A Forgotten Legend

[54andcounting 0]

BY STEPHSTAR

 

 

The name legend is unfortunately thrown around by many and is devalued by doing so . We as Rangers supporters have a seniors team made up by ex players called the Rangers Legends . While some of the players who wear that seniors strip could make a decent claim to be include as club legends others ,while decent enough players, definitely couldn’t . That doesn’t detract from the fine charity work they do and how they represent our club , but they’re not all legends .

 

There are legends though , players like Mcphail , Young , Jardine, Grieg , Baxter ,Henderson, Stein , Butcher , Gough , Laudrup , Gascoigne and not forgetting a certain Alistair Murdoch McCoist . These guys to me are legends , you may well have others or disagree with my choice but thats a debate for another time .

 

That was the players , but we also have many legends behind the scenes , people like Peter and Moses Mcneil , Peter Campbell , William Mcbeath and the ‘ Fifth ‘ founder Tom Vallance .We had truly great managers like Wm Struth , Scot Symon , Jock Wallace and Walter Smith . All great men in their own right and all men who brought great credit to a club that they loved . There is however a glaring omission from both lists , a man who only ever played for one club in his whole career staring in 1938 V Arsenal scoring the only goal of the game on his debut and finishing some 18 years later in 1956 in a friendly v Manchester City . That man was William Waddell .

 

Willie Waddell was a one off , as I have said he only ever played for Rangers but his association with the club on and off the park spanned 50 years . As a young boy I remember him replacing Davie White the then manager , I knew not of his great skills as a player but was excited as new Rangers managers didn’t come along very often then and my father and uncles were excited about the return of ‘ Deedle ‘ . When I asked who he was I was regaled with tales of his skill and ability and enjoyed the nostalgia of hearing the grown ups talk about this wee winger who had so much talent . When he was favorably compared to my then , and still , hero Willie Henderson then that was good enough for me . Until he became Rangers manager William Waddell had only ever managed one club Kilmarnock and led them in 1965 to their only ever league win. When he returned “home” in 1969 it was to face the challenge of Celtic who were at their peak and still the dominant force in Scottish football . Waddell did not wrestle the league back from his city rivals but did end Rangers four year trophy less run by winning the Scottish League Cup in 1971 gaining the club entry into the 1972 European Cup Winners Cup. In 1972 Waddell’s team led by John Grieg despite being underdogs got to the final where they defeated favorites Dynamo Moscow 3-2 with goals from Stein and Johnston (2) . The trouble in the stadium was caused by the fascist police of Francisco Franco over reacting to the pitch invasion after the final whistle put a dampener on the occasion . Pitch invasions were common all over Europe at this time and such was the outrage at the reaction of the fascist police even in Spain that Barcelona invited Rangers to their tournament the following year . After winning the Cup Winners Cup Waddell stood down handing the mangers job to Jock Wallace who went on to end Celtics domination and end their run of consecutive league wins . William Waddell had more important things to do .

 

On January 2nd 1971, in what was to be Waddell’s first successful season as manager since returning in 1969 , Rangers were playing rivals Celtic at Ibrox . Celtic were winning through a late Jimmy Johnstone goal and the final whistle was approaching . Some of the 80,000 crowd , common for old firm league games of that era, were starting to make their way home when Colin Stein scored an equalizer with almost the last kick of the game .What exactly happened is still unclear but it is thought that some supporters already going down the step staircase at Stairway 13 turned and tried to push their way back in , others claim people on the stairway bent down to pick up things they had dropped when they celebrated the goal . Whatever the cause the weight of thousands of people pushing down led to a horrific crush as fans stumbled upon each other crushing 66 fans to their death and injuring 145 more . This was not the first time Ibrox had suffered a disaster , in 1902 part of a wooden stand where the Govan stand is now collapsed and 25 people were killed and 517 injured . Prior to the disaster in 1971 in September of 1961 two fans were killed on stairway 13 and more were injured by crushing in 1967 and 1969 . Enough was enough and Mr Waddell applied his determination to rebuilding Ibrox following the disaster of 1971 . The then players who you have to remember were young men at the time tried to console grieving friends and families in between visits to hospitals and funerals . Such was the horror that another legend Sandy Jardine recalled years later “ When we visited people some of them had turned black with the air squeezed out of them . Their eyes were popping out of their head from lack of oxygen ……to this day if I am in the crowd at a game I never out my hands by my side . You have to give yourself a chance . I learned that from those hurt that day ……”

 

If the disaster affected the players it had a greater effect on the manager , he demanded players represent the club at every funeral possible , such was the number lots had to be drawn to decide who went where .It should be noted that Celtic Fc sent players and representatives to many of the funerals as a mark of unity within the game and a sign of respect .A time shot from days gone by and of less hatred between the clubs perhaps .

