By Alistair Aird
Rangers travel to Parkhead on Sunday looking for their first win at the home of their Old Firm rivals since September 2020. But success in the east end of Glasgow hasn’t just proved elusive for the current crop of players. In the 1980s, Rangers only won twice in the league at Parkhead, and those victories – both by two goals to one – came almost nine years apart, 23 August 1980 and 1 April 1989. And it is the last of those success that will be featured as we once again look to take inspiration from a Blast from The Past.
For the most part, the 1980s had been wretched time for the Rangers supporters. Constrained by a strict wage structure and a reduced transfer kitty due to the reconstruction of Ibrox Stadium, both John Greig and Jock Wallace had been unable to construct a squad that was capable of winning the Scottish Premier Division title. In fact, Rangers hadn’t even come close, finishing third twice (1980/81 and 1981/82), fourth on three occasions (1982/83, 1983/84 and 1984/85) and as low as fifth in the 10-team league in season 1985/86. And in that timeframe, the only domestic silverware to make it up the marble staircase and into the Trophy Room was a Scottish Cup in 1981 and the League Cup three times (1981/82, 1983/84 and 1985/86).
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But Rangers had been reborn in April 1986 thanks to the foresight of David Holmes.
Holmes was on the board of directors at John Lawrence (Glasgow) Ltd. Lawrence Marlbrough, who at the start of the 1980s was Rangers Football Club’s largest individual shareholder, had charged him with the responsibility of looking at all the subsidiary companies and trying to come up with ways of improving efficiencies. One of those subsidiaries was Rangers, and Holmes would eventually come up with a blueprint that would awaken the Glasgow giant from an almost decade-long slumber and reestablish them as the premier club in the country again.
Key to the success of the Holmes masterplan was the recruitment of Graeme Souness. His initial plan was to sign Souness as a player. He wanted to make a statement signing to show the fans he meant business, but the challenge he faced was that he felt he needed a manager of a certain stature to be able to convince Souness to leave Italy.
At that stage, Holmes admits that he ‘thought outside the box’. Rather than source a manager to help him recruit Souness as a player, he would offer Souness the role of player-manager instead. And that set in motion a chain of events that culminated with cameras clicking and flashbulbs popping when Souness was presented to the media in The Blue Room at Ibrox in April 1986.
The appointment of Souness set in motion a chain of events that would see Rangers win their first league title for nine years at the end of season 1986/87. Souness had given the fans the chance to celebrate success again, and his squad looked to be on track for more at the start of April 1989.
Rangers had beaten Aberdeen in another classic League Cup Final at Hampden in October 1988, and when they travelled across Glasgow to face Celtic on 1 April, they did so top of the league table. Twenty wins from their opening 29 games saw Souness’s side lead Aberdeen by four points. Celtic, meanwhile, were two points further back in third place, Billy McNeill’s side having lost nine of their league fixtures up to that point.
Thus, back in the days of two points for a win, the hosts needed to win the fourth Old Firm league match of the season if they were to have any chance of reeling in their rivals and retaining the title they had won in what was their centenary season, 1987/88.
And history seemed to favour Celtic getting that outcome.
The first Old Firm league match of the decade was played at Parkhead on 23 August 1980. The match was poised at 1-1 going into the final minute when Alex Miller latched on to a dropping ball at the edge of the penalty area and thudded a volley beyond Pat Bonner to win the match for John Greig’s side. But prior to the clash of the titans on 1 April 1989, this would be the last time Rangers would enjoy the sweet taste of victory on enemy territory.
In the interim period, 16 Old Firm league matches were contested at Parkhead. Celtic won 10 of them and six were drawn. In terms of goals, Rangers netted 14, while Celtic scored 31. And the Light Blues went into the game in April 1989 having lost on each of their last four visits to Parkhead.
This was therefore a boil that was in dire need of lancing. It was time to arrest this horrible sequence of results, and the added bonus of a successful outcome on this occasion was that it would derail Celtic’s title hopes and shunt them into the sidings.
Celtic were hindered in their team selection, with centre half Mick McCarthy suspended. McNeill opted to play Steve McCahill alongside Roy Aitken at the heart of the home side’s defence. McCahill had signed for Celtic from Dumbarton at the end of January after impressing in a Scottish Cup tie, but an Old Firm baptism of fire beckoned.
Graeme Souness made one change to the side that had defeated Dundee United 1-0 at Tannadice the previous Monday night in a Scottish Cup quarter-final replay. John Brown, who had come on as sub in the United game, replaced Mel Sterland.
The redoubtable Brown had been out of action since the middle of February, but his vim and vigour was exactly what was needed for a game of this magnitude. Sterland, who had signed for the club only a couple of weeks earlier from Sheffield Wednesday, was therefore relegated to the bench where he was joined by Davie Cooper. The master of wing wizardry had not featured much of late for the first team, with only one appearance as sub since 17 December 1988. However, as a veteran of these clashes, having him in the matchday squad afforded Souness the option to call upon his experience if needs be as the game wore on.
