Rangers programme regarded ‘one of rarest in existence’ set to fetch four figure sum at auction

An uncommon piece of Rangers memorabilia will be auctioned off in Glasgow next month.

When it goes up for auction next month, a 76-year-old match programme from one of Rangers’ first post-war games played abroad is predicted to fetch a four-figure price.

When details go live online this Friday ahead of its auction at Glasgow’s Trades Hall on April 10, the 16-page publication created for the Ibrox club’s friendly against this week’s Europa League opponents Benfica in Lisbon on February 10, 1948, will be given a guide price of between £800 and £1,200.

“One of the rarest Rangers and indeed Scottish post-Second World War match programmes in existence,” according to auctioneer and expert in sports memorabilia David Convery.

Scottish football memorabilia enthusiasts predict that the programme, printed during a time when paper was scarce worldwide, will attract a large number of Gers collectors and sell for a fair amount more than the reserve price, even with the spine taped.

Early in the 1960s, it was given to Neil Brown, a young collector in Edinburgh, by his Sunday school instructor as part of an arbitrary bundle of programmes.

The now 70-year-old Hearts fan is unaware of how such an uncommon item ended up back in Scotland after a game that took place approximately 2.5 years after the war ended and was attended primarily by Rangers supporters and officials.

“My Sunday school teacher brought in a bag of about fifteen old programmes for me when she discovered I had started collecting programmes when I was eleven years old,” Brown said. Since I was only collecting as a hobby back then, I was unaware that it would have any worth in the future.

“I didn’t realise the importance of this specific programme and how uncommon it might be until the 1980s, when people began to show a genuine interest in such things,” the author writes.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated a variety of sports and music memorabilia, including football programmes, comic books, magazines, vinyl records, and more. It’s gotten a little out of hand! Although having such a unique thing for so long has been wonderful, I’ve been attempting to downsize, so it’s time to let it go and let someone else enjoy it.

Brown got in touch with the auctioneers in January, and ironically, his highly valued programme, which has a cover price of one Escudo, is going up for auction a few weeks after Benfica and Rangers reunited in the Europa League. Ahead of this Thursday’s second leg at Ibrox, the two teams are even at 2-2.

Rangers played their second foreign match after the war, the first being against the Combined Services in Hannover in October 1945. Their game at Lisbon’s Estadio Nacional 76 years ago was the first ever between the clubs.

In front of a crowd estimated at 60,000, Bill Struth’s Gers trounced the Portuguese 3-0, with goals from Willie Thornton and Jimmy Duncanson. In a romantic aside, Hilda was employed as an air hostess on the aircraft to Lisbon for the match, which is how former Rangers player and manager Willie Waddell first met his wife.

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