We are doing the team photo shoot on Thursday 16th August at 6:30pm. The photo shoot is followed by an open training session and at 8:15pm there is an opportunity to meet the manager and players in the Social Club.

This is not the first time Rangers have started a season with an away game at Workington, as this was the opening Northern Premier League game for season 1977/78, but the circumstances were somewhat different.

Workington Joined the Football League in 1951, and 11,000 attended their first home league game with Chesterfield. However, in the 70’s things started to go wrong. Remember in those days the bottom club had to seek re election to the League and therefore get more votes than the aspiring non-league teams. This brought about the “old pals act”, re-electing the bottom club, rather than bringing in non-league teams. At the end of 1973/74 and 1974/75 Workington had finished second from bottom, and in 1975/76 they finished bottom. In 1976/77 they won only four games, and again finished bottom of the league with attendances falling well below the 1,000-mark. This poor run led to the club being voted out of the League to be replaced by Wimbledon.

One interesting historical fact that appears to go unnoticed, is that the Workington manager from January 1954 to November 1955, was Bill Shankley. In a recent documentary about his life, Bill Shankley tried to switch on the lights in his office to find the Workington ground had no electricity.

Anyhow, back to that first fixture in August 1977, Workington’s first non-league game for 26 years, which saw Rangers come away with a comfortable 3-0 win. I am sure many fans will settle for a repeat of that score line to us on Saturday.

A Workington forward who may play on Saturday, has a very famous surname. Workington have recently signed, from Barrow a player called Niall Cowperthwaite. He must therefore be related to the famous Colin Cowperthwaite from Barrow. Colin Cowperthwaite was considered Barrow’s greatest ever player after making his debut in 1977 and over a 16-season career scoring 282 goals in 704 league and cup appearances. He made history when, one day at Kettering, he scored the fastest ever goal in English Football when he struck after just 3.5 seconds. He was recently voted third in the poll of the greatest players in the 50 years of Northern Premier League football.

Rangers were taught a lesson, on numerous levels, as they were overcome by their full-time opponents. Leicester City U23s visited Marston Road as part of the Josh Gordon deal, who has recently extended his deal.

However, fortune could have been on Rangers’ side as early as the fifth minute when Leicester defender Alex Pascanu misplaced a back pass and that had ‘keeper Viktor Johannson back pedalling to clear the ball as he chased back to his goal.
The Foxes started to move the ball around and in the tenth minute, Keirnan Dewsbury-Hall struck a straight forward shot from the edge of the box and keeper Mare Deczki failed to handle the ball as it slipped through his grasp and into the corner for a one-nil lead to the visitors.

Rangers briefly hit back with a decent move, but Cuff sliced his shot wide. Leicester started to get into their flow as Layton Ndukwu fired a free kick into the wall before shooting over, while Ryan Loft was released down the right channel before firing across goal. More good approach play saw a Loft backheel easily saved, before the second goal arrived as Ndukwu approached Rangers’ box unchallenged and struck a shot into the bottom corner.

A further shot from Loft was well saved and the follow up was off target and another good move followed, with Josh Gordon involved, as Ndukwu again fired just off target. Leicester’s good ball play was interspersed with spells of Rangers possession that unluckily had no end results. Louis Briscoe stepped up to fire in a long-range free kick and this proved to be their only on target effort of the first half, as Leicester finished on top with a Loft effort saved just before half time.

The second half started in similar fashion as Josh Knight shot over, before his next effort was saved, soon after. With a couple of half time changes in place, Rangers started to move the ball a little e better and enjoyed a spell of possession.

In the sixty-forth minute another move into the final third saw Loft increase the lead to three-nil as Loft found the top corner with a shot from inside the box. Rangers rallied and a move down the right culminated in a second half trialist cut in and just cleared the bar with his effort.

The dangerous Ndukwu threatened again as he hit the side netting from a 25-yard free kick, then a run and shot across goal. Loft was then denied by a double block from Luke jones and Deczki before the same player broke into the box and was pushed over giving the referee no choice but to point to the spot and Ndukwu made no mistake converting for his second of the night.
Rangers had the last effort of the game as Abadaki was brought down and Green’s free kick was caught under the bar as the whistle was blown for full time.

Manager Steve Burr was pragmatic in his summary of the evening – “It was a really good work out against an excellent side, with all their players pushing for a place in the Premier League. I was disappointed with the first two goals as they knocked the stuffing out of us but we had to acknowledge we were up against a very good outfit that would punish us at every chance. We now look to our final friendly at Market Drayton and I still have another couple of players to talk to about deals.”

You can come along to Marston Road on Thursday 16th August from 6.30pm where there will be a photo shoot, an open training session and a ‘meet the manager and players’ session.

Attendance 581