RSEA fundraising set to break £300k mark.

Last updated : 28 September 2011 By Russell Nash
When The Rangers took to the field against Inter Milan, the team were met with the sight of the most wonderful card display Ibrox had ever seen; featuring the Union Flag in the Govan Stand, flanked by a St Andrew's saltire in both the Broomloan and Copland Rd stands. It was a glorious vision which epitomised our Club and support: Scottish, British and Proud.

Remarkably, in the weeks that followed, two well known media miscreants described this fantastic show of patriotism by the Gers Support as, "a sight which would not have looked out of place at Nuremberg." Incredibly, our two age-old battle standards, under which our fathers and sons had fought Fascism in its many guises throughout the centuries, had just been compared to the Swastika and the Eagle.

As a result of these misplaced and poisonous comments, two Rangers fans decided to make an effort to raise money for and awareness of the Erskine Home amongst the Rangers Support.

The first (and at that time only) objective was to raise enough money to treat a dozen or so residents to lunch followed by a match day experience at Ibrox.

Rangers Legend and former Blackwatch soldier Harold Davis was invited to become our figure-head and Patron, a role which he accepted without hesitation - so in the summer of 2007 the Rangers Supporters Erskine Appeal was born.

Over the following four years the Rangers support at large (and with some help from the Follow Follow website and others) has embraced this venture with some vigour. Numerous sponsored events have taken place; Walks, runs, cycles, swims and abseils, followed by football matches, quizzes, golf days and dinners.

Merchandise has been produced and sold: badges, hats, scarves, polos, tee-shirts, calendars, mugs, wristbands have all been well received.

Recording artist Sammy King - Legend - allowed his famous 'Penny Arcade' to be made available as a download and a hard copy CD, via Gallus music, with all proceeds going to the home.

Countless items have been auctioned and raffled, the most notable being Harold Davis' Rangers blazer from the Rangers tour of Russia which fetched a sizable amount of cash.

I am delighted to announce that this year our running total is set to smash through the £300,000 barrier.

I would like to thank everyone who has helped make this outstanding achievement possible.

From Harold Davis who answered the call, to my wee 89 year old Granny who refused to take a freebie badge from me and insisted on paying her £2, and to every single person in between. To start naming names would only lead to me offending by unintentionally missing someone out.

So to all my Sincere Thanks

God Bless the Rangers
Our Queen and her Armed Forces

Best Regards

R Nash


www.rsea.co.uk
www.justgiving.com/rsea2011