Written by Sir Walters Rally.
I first became a Rangers fan in the early sixties, at the age of about seven or eight. This was the era of the famous iron curtain defence, with three league titles in the bag during that period. Gers had also made it to the 1961 European Cup Winners Cup but were well beaten over two legs, by Fiorentina.
In those days you could practically name the team week in and week out. There was no such thing as squad rotation or you very rarely saw players out with injury, unless it was something like a broken leg. After John Greig, Davie Provan and Willie Henderson had replaced Harold Davies, Eric Caldow and Alex Scott the Rangers team that I remember most from that era was, Ritchie, Shearer, Provan, Greig, McKinnon, Baxter, Henderson, McMillan, Millar, Brand and Wilson.
I was brought up in Galashiels, in The Borders. None of my parents were interested in football and my influence came from school so, I became a Rangers supporter. To be honest, I think it was just one of these things that without any real parental influence, you ended up supporting Rangers or Celtic.I did have an uncle from Peebles who used to take me to Easter Road and lifted me over the turnstiles a good few times. In spite of his best effort’s to turn me in to a Hibee, I never really considered it. Mind you, I have to admit, Hibs had a good team in the sixties and I saw some great games.
Living so far away from Glasgow at that age, supporting The Gers was confined to reading the papers and watching the telly and the first opportunity I got to see the team live was when Rangers were drawn to play Berwick Rangers, in The Scottish Cup in January 1967, Berwick being, just down the road. We were the cup holder’s with “King” Kai Johansen having scored an extra time winner against Celtic in a 1966 replay.
Having been offered a lift to the game by a pal’s dad (he charged me and my other two pal’s ten bob (50p) for a share of the petrol) I set of at the age of eleven to see my first game. It turned out to be the worst result in the history of the club. We lost one nil and it signalled the end of the road for the two Rangers strikers, Jim Forrest and George (Dandy) McLean. They just disappeared and didn’t play again. Willie Johnston broke his leg and was replaced by an old stalwart, Davie Wilson. Berwick’s player manager, goalkeeper, was an ex commando, Jock Wallace. The town of Berwick suffered that night. People may argue about this, but we did have a pretty notorious travelling support in those days.
What made all of this more difficult was that Celtic had embarked on their nine in a row run and managed by Jock Stein, were becoming known for a new style of attacking football. Our manager, Scott Symon believed totally that a team was built from the back. This all came to a head when Celtic and Rangers both reached the two major European Finals in 1967. On hindsight, this was a great achievement for Glasgow and these games took place a week apart. For us it was a great achievement after the disaster of Berwick, but the pressure was on after they won the European cup in Lisbon. They did it by attacking and using attacking full backs, a new concept in these days and by beating one of Europe’s most famous defensive teams, Inter Milan.
By contrast, we went in to our final; with a bizarrely defensive line up, including a reserve centre half, Roger Hynd, in the number nine jersey. That was a game that I watched on a black and white telly and it reduced me to tears as I sat on the stairs of my house after we lost 1-0 after extra time. From what I remember, we could have played on all night and never scored. Losing was bad enough, but them having won a week earlier just made it so much worse.
It also showed the gulf at that time between the two teams. We were stuck in the past, playing a defensive system whilst, they, to be honest, were setting the standard for a new breed of attacking football. The result of this was that Scot Symon became the first manager ever to be sacked by Rangers.
I believe however, that we should take some pride in the fact that since our beginning in 1873, Scot Symon was only our third ever manager to lose his job and it says everything for the club that they showed such loyalty to the man in charge. Three managers in just short of 100 years, which is a statistic that will never again come close to being achieved.
Part 2 to follow, so keep a look out for the next instalment of the memoirs of Sir Walters Rally . Well worth the read 
i look forward to the next instalment