Season Summary by Alistair Aird Season 1998/99 Advocaat’s first game in charge came in Norway at the end of June. A Rangers XI that included Gordan Petric and David Graham conceded twice inside the opening 10 minutes against Molde before Jorg Albertz reduced the deficit in the second half. Graham scored his first goal for the first XI a couple of days later in a 3-1 win over Asane IL, a match that also saw 17-year-old goalkeeper, Mark Brown, make his debut. Charlie Miller and Peter van Vossen got the other goals. And the tour was completed with a 6-0 hammering of FBK Voss. Gennaro ‘Rino’ Gattuso was among the goals. Five days later, the serious stuff started with a trip to Prenton Park in Tranmere to face Shelbourne. But it looked as if the Advocaat era was going to get off to a humiliating start when Rangers trailed 3-0 at the interval. Thankfully blushes were spared after the restart thanks to doubles from Albertz and Amato and a debut goal from Giovanni van Bronckhorst. Van Bronckhorst was the latest in what was becoming a long line of new signings. The Dutch midfielder would eventually be joined by Rod Wallace, Andrei Kanchelskis, Colin Hendry and fellow countryman Arthur Numan which meant Advocaat had brought in seven new players. There would be more to come as the season progressed, with the financial outlay well in excess of £20,000,000. Defeat at Tynecastle in the first league game kickstarted an inconsistent start to the campaign that brought nine wins, three successive draws and three defeats in the first 15 league games. Among the losses was a 5-1 thrashing at Parkhead. The riot act was duly read by Ian Ferguson and it worked. Returning to Parkhead eight days after losing there in the league, goals from Albertz and another new face, the French forward Stephane Guivarch secured the League Cup with a 2-1 win over St Johnstone. League form stabilised too, with Rangers embarking on a 12-match unbeaten run before the suffered back-to-back defeats against Dundee United and St Johnstone. The latter came at a venue where Rangers had won 7-0 earlier in the season. The loss in Perth was followed by wins over Dunfermline Athletic and Aberdeen and a draw against Dundee at Dens Park and suddenly the finishing line was in sight. A win at Parkhead over Celtic would clinch the title. Almost four weeks later, Rangers met Celtic again with the Scottish Cup at stake. Once again, Hugh Dallas was the referee and once again he was at the centre of a storm when he refused to award Celtic a penalty late on when Lorenzo Amoruso charged down a shot from Paul Lambert. By then, Rangers were 1-0 up thanks to a goal from Wallace and that proved to be enough to win the Cup and secure a sixth domestic Treble. Rangers’ European adventure was halted by Parma in the third round of the UEFA Cup. After that shaky start against Shelbourne, Rangers finished the job with a comfortable 2-0 win at Ibrox. A 2-0 aggregate win over the Greek side PAOK Salonika followed before Beitar Jerusalem succumbed 5-3 on aggregate. That was followed by a magnificent performance in Germany against Bayer Leverkusen. Van Bronckhorst and Jonaton Johansson got the goals, but the best player on the pitch in a Rangers shirt was Barry Ferguson. Ferguson had been used sparingly by Walter Smith the previous season, but Advocaat pitched him almost from the off and he grasped his opportunity with both hands. He was calm and assured and that was personified against Leverkusen when, surrounded by red shirts in the centre circle, he kept his head to turn and pick out a perfect pass that started the move that culminated with van Bronckhorst opening the scoring. Unfortunately, injury would end his season prematurely, but he had shown the supporters enough to suggest that there was more to come from one of their own. Thus, after a sticky start, Dick Advocaat’s first season as Rangers manager had ended with a clean sweep of the domestic honours and some more than respectable performances on the European stage. Strong foundations looked to have been laid and with Advocaat being backed to the hilt by David Murray in the transfer market, it looked like those foundations were going to be the platform from which Rangers would launch a bid to rule at home and in Europe.
A new era beckoned at Ibrox in the summer of 1998. After almost a decade of dominance, Rangers were under new management, with Dick Advocaat taking over the reins from Walter Smith. And the Dutchman, the club’s first manager from overseas, would endure an inauspicious start to his tenure as he attempted to sculpt and mold a side capable of wrestling the league title back from Celtic.
Back home, new recruit Gabriel Amato was handed a first start against St Mirren – Albertz and Graham got the goals – and preparations for the UEFA Cup Qualifying Round tie against Shelbourne were completed with a 2-0 win over Falkirk at Brockville. French goalkeeper, Lionel Charbonnier, signed from Auxerre, made his first appearance for the club.
Aside from the 5-1 defeat, the other two Old Firm league matches had ended all square, a 0-0 draw in September and a 2-2 draw in January. But there would be no doubt who was the superior team in the clash of the titans on 2 May. In a chaotic game that at one point saw blood streaming from the forehead of referee Hugh Dallas – he was struck with a coin thrown from by a Celtic fan moments before he awarded a penalty kick to Rangers – a double from Neil McCann and a penalty from Albertz secured the three points Rangers required. McCann, who had signed from Hearts in December, was excellent, adding to goals he had scored against Dundee – a 6-1 win at Ibrox that featured a Jorg Albertz hat-trick – and Kilmarnock.
Wallace had been one of the finds of the season. Among all the expensive incomings, he had arrived on a free transfer from Leeds United. He missed only two of the 36 league games and scored 19 goals, including a hat-trick against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park. Wallace managed to find the net in each of the four league games too. Added to his three Scottish Cup goals, two in the League Cup and three in the UEFA Cup, the little Englishman ended his first season in Glasgow with 27 goals.
