Memories of the bygone days of yore.

[Scott7 5,238]

Every time I think about posting in this thread, within seconds the brain crashes from memory overload - goals, thrills, spills, heroes, clowns, victory, triumph! But as Compo and Boabie have shown there’s more than just the football when following the Rangers. Sadly my road memories are much less roisterous than theirs but fragments come to mind. 

 

At Fir Park a faint smile crossed my otherwise grim countenance when Ian St John scored the opening and winning goal for Motherwell (monetary gain involved)

 

Outside Central Station a Celtic supporter on his way to see his team at Paisley gave a lift to Ibrox to an idiot stranger who had missed every ‘bus and train in the book and a couple of other guys as well.

 

The same idiot left East End Park at the final whistle somewhat disgruntled with a one all draw, perplexed by the relaxed demeanour of a few thousand other bluenoses and discovered later in the evening paper that Rangers had won. We had been five minutes late and missed the first goal (Watson 4) and thought McLean’s goal in 43 minutes was the equaliser.

 

Brought up protected by the Iron Curtain and being later bedazzled in the GazzaLaudo years, nonetheless my team is Ritchie, Shearer,  ....  need I go on?

 

Bobby Shearer. I’d send Tav and John to a seance to contact the spirit world so he could give them tackling advice. Shearer was a tiger just as much as the illustrious Shaw himself. But nobody’s perfect. How’s this for deja vu? At Pittodrie, Rangers in all out attack, the ball was cleared up the Aberdeen left wing to the half line. Only Shearer and the Dons’ Jackie Hather were there. Hather was round Shearer and away with Bobby trailing by yards. Caldow using his own formidable pace got back and across to clear. No disgrace there. Hather was a genuine speed merchant. Rangers won 1-2. Fast forward three years to Easter Road and exactly the same thing happened. This time the winger was Ally McLeod - yes, him - not renowned for his speed out of the trap. Caldow had time to get across at his leisure. 1-2 Rangers, Wilson and Brand. Sammy Baird scored a penalty for Hibs.

 

Two months earlier in the same year, 1960, at Tynecastle, Shearer played one of the games of his life against the champions Hearts. Ritchie was carried off after eleven minutes and Bobby went into goal - no subs in those days. He conceded only one goal (Gordon Smith 61) Ten man Rangers had already scored twice - Scott (40) and Brand (47) Davy Wilson got the third (71) Shearer looked as if he had played in goal all his life. He was never in trouble against a normally prolific Hearts forward line which as well as Smith contained Murray, Crawford and the great Willie Bauld. That was an epic match in front of 40,000 plus.

 

I could go on but would the Internet be big enough?

[boabie 230]

Rangers v Celtic.  Scottish League Cup Final, 25 October 1975.    [1 - 0 ]

 

This, despite a positive result for us, was a pretty much uninspiring final. It was one of the first games where they brought in an early kick off and shut all the shops in Mount Florida as they feared a lot of disorder between the two sets of supporters. With an eye to the future our football authorities messing around of fans led to a crowd of only around 59,000 that day.

The reason I recall this one is, as with most of my youthful memories, a burd.  A new swanky disco called The Savoy had opened [by Billy Connelly in fact] on Sauchiehall Street just a couple of weeks earlier and  I'd found myself being chatted up in there on opening night by a nice looking girl. Things went well until we both stood up and I noticed she was less than 5 feet tall. Still, as I said, a nice looking bit of kit.

The final was either the next week or the one after that and the lassie said she'd love to go to the match with me. So off to the match we went - as said in an earlier post, I lived about 100 yards from Hampden so no hassle getting there. We stood in the enclosure below the North Stand.

Colin Stein who'd been out the side was back in allowing Derek Johnstone to go to a deep midfield position. Sellik had their captain Dalglish back in after injury.

As said earlier, an uninspiring game full of the usual huffing and puffing, I remember them hitting a post but us having most of the play. The match was settled by a cracking diving header scored by Alex MacDonald.  It must have been raining because right after the goal a beer can bounced off an umbrella being held up by my wee burd.

Naturally a Rangers win meant complaints from FC Integrity who weren't happy with the man-marking job Tam Forsyth did on Dalglish. Personally I didn't see anything for them to whine about.

RANGERS team --  Kennedy, Jardine, Greig, Forsyth, Jackson, MacDonald, McLean, Stein, Parlane, Johnstone, Young .