The secret diary of a Rangers supporter, aged 50 1/4 – 15th August, Servette (a)

For a while now July and August have felt like fraught months for Rangers. From 2018 and the arrival of Steven Gerrard onwards it feels like we’ve been served up an apparently never ending chore of qualification for the Europa League group stage football.

I remember standing in the Lord Nelson pub on Nelson St in Glasgow when Rangers were in Russia to take on Ufa, with qualification for group stage football in Europe at stake of the first time since the events of 2012.

The game was at a ridiculous time in the afternoon, so I bunked off work early, skipped over the squinty bridge and made my way to the Lord Nelson which had procured a stream of the game.

When said stream typically failed after about 10 minutes, you had a ridiculous situation of everyone in the pub resorting to standing round various peoples mobile phones to catch a glimpse the game which, despite the sending offs of Jon Flanagan and Alfredo Morelos, went Rangers’ way.

I remember one punter turning and saying to me at one point “there is no work getting done in Glasgow today, eh?”. And it was hard to disagree with him, it definitely felt like a hefty percentage of the city’s population was currently crowded around a telly, phone or laptop watching the game.

My personal highlight of those qualification nights was probably against Legia Warsaw when Alfredo Morelos scored an injury time winner at Ibrox – provoking huge scenes of joy within the home support, and pissing off a certain Artur Boric in the away end. A cherry on the cake moment if ever there was one!

And here we are again, back in the fraught, nail-biting arena that are European football qualifiers – but this time for the Champions League against Servette.

Artur Boric has a sense that old familiar feeling again – getting pumped at Ibrox!

The mood is mixed after the win in the first leg was not as convincing as we would have liked. The fact that the game is on the BBC Scotland channel also makes me feel uncomfortable.

As most know there has been some issues between the top brass and reporting staff at Pacific Quay and Rangers Football Club. Personally I find how BBC Scotland has conducted itself in its reporting, content and position on Rangers to be nothing other than absolutely embarrassing – and the thought of having to put up with the likes of Jonathan Sutherland and Rob McLean for 90 minutes is not a pleasant one. Still, needs must!

Sutherland opens proceedings by saying it’s a crucial game for Rangers, which will explain why BBC Scotland has decided to only allocate ten minutes of build up for the game. As I said, embarrassing.

The team suggests that Beale is looking towards a counter-attacking threat, with Raskin and Jack sitting and Sima, Cifuentes and Cantwell providing the ammunition for Danilo.

Rangers do what they always seem to do in these games and start reasonably well and look in control of proceedings, before deciding to totally lose control of things fairly quickly.   

Sportscene’s coverage of the game – the less said the better.

The turning point in the first-half is an outstanding save from Jack Butland to deny Timothe Cognat, who was clean through on the Rangers goal. The moment provides further weight to feeling that Rangers have recruited well in replacing Allan McGregor, but it also breathes belief into Servette and their supporters that they can get something from this game – a feeling that is emboldened further when Servette take the lead on 22 minutes thanks to a very decent strike by Kutesa.

The mood in my house is flat at this point as my son and I look on horrified at the events that are unfolding in front of us, events that should have taken a turn for the worse when Souttar is caught trying to play offside, allowing Kutesa to run in on Butland but fail to either score or cut it across to an unmarked team mate in the box. A sliding doors moment in the tie!

Thing are worryingly bad at this stage, made even more so by a shocking open goal miss from Danilo and having to listen to the dulcet tones of Rob McLean and James McFadden barely concealing their absolute joy at the Rangers’ severe discomfort.

It is a relief to go in at half-time just one goal down.

The second-half, however, is a completely different story. Rangers look more composed from the off, and it doesn’t take long before the they have equalised through a very familiar routine.

Nicolas Raskin: different gravy!

Borna sends in another accurate delivery to the box and Tav heads in to give Rangers parity via the much used full-back-to-full-back option. It gives Rangers the foundation and confidence to go an control the second-half.

The main man in that second-half dominance is Nicolas Raskin, who yet again gives a level a performance that makes you believe that if we develop this boy correctly, he could be a star for us before moving on for a decent profit at some point in the future.