Thus, the Rangers starting XI read:
Chris Woods, Gary Stevens, Stuart Munro, Richard Gough, Ray Wilkins, Terry Butcher, Kevin Drinkell, Ian Ferguson, Ally McCoist, John Brown and Mark Walters
The crowd of 60,171 were in full voice ahead of kick off, but the majority of them would not have enjoyed a first 45 minutes that was dominated by Rangers.
Much of the fine play in that period was orchestrated by Ray Wilkins and he was aided and abetted by Mark Walters who took every opportunity he could to tease and torment Anton Rogan. But they weren’t the only ones to impress, with Ian Paul of the Glasgow Herald commenting in his match report about a ‘solid, comfortable defence’ and ‘dashing, eager front-liners.’
Rangers drew first blood after only four minutes. Walters shimmied and shuffled and looked to have eluded Rogan on the right-hand touchline. But the bemused and hapless full back tugged at his shorts and hauled him to the ground. Wilkins took the free kick and Kevin Drinkell, unmarked, rose to head the ball beyond Bonner. ‘Left an open chance and he suckered’, said Archie McPherson in commentary before he lambasted Celtic for defending that was, in his opinion, ‘lamentable’.
The Rangers fans, housed at the other end of the ground, cared not a jot. They had descended into the state of joy and delirium that goes hand in hand with a goal at the ground of their greatest rivals.
Walters donned his dancing shoes again shortly afterwards, and after waltzing away from Rogan again, he looked to have been felled in the box. McPherson opined that the Englishman ‘overdid it’ and the referee, Dougie Hope, seemed to agree as no penalty kick was forthcoming.
But that didn’t deter a ravenous Rangers side, and just after the half hour, they doubled their lead.
Chris Woods hoofed the ball forward and referee Hope felt Ally McCoist was impeded some 35 yards from goal. From the resulting free-kick, Wilkins nudged the ball into the path of Ian Ferguson who unleashed a shot that zipped towards goal. It was too hot for Bonner to handle. The Celtic goalkeeper pushed the ball into the air, and as it dropped towards goal, the predatory instincts of McCoist were stimulated. As all good strikers do, he followed in and looked to have got the decisive touch to ensure the ball crossed the line.
To this day, there is still debate over whether the goal should be credited to Ferguson or McCoist. Goal line technology would have provided a definitive answer, but in its absence, there are shades of grey.
‘I think Ally got the final touch, Ally McCoist,’ according to McPherson, and if that is the case then McCoist has 28 Old Firm goals. Among them are two hat-tricks – in the 1984 League Cup Final and the Glasgow Cup Final of 1986 – but whether it’s 27 or 28 goals, Rangers’ greatest-ever goalscorer can’t lay claim to being the top marksman against Celtic. That accolade goes to the wonderfully named Robert Cumming Hamilton – R. C Hamilton for short – who found the net 33 times in Old Firm games.
Walters twice went close to extending Rangers’ lead, and by the time a shrill blast of Hope’s whistle had drawn the first half to a close, the only question that seemingly remained to be answered was how many goals rampant Rangers would add to their tally in the second half. But Old Firm games ebb and flow and the tide can turn in an instant, and that’s exactly what happened on this occasion.
Two minutes after the restart, John Brown was crowded out and robbed deep in the Celtic half, and from the ensuing breakaway, Andy Walker spun and arrowed a shot beyond Woods. Suddenly from a position of power, Rangers were rocking.
Brown almost atoned for his error when he got himself on the end of a deep cross from Walters – his shot shaved the far post – but Celtic were gifted a chance to level proceedings when a cross from Joe Miller reared up off the turf and struck the outstretched hand of Richard Gough. Although Old Firm games are littered with contentious decisions, this wasn’t one of them, it was a stonewall penalty.
Miller, who had come on for Billy Stark 10 minutes before the break, must have been confident of restoring parity for he snatched the ball from his skipper and regular penalty taker, Roy Aitken. But his assurance was misplaced, Woods plunging to his left to make the save. Miller couldn’t even convert the rebound, spooning the ball over the bar under pressure from Gary Stevens.
Rangers would see the match out and win 2-1, but, plus ca change, Celtic ended the game aggrieved by a refereeing decision. Chris Morris, who had opened the scoring when Celtic were thumped 4-1 at Ibrox back in January, stretched every sinew to reach the ball on the goal-line. His cross eluded Woods and entered the net. Hope signalled a goal, but soon retracted his decision after he consulted the linesman who confirmed that the ball was out of play before Morris touched it.
Three games later, Rangers beat Hearts 4-0 at Ibrox to clinch what would be the first of nine successive league titles. And during that glorious spell, the trend of losing at Parkhead was bucked. Over the next eight seasons, 14 league matches were played there – in season 1994/95, Celtic played their home matches at Hampden – and Rangers only lost twice. Of the other 12 games played, nine were won. Remarkably, in that same eight-season spell, Rangers only won six of the 16 Old Firm league games played at Ibrox.
With no wins recorded at Parkhead in the last four years, could a victory on Sunday kickstart a similar spell of success to that was witnessed in the early part of the 1990s? The current malaise that seems to be suffocating the club and the supporters suggests that seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened. In fact, triumph in the face of adversity may well be the catalyst that sees the pendulum of power swing back once again towards Rangers.