After the disaster Mr Waddell made it his mission to make Ibrox the safest ground possible quitting as manager at the height of his fame to become a director and he began looking at ways to fulfill his mission . He looked at various plans and modifications to the ground and had asked Hugh Adams to head the Rangers Development fund through his Rangers pools . It wasn’t until 1974 while he was in Germany watching Scotland’s world cup campaign that he say the Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalen stadion . It was exactly what he was looking for , a rectangular park with three new stands replacing the oval terracing and steep banks of the old Ibrox . He contacted the architects The Miller Partnership and plans were drawn up . When the board saw the plans there was a great deal of opposition , some claimed it wouldn’t be Ibrox any more with only the main stand , now the Bill Struth stand , remaining and the rest of the ground flattened and redeveloped , the capacity of the new ground would be nearly half of that of the old one . Many fans were unhappy at what they saw as a break with tradition . Mr Waddell was unmoved and his determination made sure the plans were pushed through . Costing around £10million at the time a large part of which had come from the Rangers Development fund . Mr Waddell lived to see the ground he loved almost complete , such was the man influence that Sir David Murray continued the work adding a club deck and filling in the corners at each end of the Govan stand which was built to replace Mr Waddell’s Centenary stand and give the ground its almost oval shape once more . On his death in October of 1992 Scottish football as a whole had a genuine sadness at the last of a gallant breed and representatives form clubs all over the world attended his funeral . Willie Waddell was a man many younger supporters will have vaguely heard of but not know a great deal about , I hope buy reading this it spurs their interest to find out more about this truly great Rangers man .I think he would be proud of the stadium that is his legacy and the fact that it is amongst the safest in the world . He was a great man and having researched a little about this selfless man who gave everything he could to our club I can understand why some people think of him as the greatest Ranger of the all.

 

William Waddell born Forth on 7 March 1921 -Died Glasgow 14 October 1992

Played for Rangers 1938-1956 over 200 games and earned 18 caps for his country and 5 caps for the Scottish league XI , was a manager then director from 1969 until his death in 1992 a real Rangers man in every sense , we could do with his likes today .

Edited June 10, 2013 by 54andcounting

[pete 2,499]

A great read and also a great man. As I have said often on here I still remember going down stairway 13 as a boy with my father it was truly frightening. I can't remember Waddell as a player, but he certainly is a club legend.

[D'Artagnan 173]

Fabulous read.

[SteveC 150]

double post sorry, was told it had not been sent...

Edited June 11, 2013 by SteveC

[SteveC 150]

My parents adore "Deedle" and the Waddell song was one of the first I was taught. I thank you for the post and have no quibble over his achievements, but there is another side to his record at and relationship with the Rangers.

 

Firstly, no-one in the Scottish press even today has quite managed to lambast the Rangers fans in such a vitriolic manner as Mr Waddell who basically called us the scum of the Earth ("louts" "gutter-rats" "tykes" "drunkards") in a rant dear to Spiers' heart (and of course reproduced by him as proof he is not hard on us as he's never said anything remotely as critical).

 

Secondly, on the documentary "The Big Teams" he stated - and it has haunted us ever since - that Rangers fans go home and beat up the missus if we lose an OF game. Even my mother,who thinks him a deity, complained at that.

 

Thirdly, his vindictive and self-serving campaign to undermine Dave White and get him sacked was shameful, petty and childish in the extreme. There was only one "wee boy" revealed in all those destabilising attacks at a time when we were so close to ending the schum run.

 

Fourthly, White's team had been agonisingly close to toppling the greatest schum team ever. Waddell's was so far behind them in the league that other teams were ripping the piss out of us as we came absolutely nowhere in a supposedly two horse race. I was at every game in those seasons (home and away in Scotland only one away in Europe) and I remember it all. Funny how yesterday is so blurred but Ranger's 35-45 years ago is clear as a bell.....

 

A great Ranger, unquestionably - but a flawed one

Edited June 11, 2013 by SteveC

[Tumshie RFC 0]

He would be in my top five as one of the Greatest Ranger's. Player, manager, general manager, re-built the stadium. Few have gave more to the club than Willie Waddell.

[foggy dewhurst 0]

a first claas read