We secure the result we need and we move on next to PSV in the play-off – a repeat of last season’s fixture.

We never seem to get the easy route when it comes to qualification for the Champions League, but it is another big night at Ibrox to look forward to and I feel we are looking in better shape now than we were just a week or so ago for such a fixture.

I can’t deny that there is still a nagging concern that we are relying on James Tavernier for goals – and we need the strikers to step up against PSV if we are to have any chance of progression, but there a few more positive signs that the likes of Lammers, Danilo and Dessers are starting to click into gear.  Hopefully they can make the difference against the Dutch side.

It’s another huge night at Ibrox and, even though it is undoubtedly a tricky tie, a win on Tuesday puts us in a good position to go over to Eindhoven and get the result we need to qualify.

I just need to confirm if the Lord Nelson is showing the return tie!

WATP!

The secret diary of a Rangers supporter, aged 50 1/4 – 12th August, Livingston (h)

As per usual, my Saturday morning starts early with a walk with the dog. I had been our for dinner the previous evening to celebrate my daughter’s 16^th birthday, so getting up is a little more difficult than usual.

I find that the quickness of time causes me more and more concern the older I get – I mean, can it really be 16 years since I nearly launched my six week old daughter through the living room ceiling whilst celebrating Lee McCulloch’s goal against Lyon on that famous night in the Champions League? Sixteen years? Really? Time flies!

Friday also brought a nice wee delivery through the post in the form of the programme from the 1979 Drybrough Cup Final between Rangers and Celtic – a game famous for Davie Cooper’s wonder goal where he lobbed the ball over several Celtic defenders heads before dispatching it past Peter Latchford. It is a moment which is part of Rangers folklore – so it is a nice wee addition to the collection.

But back to the Saturday and I have the a couple of options to meet up with mates prior to kick off for a pre-match pint. However domestic responsibilities mean I don’t get into the city until just after 2pm, so it’s a quick pre-match pint on my tod before heading to Ibrox.

Lee McCulloch scores against Lyon – inadvertently causing minor head injuries to my six week old daughter.

Whilst I am enjoying my pint the teams are announced and, again, it looks encouraging. Connor Goldson is out – presumably rested – which allows Leon Balogun to make his first start since returning to the club. Jose Cifuentes also gets his first start, as does the Brazilian Danilo.

Davie Cooper celebrates winning the Drybrough Cup in 1979.

We get off to a great start when we take the lead after just ten minutes, with some great work by Cantwell leading to an opportunity for Lammers to slam home the opener – an opportunity he doesn’t pass up on. 

The early goal is good but I always feel that the second goal is the most important goal for Rangers, and it looks like we’ve got it when Cifuentes scores from a corner after 20 minutes.

But VAR rules he used a hand and the so called Masonic conspiracy in refereeing has a seemingly further dent to its credibility!

Rangers then fall into bad habits and, without playing all that badly, give the impression of a side that is making heavier weather of this game than it should be. This results in the usual mumbles of discontent from an element of the crowd.

The second goal comes late but it brings a debut goal for one of the new signings, which will become a theme of this game.

Borna sends over a great delivery into the box which allows Danilo to head in his first goal for the club and secure the three points – as the goal comes in the 78^th minute, it also allows for a mass exodus of the Subway Loyal!

Having already introduced Matondo and Sima, the second goal provides Michael Beale with the opportunity to make further changes, bringing on Dowell, Sterling and Lundstram which injects further energy in the side as they go on and score another couple of goals before full-time.

Vroni’s on West Nile St – they do a decent pint of Menabrea!

Firstly, Lima gets his first goal for the club after a bit of a stramash in the penalty box allows him to score from close range. Then Dowell scores an absolute peach right on time to put the icing on the cake.

Overall it is a fairly routine victory and a convincing scoreline.

Four goals, four different scorers (all new signings), Butland looks composed, Souttar and Balogun are solid at the back, Cifuentes looks impressive and Cantwell is lively and involved in everything – that’s not a bad day’s work.

