By Alistair Aird
There is no such thing as a meaningless Old Firm game, but the one we have coming up on Sunday must rank as the most eagerly anticipated in the past 10 years. Heading into the home straight in the tightest title race since season 2010/11, Rangers and Celtic are neck-and-neck. A victory for either side will undoubtedly give them a timely boost and the momentum gained could be decisive come 18 May.
But matches contested against Celtic in April haven’t always seen both sides vying for top spot. One such occasion was 1 April 1990 at Ibrox when the Light Blues were given a helping hand before their talismanic number nine shot himself into the history books.
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Rangers didn’t enjoy the best of starts to season 1989/90. Goalkeeper Chris Woods dislocated his shoulder in the opening day defeat against St Mirren, and a week later, his replacement, the Israeli international Bonni Ginzburg, shipped two goals at Easter Road.
Thus, going into the first Old Firm match of the season at Parkhead, Graeme Souness’s side had no points and were yet to score a goal.
The atmosphere in that match was more vitriolic than it had been in a long time. That could well have had something to do with the fact that the player wearing the number 10 jersey for Rangers was one Maurice John Giblin Johnston.
Johnston had caused consternation on both sides of the Old Firm divide when he had signed for Rangers in July, a matter of weeks after being paraded at Parkhead like a prodigal son returning home. But although he had scored three goals in pre-season – one against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park and a brace against Partick Thistle at Firhill – Johnston was yet to find his range after the competitive action got started.
He didn’t discover it at his stomping ground either, passing up a number of decent opportunities to score, but Rangers did net their first Premier Division goal of the campaign when Terry Butcher scored with a header after five minutes. An equaliser from Dariusz Dziekanowski ensured the spoils were shared, but at least the Light Blues now had a point on the board.
Both sides spilled points before they met again in the league in November. Celtic lost against St Mirren and Dunfermline Athletic and drew against Dundee United, Motherwell, and Aberdeen. Rangers, meanwhile, lost at Fir Park and drew 2-2 with Dundee and 1-1 with Dunfermline.
Those results meant that going into the match at Ibrox, Celtic had 14 points, while Rangers were on 13. In what was very much a case of ‘tight at the top’, Aberdeen had the same tally as Celtic, while Dunfermline were alongside Rangers on 13. But by the end of the 90 minutes, Rangers were out in front, and Johnston proved to be the matchwinner.
He had scored his first league goal back in September in a 1-0 win over Aberdeen at Ibrox, and another vital goal in a single-goal win over Hearts. And going into the Old Firm game, he was on a hot streak, having scored four times in his previous five league games.
He would make it five in six and score his first goal for Rangers against Celtic two minutes from the end of a tight contest, sweeping a right foot shot into the net at the Copland Road end of the ground. Had he not ingratiated himself with the Rangers fans by that point, then there’s nothing quite like a last-gasp winning goal in an Old Firm game to help when looking to find favour with the follow followers.
That win ignited Rangers’ title challenge. They dropped points in only three of their next 13 league games, and a 3-1 win over Dundee United at Ibrox on 3 February took them seven points clear of Aberdeen and Hearts and 11 points ahead of Celtic.
A sticky spell followed – four successive draws in the league and a home defeat against Hibernian added to a Scottish Cup exit at the hands of Celtic – but that run was halted with a splendid win over Celtic at Ibrox on 1 Apil.
Billy McNeill’s side had been wretched since losing at Ibrox back in November. They had won only five of the 18 league games they had played and travelled to the home of the league leaders and reigning champions languishing in fourth place. Back in the days of two points for a win, the side from the east end of Glasgow trailed their hosts by nine points.
There wasn’t much in the game until Rangers were gifted the chance to take the lead after 28 minutes. Terry Butcher floated a cross in from the left whereupon Anton Rogan, under pressure from Richard Gough raised his left hand and fisted the ball away. Rogan looked perplexed as the camera panned to him, but there was no doubt about it, it was a penalty to Rangers.
‘You can’t do things like that in your own penalty area and hope to get away with it, what was he thinking about,’ said the former Rangers striker, Andy Gray, in his role as co-commentator on Sky Sports.
Mark Walters grabbed the ball and spotted it. And while his effort was far from convincing, his shot had just enough power to evade Pat Bonner. It was the English winger’s twelfth goal of the campaign and the first time the Eire international goalkeeper had been beaten from the spot that season.
Rangers doubled their lead after 39 minutes with a goal that was craftily created and beautifully executed. Gough crunched into a tackle in the middle of the pitch and the ball broke to McCoist. He carried it forward a few yards before dinking a lovely pass into the path of Johnston. In front of a travelling support who used to worship him, Johnston cushioned the ball on his chest before rifling a volley beyond Bonner with his right foot.
It was all over before the half time oranges had been sooked, but there was still time for Alistair Murdoch McCoist to carve his name into the history books.
This was McCoist’s 215th league appearance for Rangers. He had netted 132 league goals, the same total that the club’s leading scorer in the post-war era, Derek Johnstone, had scored. He was on a barren run by his standards – his last league goal had come on 3 February – and he had missed a couple of matches in March with a groin injury. But when Johnston was fouled in the box by Peter Grant, McCoist had a shot at glory once more. There was only going to be one outcome.
‘Emphatic’ would adequately sum up the penalty struck by McCoist. He strode forward and rammed the ball into the top left-hand corner while Bonner dived in the opposite direction. It wouldn’t be the last record McCoist would smash either in a stellar Rangers career, one that ended in 1998 with a record of 434 goals in 689 appearances, 10 league titles, a Scottish Cup, nine League Cups, two European Golden Boots, and a couple of Player of the Year awards. Oh, and he scored a hat trick in the Glasgow Cup Final against Celtic in May 1986 too!
Just under three weeks later, Trevor Steven scored the only goal of the game at Tannadice and Rangers retained the title, the second of what would be nine in succession. McCoist scored 14 goals in 34 league appearances, bettered only by Johnston who scored 15 times. One of the most controversial signings in the club’s history started each of the 36 Premier Division fixtures.
But what perhaps doesn’t get the recognition it deserves from that season is the obdurate defending. The regular back four was Gary Stevens, Richard Gough, Terry Butcher, and Stuart Munro. The dependable Munro emulated Johnston by starting each of the 36 league matches. Only 19 league goals were conceded, 15 by Woods and four by Ginzburg. The opposition were shut out on 19 occasions.
As for Celtic, they finished fifth in the league, losing 12 times and racking up only 34 points. That was 17 fewer than Rangers, and only goal difference kept them above sixth-placed Motherwell and seventh-placed Hibernian. Indeed, they were closer to Dundee at the bottom than Rangers at the top, and their dismal season ended when they lost 9-8 on penalties against Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup Final.
Back in October, the Rangers supporters would likely have been viewing this season’s third Old Firm league match in a similar way to what the Celtic fans probably viewed that encounter at Ibrox 34 years ago. Had things continued on the trajectory they were heading, the chasm between the sides would have been equivalent to what it was in 1990. We were seemingly down and out after only seven games, but we have climbed off the canvas under Clement and are now in with a very good chance of toppling Celtic from their perch.
The one thing missing from Clement’s impressive list of accomplishments as the Rangers manager is an Old Firm victory. Indeed, the majority of his squad have a poor record in these fixtures – James Tavernier, for example, has only been on the winning side in nine of the 34 derby day fixtures he has played in, losing 21 of the other 25 – but they have a fantastic opportunity to set that record straight on Sunday. If they do, then it is more than likely that the league championship trophy will be bedecked in red, white, and blue ribbons just like it was in 1990.