Qualla: Old Firm https://qualla.com/old-firm en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:16 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/old-firm-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Old Firm https://qualla.com/old-firm Old Firm: Introduction https://qualla.com/old-firm/ Photo credit Excalibur1953, Public domain. By the start of 2026, Celtic and Rangers had played each other 449 times in major competition. Rangers led by a single match: 172 wins to 171, with 106 draws. Between them the two Glasgow clubs hold 55 Scottish league titles each at the start of 2026 (Celtic winning a record-breaking 56th in May 2026), 76 Scottish Cups and 50 League Cups, sums that make them, by trophy count, among the most decorated football clubs in the world. Every other Scottish club competes inside their gravitational field, mostly without escaping it. The phrase the Old Firm captures the rivalry and the symbiosis: two clubs that have grown to financial scale at the expense of everyone else by needing each other to exist.

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Image: Excalibur1953 | Public domain

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/old-firm-wp/gcvj-old-firm-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Old Firm: Why Old Firm https://qualla.com/old-firm/ Photo credit Srhansen1985, CC BY-SA 4.0. Nobody is entirely sure where the phrase comes from. One explanation has commentators at one of the very first matches between the clubs describing them as like two old, firm friends. Another, perhaps more plausible, traces it to a satirical cartoon in the Scottish Referee newspa...

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Image: Srhansen1985 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/old-firm-wp/gcvj-old-firm-why-old-firm.mp3 0:06 2 full Old Firm: A Sectarian Inheritance https://qualla.com/old-firm/ Photo credit Srhansen1985, CC BY-SA 4.0. The rivalry has always been more than football. Rangers grew through the late 19th and 20th centuries as a club associated with Protestantism, Unionism and, particularly through the Govan shipyards, the Protestant working class. Celtic was founded in 1887 by Brother Walfrid, a Ma...

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Image: Srhansen1985 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/old-firm-wp/gcvj-old-firm-a-sectarian-inheritance.mp3 0:06 3 full Old Firm: Stadium Records and the Ibrox Disaster https://qualla.com/old-firm/ Photo credit Srhansen1985, CC BY-SA 4.0. The stadium attendance records at both Ibrox and Celtic Park were set at Old Firm matches. Ibrox recorded 118,567 in January 1939, still the largest crowd for any domestic league match anywhere in the United Kingdom. Celtic Park's official figure of 83,500 was set the previous Ja...

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Image: Srhansen1985 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/old-firm-wp/gcvj-old-firm-stadium-records-and-the-ibrox-disaster.mp3 0:06 4 full Old Firm: Dominance and the 2012 Reset https://qualla.com/old-firm/ Photo credit Srhansen1985, CC BY-SA 4.0. Since the 1985-86 season, one half of the Old Firm has won the Scottish league every year. In all but one of the seventeen seasons between 1995-96 and 2011-12 both clubs finished in the top two. Then in 2012, Rangers' holding company entered liquidation and the club had to apply ...

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Image: Srhansen1985 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/old-firm-wp/gcvj-old-firm-dominance-and-the-2012-reset.mp3 0:06 5 full Old Firm: A Disproportionate Shadow https://qualla.com/old-firm/ Photo credit Srhansen1985, CC BY-SA 4.0. The disparity is striking. The Scottish Premiership posts some of the best per-capita attendances in Europe, but roughly two thirds of those crowds are at Ibrox or Celtic Park, with the remaining third divided among 40 or so other clubs. A study by the CIES Football Observatory r...

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Image: Srhansen1985 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/j/old-firm-wp/gcvj-old-firm-a-disproportionate-shadow.mp3 0:06 6 full