That’s not to say there isn’t room for improvement, but those who are saying it’s another sign that Beale and the new signings are all duds are well wide of the mark.

I’m sitting with my mate Keith, who usually sits behind me but he has taken my son’s seat today as his own football career now sees him play on a Saturday for a local amateur side.

This means for the first time in six years he won’t be heading to Ibrox with me on a Saturday. He’s keeping his seat, obviously, but unless it’s a weeknight or a Sunday the chances are he won’t be using it for the foreseeable.

I’m chuffed he’s doing his own thing, and he scored twice on his competitive debut for his new club, but I can’t deny it’ll not be the same him not being there on a Saturday.

On the final whistle Keith and I head to Edmiston House for a pint, but the queue at the bar failing to move so much as an inch in the ten minutes we were stood there provokes us to move to the Rolls Royce Social Club on Beech Avenue – where we get served immediately.

I am hoping to hook up with some of the lads from the Gersnet podcast later but the banter is flowing and time runs away from me. After a couple of hours I head back into city for one final pint in Vroni’s before heading for my train.

I get in at about half nine and pretty much head straight to bed. I have an early rise in the morning as I’m walking a section of the John Muir Way with my daughter – all 25km of it!

I am of course looking forward to it – I just hope my legs have recovered in time to watch Tuesday’s massive game in Geneva!

WATP!

The secret diary of a Rangers supporter, aged 50 1/4 – 9th August, Servette (h)

My day begins with a commute into Glasgow for work. I find commutes to work are always better when you know you have the fitba to look forward after your nine-to-five grind. So the walk from Queen St to my office is a purposeful one that ponders all the opportunity that lies ahead.

It’s Champions League qualifier night, and we are up against Swiss outfit Servette FC – whom I have never seen before, so it’s another club to add to the list of clubs I have watched in the flesh whilst following Rangers in Europe.

These nights are always tense, and have delivered joy and despair in equal measures down the years.

My first real experience of them was in 92/93 against Leeds Utd. I was at Ibrox for the previous round against Lyngby, but that night against the English Champions when we won 2-1 will go down in echelons of Ibrox folklore. The noise when the teams came out of the tunnel will go with me to the grave – and until that fairly recent epic night against RP Leipzig, it stood out as my favourite ever night at Ibrox.

Then there was Parma. The night we shoved it right up the likes of Buffon, Dino Baggio, Ortega and Thuram and served up revenge for them dumping us out the UEFA Cup the previous season. When Claudio Reyna made it 2-0 that night the scenes were ones of absolute hysteria. Another night that will stay with me ’til the end.  

But I have also felt the other side of the Champions League qualifier sword, with the night against AEK Athens probably being the sorest I can remember.

Two down from the first-leg, there were high hopes that the new signings Basile Boli and Brian Laudrup would dig us out the hole we had found ourselves in. But it was not to be and a goal by Toni Savevski two minutes from half-time killed the tie stone dead and ensured we were out of Europe’s top competition before it had really got started – and back in those days there was no safety net of falling into the UEFA Cup!

Brian Laudrup: hero, legend – couldn’t save us from AEK Athens.

With work done, I head from my office to a boozer on Queen St for a pre-match pint, awaiting the arrival of my son. When he arrives we chew the fat over Saturday’s defeat, possible team selection and that I had witnessed some bloke get properly lamped by another bloke on Argyle St on my walk to the pub. I don’t want to advocate violence, but it was as deserved a second prize as I’ve seen anyone take – to the point there were a few cheers by the afternoon shoppers when he copped it.  

The team news comes out on the official club accounts and it looks better than the eleven selected on Saturday at Rugby Park – out goes Lundstram, Dowell and Sima, in comes Jack, Cantwell and Lammers. 

We are slightly late leaving the pub for the subway and as a result we miss the first goal. I actually believe at the time we have contrived to miss two early goals as there are two huge cheers – it’s only when I get to my seat that I realise the first huge cheer was for the penalty claim, the second cheer was for the actual goal.

