Rangers in Seville

50 years after winning the Cup Winners Cup in Barcelona, I hope the team of 2022 can replicate that feat in Rangers 5th European Final.

Here is some photos of fans from 50 years ago, for most (apart from military service) it was their first time abroad. Good suits and sensible shoes were the norm.








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Geezer on the lampost looks like Benny out of cross roads 🤣
 
Good luck Gers. Do them boxheads!

Mate of mine is over there. I spoke to him last night and commented that it could be a bit tasty off the pitch. "Not really", he replied, "there is 100,000 of us in Seville. No contest really."
 
Millwall have Scottish roots
We don't mention or root for Dundee or Aberdeen, teams that have more relevance than Rangers.

As for our roots, much of it is a myth.


It’s become the one fact included in every write up about Millwall. Millwall FC Founded by Scotsmen working at Morton's Jam Factory on the Isle of Dogs.

Let’s explore this and other myths that have grown up about the founding of Millwall Rovers in 1885.

Did Scotsmen found Millwall Rovers? This seems to be the impression that many people who have read Jim Murray’s book seem to take from it. Actually what Jim wrote was: “A group of workers in a preserve factory – many of them Scottish, some English – were convinced they could form a football team to give other local clubs a tough time.”

A Scottish flavour certainly, reflected in their choice of colours for the kit of Navy Blue and White. The names of some of players in Millwall first season show the cosmopolitan mix that was the Isle of Dogs in those days. Duncan Hean (Capt) George Oliver, J Reekie, Patrick Holohan, Owen Elias, Henry Gunn, Tom Jessup, Joe Potter, Fred Northwood, John Rowland, James Crawford, Harry Butler & George Syme. The Club Secretary was 17-year-old Jasper Sexton, the son of the Landlord of the Islander pub in Tooke Street where Millwall Rovers held their meetings. The First Chairman of the Club was Irish International and Local GP Dr William Murray-Leslie.
What there definitely isn’t any hint of is a group of Scottish Football Missionaries invading the Isle of Dogs and inspiring the locals to found a football club, which certainly is the pattern in some parts of the world. Millwall Rovers was a working mans team, not a works team, founded by young 'Londoners' with the luxury of leisure time on Saturday afternoon, a recent social change in Britain, to indulge in the English mania for football.

One of Millwall’s famous early players, Obed Caygill was a South Londoner, born in 1870 and Millwall’s goalkeeper till 1894 when he broke his leg and gave up football. Asked in an interview in 1893 in English Sports, he said of the founding of Millwall: “A few tinsmiths, engaged on the island were the founders. First called the “Iona” (A distinctly Scottish name!) it grew in importance till it reached it current position. It still continues practically as a working man’s team, only one or two of its members being engaged in other occupations, such as clerkships.”

JT Morton certainly was a Scottish firm, founded in Aberdeen in 1849, supplying food to sailing ships. With the development of the Canning process the market expanded greatly, with Morton’s opening a new plant on The Isle of Dogs in 1870 at the mouth of the West India Docks. Morton's works were on both sides of West Ferry Road, at No's 2 to 4 and 19 to 21. The River frontage was named Sufferance Wharf. The myth also put about is that Millwall was founded by Scotsmen who moved down to London with Mortons. However the 15-year lag tends to rule this out, indeed none of Millwall’s founders were natives of Aberdeen.

It was the growth of London and its job opportunities which drew men and women from all corners of the British Isles and with the Docks and related industries crying out for man power, the Isle of Dogs was a favourite destination for 20 somethings.

The most ridiculous idea about the founding of Millwall is there is such a thing as a Jam Factory! Apart from Jam making being highly seasonal work, the idea that Tin Smiths would be required if the only product was Jam is silly. Jam came in Ceramic pots and was usually made by women workers in the plant. Jam would be a small sideline of the Morton enterprise. Indeed when JT Morton died in 1897 he left a fortune of £250,000 (around £20m in today’s money!) to foreign Missionary work! Morton’s cannery and plant produced a wide range for foods for consumption at home and abroad. The range of products included: preserved fish, meat, soup, vegetables, fruit, sausages, ham, bacon, cheese, confectionery, jams, jellies, marmalades, candid peel, pickles, sauces, potted meats, and potted fish, oatmeal, barley, spices, pepper, salt, curry powders, bottled essence, tea, cocoa, flour, nuts, custard powder and hair oils!

Morton’s employed hundreds of local men and women throughout the year and many more at certain seasons during the year. Morton’s was later swallowed up by the Unilever group and the name stopped being used on products in the 1970’s.

The island also was the home of other famous firms, McDougall’s (Self raising flour) and Duckhams (oil) as well as famous ship building firms such as Yarrow’s and John Scott Russells. Indeed the famous shipyards did reverse journey to Morton’s in moving to the Clyde just after the turn of the century.