The ‘mind blowing’ Rangers moment that left me stunned during Tenerife trip

Jermain Defoe has revealed the Rangers moment that made him realise just how enormous the club’s support really was.

The former England striker arrived at Ibrox from Bournemouth in January 2019 after being persuaded by Steven Gerrard’s plans for Rangers and his vision for the club’s future.

Defoe already knew he was joining a major institution in Scottish football, but it was a training camp in Tenerife that truly brought the size of the Rangers fanbase home to him.

Speaking on The Warm-Up, Defoe recalled walking off the training pitch to find hundreds of supporters waiting nearby.

He admitted the sight left him taken aback, questioning why so many Rangers fans had travelled all the way to Spain simply to see their team train.

Although he understood before joining that Rangers were a huge club, Defoe explained that experiencing the supporters’ commitment first-hand was completely different from simply knowing about it.

Despite being 36 and having already established himself as a prolific Premier League goalscorer, Defoe said he arrived at Rangers with something to prove.

He felt his reputation meant little unless he could reproduce his goalscoring form in Glasgow. His mindset was straightforward: if he had failed to score regularly for Rangers, he would have felt embarrassed given the expectations surrounding his career.

That competitive mentality quickly returned once he began playing for the club.

Defoe pointed to his first Rangers goal against Kilmarnock as the moment he felt that familiar spark come flooding back.

He recalled emerging from the tunnel and being surrounded by the noise of Rangers supporters, with fans filling the stands behind both goals.

For Defoe, those experiences demonstrated that Rangers were not simply another club on his long list of teams. The reaction of the supporters, both during the Tenerife camp and on matchday, showed him the scale of the institution he had joined.