Despite missing the goal I’m quite happy as the opening stages are encouraging, we look a far better outfit than the one that limped about Kilmarnock and when Rangers go 2-0 up on 15 minutes, thanks to a goal from Cyriel Dessers, all in the garden looks rosy.

We shouldn’t dismiss how good a goal it was either, with great contributions from Souttar and Borna creating the conditions that allowed for the Nigerian internationalist to score his first goal for the club. On a night of few positives, this is one of them.

“Nobody in here can know I’m looking at!”

We then pass up a great opportunity to go three up – and potentially kill of the tie – when Lammers misses a sitter that seemed easier to score. Not taking that chance proves crucial as within two minutes we’re subject to a VAR review for an alleged handball in the box by Dessers. The ref goes to the screen and we all know what is coming when that happens.

Those who know me best know I am not the greatest supporter of VAR, and one of my main criticisms of it is that it is supporters in the ground who are the only ones in the dark over what is happening. As the ref studied the screen, I look around me and see a sea of confused faces wondering what the review is in relation to and relying on texts and messages from mates watching the game at home to get the details. It feels really off to me that the only punters who are out the loop in these moments are the ones who got off their arses and paid top dollar to be at the game. And if that isn’t bad enough, Bedia scores from the spot and suddenly we’re in a game.

The second-half is more of the same huff and puff from Saturday and the crowd becomes restless and the groans and moans start to increase in volume. Even when Servette go down to ten Rangers can’t seem to create enough quality chances to extend their lead – although Mall in the Servette goal does produce several decent saves, and one very good one from a Lammers effort.  

Rangers fail to break their Swiss opponents down and the final whistle brings a sense of frustration that we couldn’t extend our lead. A tight scoreline means it’s all to play for next week in Geneva.

Paul Gascoigne: club legend despite a pish start!

The sense after the game is one of disappointment, and even some anger aimed at Beale and the new signings. But I was reminded of a previous Champions League qualifier I had attended 28 years previously to the day when Rangers beat Anorthosis Famagusta 1-0 at Ibrox – a game that saw Paul Gascoigne make his competitive debut for the club.

On the night Rangers were really poor, as was Gascoigne, and after the game there were the usual groans and moans. But we progressed to the group stages that season and Gascoigne went on to win us 8-in-a-row with a hatrick against Aberdeen in that famous game at Ibrox that secured the 95/96 title.

I guess what I’m saying is that discouraging signs early in campaigns aren’t necessarily a sign that the team isn’t going to perform well over the season or win trophies – the same goes for new signings, early struggles are often just that.

My son and I leave the stadium and head for a light refreshment at the Louden Tavern to allow the queue at the underground to recede. I bump into an old work colleague in the beer garden and we chat about old times. When I worked with him I was barely in my 30s and didn’t have any kids, now I’m standing here talking to him with my 18 year old son who is enjoying a pint. He too is an older, more domesticated version of himself with a wife, a kid and all that comes with that. It is a sharp reminder that time flies.

It’s been a disappointing night but nothing has been won or lost yet, and it’s all to play for next week in Geneva. And before that we have the opportunity to get three points against Livingston on Saturday at Ibrox and help get the new players bedded in further.

So lets keep the heid and get behind the team.

WATP!  

The secret diary of a Rangers supporter, aged 50 1/4 – 5th August, Kilmarnock (a)

New cast – same movie.

It’s finally here, the start of the football season. I say ‘finally’ but the reality is that the gap between one season and the next seems to get shorter and shorter every year. It feels odd to be a football fan and complain that there is too much football, but the older I get the more I feel the game has suffered from over-saturation in the Sky era, to the point that I actually quite enjoy the summer break when it comes – no matter how short it is.

My summer break this year was in Cornwall with the missus, daughter and dug. It was nice few days of walks, pasties, sightseeing, listening to Radio 2, watching Wimbledon and the occasional pint of Korev. I can’t say I really missed football or Rangers at any point during my break – and as the final whistled shrilled on Saturday at Rugby Park, it is easy to understand why!

