Andrew Cavenagh Reflects on a Challenging First Year at Rangers

Andrew Cavenagh leans into the question before he bats it away. A year into his Rangers reign, £40m spent, no trophies, a title bid that collapsed in the run-in – has he ever wondered why he bothered?

“No, is the answer.”

For a club that has made a habit of asking itself hard questions over the past 12 months, the chairman’s conviction is striking. Rangers announced the arrival of Cavenagh and the 49ers Enterprises-led consortium a year ago on Saturday, selling a vision of modern investment, American know-how and renewed ambition. The reality since has been brutal.

A season he again calls “incredibly disappointing” has left, in his own words, “a terrible taste in everyone’s mouths”.

A chaotic first year

The numbers tell part of the story. Up to £40m committed on players. Three senior football leaders removed in the space of six months. No silverware.

Russell Martin arrived in June as the man to front a new era and was gone by October. The clear-out did not stop there. Chief executive Patrick Stewart and sporting director Kevin Thelwell followed him out the door the next month, underlining just how quickly the new hierarchy decided the original plan was unworkable.

Danny Rohl stepped in and, for a while, changed the mood. Under the new boss, Rangers clawed their way back into the title race, stirring a support that had grown weary of transition and excuses. Then the season’s defining collapse arrived: four defeats in the final five games. The challenge they had resurrected simply fell apart.

For many clubs, that kind of ending would drain the room of belief. Cavenagh insists it has done the opposite.

‘This club gets into you’

Rangers, he says, have taken hold of him in a way he did not fully expect.

“This club gets into you at the molecular level. And, once it's done, you're done. It's happened to me and a bunch of us.”

There is no attempt to sugar-coat the experience. He will not dress it up as fun.

“I don't ever want to use the words ‘enjoy’ or ‘fun’ because you can't have a season like we've had and use those words.”

What he does embrace is the fight. The scale of it. The relentlessness of it.

“The challenge is something I relish and Paraag [Marathe] relishes with the rest of us,” he says, referencing the fellow American who arrived last summer as part of the San Francisco 49ers Enterprises consortium and briefly served as vice-chairman.

“The disappointment this year is very real for us, but all it's done is provide motivation for us going forward.”

The message is clear: the pain is not an excuse; it is fuel. Tasting it, Cavenagh believes, will “spur us on to where we want to get to” and “make success sweeter” when – not if – it comes.

Face-to-face with the support

If the first year in charge has been unforgiving, it has at least forced proximity. Cavenagh has not hidden. He has been visible at matches, speaking directly with supporters in stands and concourses, including at the final fixture of the season away to Falkirk.

“My conversations with our supporters, I've really come to enjoy,” he admits, before catching himself on the word he had earlier vowed not to use about the season as a whole.

He was advised, he says, to get to know fans on a one-by-one basis. At Falkirk, with emotions raw and the away end in full voice, that was never going to be realistic.

“At Falkirk, that probably wasn't the right medium to do that,” he concedes.

Still, he has found something important in those exchanges – a shared honesty about where Rangers stand.

“Whether it's in the stands or the streets, we all share certain things like the ambition to win and the understanding that we're not good enough.

The common goal is the same so there's common ground in those conversations even if there are disagreements over methods.”

That line – “we're not good enough” – cuts through the usual end-of-season platitudes. No talk of fine margins. No leaning on misfortune. Just a blunt assessment of a club that has fallen short and knows it.

From bitter taste to next step

Cavenagh describes Rangers as occupying “150%” of his thoughts. For a chairman operating in the glare of Glasgow, that obsession is not a luxury; it is a requirement.

The consortium’s first year has been chaotic, expensive and barren in terms of trophies. It has also stripped away any illusions about how hard the job really is. Managers have come and gone, senior executives have been moved aside, and a fanbase that measures itself against titles and cups has been left with nothing but frustration.

Yet out of that, the chairman sees only one possible response: to double down.

The question now is not whether Andrew Cavenagh regrets stepping into Ibrox. It is how quickly he can turn that “terrible taste” into something Rangers supporters have been starved of for too long – the feeling that their club is once again built to win.