CHAIRMAN Dave King has admitted he hadn’t expected Rangers to beat Celtic ahead of yesterday’s Scottish Cup semi-final. King was at Hampden to see Mark Warburton’s men defeat their old rivals on penalties to reach their first Scottish Cup final for seven years. The victory moved him and his fellow directors to tears, with King revealing he had travelled to the national stadium more in hope than expectation.

“When I came into the stadium I was hoping for a good performance against Celtic but I didn’t dare to hope we would actually win the game – it was absolutely amazing,” he said. “When we were up there after the final whistle and I saw grown men cry, there were tears rolling down the faces of every single board member. All the people who have gone through the last year, the regime change and everything we have done, this is what it is about.

Glasgow Times:

“We have been doing it for this and to see the reaction of the fans it was absolutely phenomenal for everybody. This is a measure for the club of how far they’ve come since last season.

“The benchmark is always Celtic and not only the fact we won the game, which was on penalties, but the fact Rangers actually played better than Celtic. You could see on the park that Celtic were giving Rangers the level of respect and they were sitting back and sitting deep.”

Glasgow Times:

Manager Mark Warburton repeated the need for investment if Rangers are to challenge Celtic for the title next season and King revealed they would try to build on this success.

“I regard [the cup win] as us being back and the feeling of every single board member was that we are back but we won’t relax about it,” he told Rangers TV. “So the fact we actually outplayed them as well was fantastic, given we essentially built a Championship team to win the Championship and we are going to build further on it for next season It was nice to see that this team were able to hold up against Celtic and beat them in fact.”