MICHAEL BEALE was pleased to send the Rangers fans home happy from Ibrox as his side booked their place in the Scottish Cup semi-finals on Sunday.
But there were further tensions off the park as the Union Bears accused Rangers of attempting to silence their concerns as they boycotted the win over Raith Rovers.
Connor Goldson and Scott Arfield were on target either side of a Ryan Nolan own goal to secure a straightforward victory and place in the draw for the last four of the competition.
The absence of the Union Bears was noticeable throughout the afternoon and there was little atmosphere around the ground as Rangers produced a sluggish showing just days after their impressive win away to Hibernian.
The group opted not to take their seats as their section of Ibrox remained unoccupied for the duration of the fixture and a club spokesman said: “Rangers refused to allow an offensive banner relating to the police service to be displayed at today’s match.
“The Union Bears elected to absent themselves from the stadium because the Club would not permit the offensive anti-police banner display.”
The fan group have been vocal critics of the board in recent times and insisted it was ‘time for change’ during the Premiership win over Kilmarnock as they accused the hierarchy of taking their eye off the ball following the 55th title win two seasons ago.
READ MORE: Rangers 3 Raith 0: Michael Beale's side cruise into Scottish Cup semis
The lack of colour and noise contributed to a low-key afternoon all round but boss Beale was only focused on the football as his side took care of business and overcame their Championship visitors with ease.
Beale said: “I don’t really know what’s going on there, I just felt there was a level of expectation from the crowd in the stadium today, it was a slow game and everyone was expecting us to be free-flowing like we were in midweek.
“But styles make games and they stayed in and made it difficult at times. They had ten players around their 18-yard box and they were blocking little things.
“That’s fine, we had to find a way to get through that. Kilmarnock in the second-half last week went really defensive as well and that’s fine but it made for a sticky game.
“The really top teams who pay millions for their players find those moments difficult - we’ll go away and work on it. In terms of the fans, in a quarter-final they expect a lot.
READ MORE: Ian Murray details Raith Rovers emotions after losing to Rangers
“We played well in midweek and I know they were happy with that and I’m sure they’ll be happy they’re going back to Hampden.”
The issue with the Union Bears seems set to rumble on in the coming days and the debate will no doubt split sections of the Ibrox support once again.
Beale was irked with the ‘standards’ banner that was unfurled at Livingston last month and the group had their say shortly after the full-time whistle as they hit back at the version of events put forward by the club.
A statement from the Union Bears read: "Union Bears had planned to display various legitimate message banners at today’s match highlighting different issues surrounding our club and support.
“Prior to the match Police Scotland and Rangers FC jointly removed these materials without our knowledge and blocked access to regular matchday materials.
“From Rangers FC this is a clear breakdown of trust and an attempt to silence our groups’ valid concerns. As a consequence, we made the difficult decision to remove active support and not enter the ground as a group.
“This attempt to suppress the feelings amongst the Rangers support will not be successful and only stands to confirm the concerns that the fans hold. Union Bears. No surrender.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel