Season 1969/70 by Alistair Aird When season 1969/70 dawned, Rangers Football Club hadn’t picked up a major domestic honour since 1966. In that timeframe, nine honours had been up for grabs, so ‘The Boy David’ as he was dubbed by Willie Waddell was coming under increasing scrutiny. And in an ironic twist of fate, within months of the season starting, White had been supplanted by Waddell as the man in charge at Ibrox. The first opportunity Rangers had to address the paucity of silverware was in the League Cup. And the initial signs were promising too. White’s side opened with three straight wins, including a 2-1 win over Celtic at Ibrox. At the halfway stage, Rangers led Section One by two points. But a single-goal defeat at Parkhead and a 3-3 draw at home against Raith Rovers turned the tide. Celtic seized the initiative and topped the section by a single point. For the third successive year, Rangers failed to make the knockout stages. In the close season, the Rangers fans had hailed the return of James Curran Baxter from Nottingham Forest, but this incarnation was far removed from the ‘Slim Jim’ when he was in his pomp. Baxter played in four of the six League Cup ties and each of the eight opening league games. Three of those league games were lost, and by mid-October, Rangers were ninth in the table, five points behind early pacesetters, Hibernian. And by the end of November, White was gone. A Gornik Zabrze side inspired by Wlodzimierz Lubanksi eliminated Rangers from the European Cup Winners’ Cup, and White was sacked with the ignominious tag of being the first-ever Rangers manager to have never won a major domestic honour while in charge of the club. He did win the Glasgow Cup – a 3-2 win over Partick Thistle securing the trophy in August 1969 after a replay – but that was never going to be enough to keep him in the dugout at Ibrox. White was replaced by the iconic Willie Waddell, and the change bore fruit. Waddell’s first match in charge was a 2-1 win over Dundee United at Ibrox, a result that left Rangers third in the table, a point behind Hibernian having played one game more. And that kicked off a run of nine league games that saw seven wins and two draws claimed. The new manager bounce, indeed! But Waddell’s unbeaten start had actually ended a couple of weeks earlier when Celtic had won 3-1 at Parkhead in the last eight of the Scottish Cup. In so doing, they ended any realistic hopes that the season would end with a silver lining. Rangers had eliminated Hibernian (3-1) and Forfar Athletic (7-0) to reach the quarterfinals. A buzzbomb midfielder called Alex MacDonald, signed for £50,000 from St Johnstone, had scored three times across those two matches. And wee Doddie would play a central role at Parkhead too. Rangers took the lead after only five minutes. Colin Stein fired in a cross from the right, and Jim Craig diverted the ball beyond his own goalkeeper. Bobby Lennox equalised 10 minutes before the interval, but both sides had had spells in the ascendancy in the opening 45. But the game hinged on an incident that occurred just after the hour mark. MacDonald found himself ordered off. He challenged the Celtic goalkeeper, Evan Williams, and a melee ensued. MacDonald was pushed to the ground, but when he got to his feet, referee Wharton dismissed him. An invasion from the Rangers end followed and bottles rained down. But when calm was restored, Celtic scored twice in the closing stages. Another chance to secure silverware had disappeared. The loss to Celtic kickstarted a calamitous run in the league too. In the 11 league games that followed, Rangers only won three. And there would be three defeats in succession against Raith Rovers, Dunfermline, and Dundee. The league season concluded with a 2-0 defeat at home against Morton, and the following Monday, Bob Cuthill, writing in the Evening Times, concluded that ‘Rangers were so lacking in artistry and spirit that strangers among us must have been aghast to learn that according to the record, this was Scotland’s second-best league team.’ The gap between Celtic and Rangers was now a yawning one, the Parkhead side finishing 12 points clear and reaching another European Cup Final. Jim Baxter was given a free transfer at the end of the season. His much-vaunted ‘second coming’ amounted to 14 league appearances, four in the League Cup, four in the European Cup Winners’ Cup, and two in friendly matches. His last appearance was on 19 January 1970 against East Fife at Bayview. With a Scottish Cup tie against Hibernian on the horizon, Waddell tried to throw Baxter a lifeline. He didn’t take it. The party was indeed over for Slim Jim.
