifelong Rangers supporter having grown up but a long Allan McGregor goal kick from Ibrox.

His journey with the club began back with one of the most famous Rangers teams of all, and continues today with three generations of his family now full members of the Rangers family.

"Being a Rangers fan takes me back to my childhood,” he explained. “I was born in Kinning Park and I went to Lambhill Street Primary School.

"My dad came here in 1947 before Partition - I was born here and one could say I was born into supporting Rangers as all my pals supported Rangers - and that is the main reason I support Rangers.

"The first game I remember is an under-16s schoolboy game at Ibrox, and I actually fell off the wee wall and my nose burst!

"That was a big experience and I remember it well. It was the first time I had been in Ibrox and I was really taken aback by it. Once I had got to my teenage years and going to Bellahouston Academy, whose Headmaster, George Brown, was a Director of Rangers, that I started coming to games with my friends.

"It was a great experience and I watched a phenomenal Rangers team - Ritchie, Shearer, Caldow, Greig, MacKinnon and Baxter, Henderson, Willoughby, Forrest, Brand and Wilson - they are my heroes from that time, and later on of course, we had Colin Stein, Ally McCoist and the current players.

"As long as you don't tell Ally McCoist, my favourite players who I loved and still do, were wee Willie Henderson and wee Davie Wilson, but please don't tell Ally McCoist!"

Shabir outlined the differences in coming to Ibrox at first and today, continuing: "When I was young, I wasn't allowed to come to the games. The communities were just fresh and they didn't understand football and thought it was unsafe for us to come.

"But it wasn't really unsafe - it was good - we used to get a lift over the turnstile!

"Nowadays it is different. Because of my experience as a kid, I would never stop my children or grandchildren from going to any game in any sport or at any team, and my kids and grandkids come to Ibrox.

"We are third generation ardent supporters of the club. It is not the case that this is a 'one-community' club - even in the early days in my time, it wasn't a 'one-community' club, although it did have its difficulties, and there is no point hiding from those problems and issues.

"But as time has gone on and contemporary Scotland has grown, Rangers Football Club has grown along with these ideas and it has supporters from every part of the world."

Away from football, Shabir’s work in interfaith relations in Glasgow saw him awarded with an OBE in The Queen’s New Year honours list in 2019.

It was just reward for his superb work over the years, and on that, he explained: "The Scottish Ahlul Bayt Society is a Muslim charity organisation from the Shia tradition, and a number of years ago, our community decided we would do more outreach work to raise awareness of our community being here as there was a lot of Islamophobia and racism.

"Football came into the scenario with our outreach work, and we got involved with the Scottish FA, the SPFL Trust, and then some of the member clubs including Rangers."

Shabir has been a keen supporter of the club’s Everyone Anyone campaign since its inception, and on that, added: "It is probably one of the best things I have ever seen Rangers do. Being a part of that was quite emotional as it was proving the point that Rangers had grown into a mature sports club that is a Scottish, British, European and global sporting institution."