FORMED just over two years ago, Ibrox Pride have overcome many difficulties in the past year as they continue to champion diversity on and off the pitch.
As the club’s recognised supporters group for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT+) community, Ibrox Pride have had to find new ways of connecting with people having been unable to meet for over a year.
Chairperson Carole Anderson spoke to rangers.co.uk this week to discuss what the last year has looked like for the supporters group and how they have - like many - taken to virtual events.
She explained: “It has been very difficult for Ibrox Pride because the whole point of a fans group is being able to get together and have events or get together to watch games.
“We can't meet safely and everything is behind closed doors so what we have done is to try and be active on social media so we have continued to share information with our followers.
“We have also collaborated with other virtual Pride events that were organised by Pride in Football.
“We have done a lot of virtual stuff where we can and in terms of our presence we have continued to talk about issues on social media, whether that has been issues around the taking the knee campaign or looking at diversity and inclusion in football.
“We are keen to shine a light on players who have taken a stand and have shown why it is really important to champion diversity on and off the pitch and we are keen to see how we can reflect that in our work.”
Over the past two years, Carole has been pleased with the support from fans as the group’s online interactions have grown.
She continued: “It takes a long time to get a bit of traction but we have built up people who interact with us regularly online, we get emails from people who want to be more active and there's a lot more positive interaction on our social media.
“We get good comments back from fans who are obviously not all LGBT but they are supportive of the work and supportive of Ibrox Pride and that is something that really has developed over the last couple of years.
“I think that is also part of the embedding of the Everyone Anyone messaging, people actually start to see this as something the club takes seriously.
“If you watch RangersTV you have got first-team players who are talking in the soundbites saying ‘no place for racism’, ‘no place for homophobia’ etc.
“It is normalising the fact that this is what Rangers is about and that is really important and it is something the club have made a long term commitment to.
“It is genuinely the kind of campaign that everybody can get behind. It is not something that is niche and it is not difficult to understand that Rangers is for everybody.”
Looking forward, Carole hopes Ibrox Pride can begin to arrange more events come the summer and beyond.
She said: “For our forward plan the main thing is to be able to set up some simple events, actually be able to get people together and grow our presence a bit more.
“Realistically that will be into summer, we need to just plan ahead. Everyone really wants to be able to celebrate trophy day but it is looming quickly and we still have a long way to go before it is safe to gather so all these things will probably need to be a bit virtual or on ice.”
For more information or to get in contact with Ibrox Pride, follow @IbroxPride on Twitter, search Ibrox Pride on Facebook or email [email protected]