Nineteen eighty nine was a momentous year for many reasons. It was the year that the Berlin Wall finally came down, the year that some bloke stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square in a pro-democracy protest and the year that Michael Keaton donned the Caped Crusader’s rubber suit in Tim Burton’s Batman, and Indiana Jones brought his da along for his alleged ‘Last Crusade’.
On a personal note, it was also the year I left school (at the first time of asking) and took on full-time employment in the form of an ultimately ill-fated retail management training course with a major supermarket.
I left school in the May knowing I had a job to go to in the August, which meant that 1989 would become my summer of ’69 – a summer where I had nothing to worry about other than enjoying all that summer would bring. A kind of working class gap year, so to speak.
For the most part that meant kicking about the streets with my mates, lying in the sun in a variety of back gardens listening to INXS’s ‘Kick’ or Guns and Roses’ ‘Appetite for Destruction’, or frequenting one of the few pubs where you had a chance of getting served a pint with very little questions. It was a very ‘coming of age’ summer.
A few weeks before I left school, on 29 April, I stood in the west enclosure at Ibrox as Rangers earned a 4-0 win against Hearts to secure the club’s 39th league title. Two goals each from Mel Sterland and Kevin Drinkell had ensured that Rangers wrestled back the title from Celtic, adding to the League Cup secured in October (which I was also at) and setting up the possibility of club’s first treble since 1978.
However, three weeks later I was stood in the 72,069 Hampden crowd (my highest attendance) as Rangers failed in that treble attempt, thanks to a Joe Miller goal which should never had stood. The treble was gone – for now.
It was crushing to lose out on a treble to Celtic, especially when you consider we had thumped them 5-1 and 4-1 at Ibrox that season, not to mention securing our first win at Celtic Park since 1980 when goals from Kevin Drinkell and Ian Ferguson earned a 2-1 win.
But Celtic had received a huge boost in the build up to the cup final with the return of their Prodigal Son, Maurice Johnston. Johnston was a boyhood Celtic supporter and his arrival had rejuvenated Celtic and their supporters after a poor campaign which had seen them finish ten points behind Rangers in third place.
Johnston had left Celtic in 1987 under something of a cloud to join French club Nantes. The move elevated Johnston to a new level of performance as he played some of the best football of his career. His apparent return had given Celtic a new sense of belief which was palpable on that sunny day at Hampden, and arguably helped Celtic over the line.
In his previous stay in Glasgow Mojo had a bit of a reputation. A serial pumper of women, a man who liked a drink and a man you could turn to if you were in need of a cheap tracksuit. Rumour and legend followed him everywhere, and it was even suggested that the reason he was the only Celtic player to wear long sleeves was to hide the many needle marks on his arms.
However France had appeared to mature him. He was in a settled relationship, had become a dad again and it was undeniable that Celtic were getting an improved version of the player and man that had left them two years previously.
So when Johnston dramatically decided to veto his move to Celtic and controversially sign for Rangers, becoming the club’s first Catholic player in decades, then historical moments in the year like the tearing down of the Berlin Wall suddenly felt as newsworthy as an item on John Craven’s “and finally…” section on Newsround. Fuck the Berlin Wall coming down – Rangers had signed the most uber tim imaginable! It represented an incredible act of one-upmanship by Souness and Rangers, and it added more fuel to the already raging fire which was the Old Firm rivalry.
While Johnston may have divided the Rangers support by putting pen to paper, he united the Celtic support in outright hatred. How could their hero have betrayed them like this? For the days and weeks after his signing it really did feel like we were all living on some weird parallel universe, but as the dust slowly settled on the announcement of Johnston’s dramatic move to Ibrox, all eyes started to focus on Saturday, 26th August – the day of the first Old Firm game of the season at Celtic Park.
Johnston had waxed lyrical about how he was looking forward to the playing in Old Firm games again when he was ‘unveiled’ at Celtic Park, now his opportunity would come – but he would be in a Rangers jersey.
Coincidently the summer of ’89 was also the year I procured my first season ticket, in the Govan front, and I was traveling to games on the Camelon Rangers Supporters Club which left from the Mariner Bar in the town’s main street.
It was exciting to finally be a season ticket holder, but Johnston’s arrival appeared to instigate a level of indifferent form as Rangers lost their opening two games of the season at home to St Mirren and at Easter Rd against Hibs. So as the big date with Celtic loomed, the pressure was building on Souness, Rangers and Johnston who had yet to score a competitive goal for his new club.