It was largely felt that this would be a summer of change at Ibrox. A season of zero trophies last term necessitated that change had to come. For the likes of Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent it felt they had long outstayed their time at the club, for Allan McGregor, a club legend, it also felt like he had stayed a year or two too long. It was time for a change.

So it was a summer of out-with-the-old and in-with-the-new as club brought in a glut of new signings – including Dujon Sterling, Jack Butland, Leon Balogun, Sam Lammers, Kieran Dowell, Cyriel Dessers and Danilo – giving supporters hope that serious title challenge could be mounted this season.  Pre-season had not entirely gone to plan, but surely they would be ready come day one at Rugby Park?

My day started early as it always does on a Saturday morning. Up and out with the dug for a 5k walk, then home to some breakfast and a bit of Radcliffe and Maconie. It was then off to catch the noon train to Glasgow and specifically Shawlands to take in Pollok v Kirkintilloch Rob Roy. I arrive about 50 minutes prior to kick-off, which allows me the luxury of a pint and a read of the matchday programme in Loks Bar and Kitchen.

The plan is to take in as much of this game as possible, before leaving with approx. ten minutes to go to allow me to catch a train back home to meet my son and a mate to catch the Rangers game at 5:15pm. It feels like a perfect plan, but a hint is given at the Pollok game that this is not gonna be an enjoyable day of football.

When I leave after about 80 minutes Pollok are 3-1 up and seemingly home and hosed – so I leave happy in the belief that three points have been secured. However by time I get to Pollokshaws East station, a two minute walk from the ground, Twitter informs me that Rob Roy have made it 3-2 and are back in the game. Within two minutes of boarding my train for Glasgow Central it is 3-3, and that is how it finishes. Pollok have someone managed to grab a draw from the jaws of victory, not the result I was looking for and it gives me the fear for Rangers’ visit to Kilmarnock.

My journey back home is interrupted by World Cycling Championship’s in Glasgow. I can’t say I am a huge cycling fan, I mean aren’t they are all just ripped up junkies in ill-fitting lycra always looking for ways to out-cheat the other guy? I could be wrong in that assertion, but that I miss my intended train because of them does not endear me any further to their cause.

Pint and programme

Despite getting a later train than intended, I successfully hook up with my son and mate and we head to a local hostelry to take in the game. The nerves have really kicked in since the teams have been announced and we have all seen that John Lundstram is starting.

Lundstram performed heroically in Rangers’ run to the Europa League Final last year, but it is fair to say he has not reached anywhere near those levels for a considerable amount of time. For most fans he was viewed as part of the problem last season, that we have signed so many new players and we are still starting with him brings a heavy dose of unease, which will be justified by the end of the game. We can only hope that former manager Steven Gerrard comes in with a £40m bid to usher him away to the gold rush that is the Saudi Arabia Pro League – a move that even members of the Rangers LGBT+ community surely wouldn’t protest against!

The first half is a chore. Games at Killie usually are; plastic pitch, their defensive set up…etc, but it does feel that Rangers make these games more of a chore than they should be. After about 20 minutes there are uneasy glances between the three of us – this is starting to feel like a game we have seen many times before.

Ian Ferguson dons the gloves on the opening day defeat to St Mirren in 1989.

No goals at the break and the feeling is that was dire but that there must be a reaction in the second half, but unfortunately that is not the case. Instead we get the same slow tempo, side-to-side football that was served up in the first half – and for long periods of last season.

When the Rangers defence fall asleep at a throw-in that allows Brad Lyons to nip in and give Kilmarnock the lead it confirms the fears all three of us had been contemplating; this might be a new cast, but we were watching the same horror movie we had all seen so many times before.

The new cast huffed and puffed but rarely threatened to get an equaliser, let alone a winner, and the new season had delivered that old feeling of disappointment at the first time of asking. Day one and we are already chasing Celtic.

I have seen Rangers teams lose on the opening day before and then go on to win the title. Graeme Souness lost a couple, once at Easter Rd and another against St Mirren at Ibrox when Ian Ferguson ended up in goals due to an injury to Chris Woods, but the margins or error in those days were far greater than they are now and defeat on the opening day provides Michael Beale with an early headache as he tries to wrestle the title back from Celtic.

