Monday 18 April 2016 16:30, UK
Dave King admits he was reduced to tears after watching Rangers beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden.
The Ibrox chairman said he and fellow board members were overcome with emotion as Mark Warburton's side beat their Glasgow rivals 5-4 on penalties following a 2-2 draw after extra time.
Ahead of the Scottish Cup showdown with Ronny Deila's side, Rangers secured promotion back to the Premiership with victory over Dumbarton, and lifted the Scottish Challenge Cup with a 4-0 win over Peterhead last week.
King led a takeover of the club just over 12 months ago and, following four turbulent years, said the win over Celtic and the celebrations which followed were part of the reason why he and his consortium fought for and implemented changes at the club.
"It was absolutely astonishing. 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," King told Rangers TV.
"I think every single director, including me, was in tears and as we looked at each other and hugged each other everyone was crying.
"All the people who have gone through the last year, the regime change and everything we have done, this is what it is about.
"We have been doing it for this and to see the reaction of the fans it was absolutely phenomenal for everybody. The reaction of the fans just showed how happy they were and it was a really joyous occasion."
King said he was amazed the Rangers team, which he claimed was assembled to win the Championship, outplayed Celtic and said the squad would be built further going forward.
"I regard today as us being back and the feeling of every single board member was that we are back but we won't relax about it. This is a measure for the club of how far they've come since last season.
"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.
"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.
"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."
Rangers will now face Hibernian in the May 21 final, with a place in next season's Europa League also up for grabs. If they can clinch that, King has told Warburton he will get the backing he needs to build a squad capable of competing at home and abroad.
"If we are fortunate enough to win the cup final, it would get us into Europe," he said. "That's a year ahead of schedule. Our original plan was to win the Championship, improve the squad and then challenge for the Premier League next year, then hopefully be in Europe the following year.
"So it would be a real bonus if we could accelerate the European part of that by a season. I said to Mark, 'Let's see how the final goes and we might have to plan differently the player acquisitions in the close season'."