As was the norm for these games, demand outstripped supply when it came to tickets, and so a ballot was arranged on my supporters bus. Given the intensity and historic relevance of this particular game there were more people looking for tickets than usual. I made my way to the Mariner Bar around lunchtime on the day of the game and was allocated my number in ballot – number 26.
Those who were in the ballot moved from the bar to the lounge. A pile of ground tickets were placed on the table and numbers started to be drawn out of the hat. When a number came out, the lucky patron handed over their cash, picked up their ticket and gleefully made their way back to the bar safe in the knowledge they were going to the game.
For the majority of this process I sat glumly as the room gradually became emptier and emptier. When there were only three tickets left I had given up.L, then suddenly the boy shouted “number 26!” and I was in. “Yes!” I roared and handed over my hard earned and picked up my brief. The east end of Glasgow was going to produce a moment of footballing history at 3pm today, and I would be there.
With the ballot complete and beers sank, the bus left for the game with the sense of anticipation at boiling point as it made its way along the M73 and M8. Every few minutes we would pass a Celtic bus and the gestures and abuse would start. There was no doubt about it, this was going to be a big day in the long running story of Rangers and Celtic.
As I took my spot in the east terracing the atmosphere was already at fever pitch. Then, in what felt a manufactured move, Rangers sent out Maurice Johnston as the first player to warm up. He ran down the tunnel to a crescendo of abuse from the Celtic support, ran towards the Rangers support housed behind the goal, kicked a ball into the empty net and applauded a support which had once despised him – his back turned on those who once adored him.
That set the tone. The fuse that was lit on 10 July when Rangers announced Johnston’s signing was about go off, and as the teams came onto the park the noise level was everything you would expect from a 53,000 crowd attending the next chapter of Glasgow’s religiously charged footballing struggle.
It only took five minutes for Rangers to score their first goal of the match and season, having drawn blanks in their two previous league games. A Trevor Steven corner found Terry Butcher with a surprising amount of space to hammer home a header in Pat Bonner’s top right-hand corner. Maybe the fear of Maurice Johnston being in the penalty box had diverted the Celtic defenders’ attention away from Butcher. Whatever the reason for the freedom he was allowed, Rangers were up and running.
Celtic then had a great chance to equalise when Tommy Burns sent through Dariusz “Jacki” Dziekanowski, the man Celtic had turned to when Johnston had snubbed them. Dziekanowski took the ball around the Rangers stand-in keeper Boni Ginzburg, covering for the injured Chris Woods, only to be fouled by the Israeli on the edge of the box. Ginzburg saw yellow in the days before the ‘denying a scoring opportunity’ rule, Celtic Park fumed at not being awarded a penalty and Celtic wasted the resulting free kick.
Dziekanowski would not be denied, however, and on the 20 minute mark he equalised. John Hewitt sent in a vicious corner which was headed off the post by Tommy Coyne, only to be tapped in by the Polish striker.
The game from then on was probably suffocated by the sheer amount of pressure surrounding it, although Maurice Johnston should have scored with two excellent chances after being put through on Bonner. It was maybe a blessing in disguise that he didn’t score given the cauldron of hate surrounding the game. Johnston would have other opportunities to twist the knife further in future games that he would not pass up.
As the final whistle blew there was a sense of relief that, in one of the most important Old Firm fixtures in living memory, nobody had lost face. Celtic had not lost the game and Johnston had failed to make much of an impression, and Rangers had finally got off the mark and secured the first of their 51 points tally – a tally which would be enough to clinch a second successive title come May. Celtic would finish 17 points adrift in fifth place, adding weight to the argument that Johnston chose wisely.
It had been a hectic and historic day, and as the crowd dispersed I made my way up the stairs towards the exits when I noticed two girls behind the counter at the pie stall clearing up for the day.
“Super Mo!” I shouted at them, holding my fist in the air and sporting a huge grin.
“Fuck you, ya Orange bastard!”, one of them roared, before quickly pulling the shutters down.
An appropriate ending to an historic day.
Celtic: Bonner, Morris, Burns, Aitken, Whyte, Grant, Galloway, McStay, Dziekanowski, Coyne, Hewitt. Subs: Rogan, Walker
Goals: Dziekanowski (20)
Rangers: Ginzburg, Stevens, Munro, Gough, Wilkins, Butcher, Steven, Ferguson, Drinkell, Johnston, Brown. Subs: McCoist, Walters
Goals: Butcher (5)
Att: 53,000
The Lower Third 