Champions League: To be or not to be?

Next up are the Swiss outfit Servette and the challenge of qualifying for the Champions League. As I write this I am hearing Rangers could face PSV Eindhoven in the play-off match if they progress, who we eliminated to reach the group stages last season.

Former Rangers midfielder Malik Tillman is on course to join PSV, which already has me fearing the scenario of him scoring a last minute winner for PSV securing Champions League riches for them and consigning us to Europa League poverty.

Yip, day one and the fear and loathing has started already.

Don’t you just love it?

WATP!

A journey from Brockburn Road to Paisley Road West: the story of a boy’s first visit to Ibrox.

Rangers v Morton at Ibrox

Around five miles in a south-westerly direction from Glasgow city centre, overlooking the Levern Water, sits Crookston Castle – the only surviving medieval castle in the city.

The current structure was built by Sir Alexander Stewart, who held Crookston from 1374 until 1406, and it a castle which has played its part in Scottish history.

For example, during a rebellion by the Earl of Lennox in 1489, James IV bombarded the castle with Mons Meg – the famous cannon which is now housed at Edinburgh Castle – causing substantial damage to the structure and a swift end to the rebellion. The castle was also the location where Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley and Mary, Queen of Scots were betrothed.

In the 1750s it came into the possession of the Maxwells of Pollok, but fell into a state of disrepair until it was partially restored to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria to the city in 1847. During the Second World War the north-east tower of the castle was used to spot enemy aircraft during the blitz.  It is an unassuming castle, and certainly not as grand as some other castles in Scotland, but it has certainly played it’s part in the history of Glasgow.

The castle has also played a big part in my personal history as, from 1973 until 1989, it looked down onto my bedroom in my nanas flat on Brockburn Rd – providing an ever-present and reassuring silhouette at nights during my visits back to the city of my birth.

It was under the protective gaze of the castle that I ventured from Brockburn Rd one Saturday in February 1982 to attend a game at Ibrox for the very first time – to witness a league game against Morton.

Crookston Castle

I am a Glaswegian by birth, and was born a mere half-decent goal-kick away from Ibrox Park in Govan’s then Southern General Hospital. I stayed initially in a tenement flat on Cathcart Rd with my parents.

However when my dad secured work in the highlands at Invergordon’s aluminium smelter later that year, we relocated to Easter Ross and specifically to a small estate in Alness by the name of Milnafua, which was custom-built to deal with the huge influx of workers coming up from Glasgow to take advantage of the economic opportunity the smelter provided.

Milnafua has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, and it’s fair to say it does not enjoy the best of reputations these days. However it was considered an estate of such stature back in those days that it was officially opened by HRH Queen Elizabeth in 1974, and it was great place to live then.

We lived in Milnafua for ten years, but every Easter, summer and Christmas would mean the trip back to Glasgow, and specifically Brockburn Rd in Pollok, to catch up with family. It felt like we were a family of two homes – actual and spiritual – and it was on one of the trips to the latter that I first took in my first game at Ibrox.

Queen Elizabeth officially opens Milnafua in 1974

By February 1982, however, the Highland adventure had turned sour, and in serious danger of ending after it was announced in the previous December that the smelter in Invergordon was to close.

This was problematic as both my parents worked there. The opening of the smelter had boosted the population of the area rapidly, and almost overnight.

Now with 900 jobs directly being lost with the closure, along with a further 600 indirect jobs, the local economy struggled to support the number of people now living in the area and the unemployment rate hit a staggering 25%.

Although the announcement was made in December ‘81, the smelter stayed open until the June of ‘82. So as we headed south to Glasgow that February my parents weren’t yet out of work – but there was a storm on the horizon and some difficult decisions would have to be made. But none of that was on the minds of my dad and I as we left Brockburn Road that afternoon to head to my first ever Rangers game.

