By Scott Greer

Ibrox is a stadium known all across Britain and the world for its passion and its loud, deafening atmospheres.

One of the main reasons for Rangers to reach the UEFA Europa League final in 2022 was down to the noise and motivation the Ibrox crowd gave its players at that time.

But over the last few years the crowd has turned. Not only on who may operate the touchline, the players on the pitch or the members in the boardroom. Everyone associated with Rangers in the last few seasons has got it tight from Rangers fans. From booing and protests being a regular occurrence nowadays in Govan.

Last night was no different as the blue side of Glasgow started their European campaign against Belgian side KRC Genk. The game was uneventful for large parts with a red card before half time playing a part in how the game shaped from there on out.

The 0-1 loss meant that the Englishman’s team had went 14 games and only picking up four wins to start the season, with five games being losses and five being draws. As the full time whistle went that was met with a chorus of boos and the fans singing “Martin get to f**k”. It was clear what the crowd were thinking.

I caught up with season ticket holder Jamie, who was at the game last night as I asked if the boos and negative reactions are there due to Martin or something else: “I think Martin is a big factor of it, even the win on Saturday (against Hibs) was just kicking the can down the road, you could see it in the stadium last night with a reported 38,000 there and if that’s to go by, you start to wonder.”

I also had a chat with life long Rangers fan Derek about how the boos and negative crowd reactions could be affecting players, he said: “the slightest little thing and you can feel the atmosphere turning, I don’t know if it’s the lack of success that’s making everything seem to magnify everything more and it really is quite toxic.

Mark Hatley used to take that abuse as well, maybe not as bad, but still had all of that stuff back then as well. Big money signings and things like ‘he’s not doing it’ or ‘he’s rotten’, that’s the nature of the game and the nature of playing for Rangers unfortunately.”

Former Rangers star and strike partner to Hatley, Ally McCoist, who was working on the game for TNT Sports also spoke about the change in the crowd atmosphere in the ground, amongst other things after the game. “I just felt coming into the stadium tonight, it could have have blown you away, it was nothing like a normal atmosphere of any game, never mind a European game here at Ibrox, it was an apathy, there was just no life about the place or off the pitch.”

It’s clear that Rangers fans are fed up and have well and truly turned on Martin and potentially this team, even if it hasn’t hit October yet.

With their next match being on Sunday afternoon against a tough Livingston side, it’s hard to imagine another bad result will get Martin back on Rangers fans’ good books.