When you hear the noise of the Ranger's Girls, we'll be coming down the road

Well the big day finally arrived.  By 4:30 on October 9th, the departure gate was loaded with 14 very excited girls....

Coach McHeise explains the intricacies of international data plans, and the health benefits of not licking public hand rails.

Mini McGrondin gets her angry face on. 

Coach McIan is kind enough to share his selfie with a few coach class passengers.

All she needed was an opening, and the McGrondin had a new, upgraded seat.

The journey from Calgary to Glasgow was pretty smooth for most of the travellers, but for a few less fortunate, the journey took on an additional 10:30 hrs of travel time, due to a series of unfortunate events.  But, the most important thing is that everyone arrived safe and in great spirits.

Saturday October 11, 2015

This morning we made our way to Toryglen Regional Football Centre for our first training session.  Toryglen is a $30M complex that opened its doors in 2009.  

If you are going to make a statement, make sure you have a badass team bus.

It's amazing how an accent makes the girls focus 75% better than they do at our training sessions.

Oh what we would do to have a facility like this in Calgary....

The session ended with a piggy back race.

Our first match was schedule for a 6:30 kickoff, at Murray Park.  As excited as we were for the game, we became obsessed with the idea of delaying our kickoff, so we could attend at least the first have of the 2016 Euro Qualifier between Scotland and Georgia.

We sent Coach McHeise on a mission to snag 35 match tickets.  Once we received positive new from him, we loaded the team bus, and headed to Ibrox.  The only problem... there were 45,000 people there, and we had no way of contacting Kevin.  As we were driving towards the stadium, someone commented, "how are we going to find Kevin?"  At that very moment, we spotted two massive Scotland flags waving on the side of the road....

Just as we were about to take a team photo outside of Ibrox, these fine young fellows made their entrance...

15 fine young ladies proudly displaying their club and country colours, and the national flag of our hosts.

Dead center field in the main stand at Ibrox.  Scotland went on to win 1-0.  The girls loved the singing, and have adopted the song "We'll be coming" as their new team anthem!

Friendly Match 1 - Rangers Girls U15 Team 
Our first match was against  a very strong Rangers FC U15 girls team.  Although they out classed us for much of the match, our work ethic and desire to compete never left our girls.  We found out after the match, that this team is one of, if not the best team in their age group in all of Scotland.

With the temperatures dipping, the fog started to roll in.

Post match, the two teams stretched together, and became fast friends, due largely to the exceptional hospitality of Rangers  FC #4, Maxine.  Within minutes, Instagram user names were chaining hands.

A really special moment shared by the players.

Sunday October 12, 2014

Today started with a morning trip to Loch Lomond National Park.  Even though most of the scenery was covered by low lying clouds, the girls were entertained by a photogenic swan, a cool church side cemetery, and bacon rolls.

Tombstones in the cemetery date back as far as 1754 (and we think even older, as it as hard to read some of the facades)

The street gypsy the photobombed this pic, looks remarkably like Isabella.

A pre lunch team jump in Glasgow city centre.

Murray Park Training Facility

During the evening, prior to our training session, we had a tour of the Rangers $28 Million training facility, Murray Park.  It is here that Rangers train selected players from U8-to the Glasgow Rangers first team.  The state of the art facility includes an indoor pitch, gymnasium, video analysis room, a team cafeteria and several outdoor pitches (one artificial.

Looking down from just outside the door to Rangers team Manager, Ally McCoist's office.

Art direction by Kevin "Valentino" McHeise

Coach John describes a drill to the girls.

Sai gets in the zone for the next drill.

The great fog bowl of 2014.

If you didn't know any better, you would think that these two pictures were party of their "Fight Club" training.  Well, I have always said that I would like the girls to be tougher on the pitch.....

A nice piece on the Rangers website.