If truth be known, Rangers were not yet totally at the forefront of my thoughts. I was very aware of Rangers and was a Rangers supporter, but the club and football in general took a backseat at this time compared to my love of all things Star Wars and music, particularly Adam & the Ants. Football and Rangers would come more to the fore after the summer of ’82 and the World Cup in Spain, but for now I was more interested in who was number one in the charts than whether it was Jim Stewart or Peter McCloy wearing the number one jersey for Rangers.

Glasgow bus in the early 1980s

My dad and I set off about 1pm, heading up Brockburn Rd past Crookston Castle Primary, over the Levern Water and towards Braidcraft Rd. From there we walked towards Corkerhill Rd to jump a bus to the stadium.

This was the time when the buses in Glasgow were green, white and yellow, which made for an element of discomfort for those of a Rangers persuasion. The tables were turned by the mid-80s though when the colour of the buses were dramatically changed to orange – proving that even the buses in Glasgow couldn’t escape the sectarian divisions of the city.

The bus journey didn’t take long, although we were now officially running late, and by the time it dropped us off at the point Paisley Rd West meets Edmiston Drive, the game had already kicked off. We scampered in a hurried fashion down Edmiston Drive towards the Copland Road stand and in we went.

Billy Connolly once remarked that the Queen thinks the world smells of paint, because everywhere she went some poor panic-stricken guy was five feet in front of her trying to apply the final coat of paint to some wall or other, and Ibrox felt like that on this day. The Copland Road stand had only been redeveloped in 1979 and it definitely had a new, shiny feel to it as I gazed around the concourse while my dad procured the pies and Bovril’s.

Then came the moment we all have as Rangers supporters, the moment you climb the stairs and look down onto the Ibrox pitch for the first time.      

Ibrox Stadium in the 80s

As I walked up the stairs from the concourse, Ibrox revealed itself in stages. Firstly just sky, then a glimpse of the roofs of the Broomloan and brand new Govan stand, then a sight of the colour coordinated seats, a first glimpse of the old main stand and then finally the pitch, the huge square goalposts and the players – who were already in action.

As I looked down I saw my first glimpse of action at Ibrox, and it was Colin Jackson – wearing the number five jersey on his back, grey hair making him look much older than his 36 years – who was striding forward confidently with the ball in what was ultimately his final season with the club. And that is all I can really remember about the game, that and that Rangers won 3-0.  

Research tells me that only 10,200 were in attendance that day and that, despite the scoreline, Rangers huffed and puffed to put the game to bed – despite going 1-0 up early doors thanks to a goal by John MacDonald – requiring two very late strikes by Gordon Dalziel and Billy McKay to secure the win. It also tells me Jim Bett, Bobby Russell and Sandy Jardine were the standout performers for Rangers on the day. But the truth is I have no memory of these finer details, and such was the rush to get into the stadium due to us being late I don’t even have a copy of the match programme from that day – which feels like I’ve committed an international war crime of some kind.

The programme from the game.

But I was there, and it started a lifelong love of Rangers and attending games that continues to this day.

After the final whistle my dad and I headed back to Brockburn Rd to my mum, aunties, uncles and my nana – and a Saturday night that would have probably encompassed watching Buck Rodgers in the 25^th Century and Game for a Laugh on the telly, with a decent amount of alcohol being consumed by the adults – it was a Saturday night in Glasgow after all!  

It would be one of the final journeys we made back to Glasgow from Alness. By March of the following year we had relocated to Cumbernauld as the search for new employment failed and the redundancy money ran out.

It was undoubtedly an unsettling time for a boy of my age; new school, new friends, new environment… But on the plus side my new location meant that trips to Glasgow and, more importantly, Ibrox, were about to become a little bit easier.

Rangers – Stewart, Jardine, Dawson, McAdam, Jackson, Bett, Cooper, Russell, Johnstone, Miller, MacDonald Subs – McKay, Dalziel

GOALS: MacDonald 17; Dalziel 80; McKay 83

Morton – Baines, Hayes, McLaughlin, Duffy, Holmes, Rooney, Busby, Docherty, Hutchison, Houston, Slaven Subs –  Ritchie, McNeil

Referee – J.J. Timmons (Kilwinning)

Attendance – 10,200