Season Summary 1986 - 87

Words by Alistair Aird

The plan ahead of season 1986/87 was to revive Rangers, and the man who was the catalyst for that rebirth was David Holmes. He was on the board of directors at John Lawrence (Glasgow) Ltd and had been charged by Lawrence Marlborough with the responsibility of looking at all their subsidiary companies and trying to come up with ways of improving efficiencies. One of those subsidiaries was Rangers Football Club.

Marlborough was the grandson of John Lawrence who had been the Rangers chairman from 1963 to 1973. He had been a director of Rangers since 1973 and was appointed vice-chairman in 1979. Alongside Willie Waddell, he would play a key role in the redevelopment of Ibrox Stadium.
At the start of the 1980s, he was the largest individual shareholder in the club but resigned from the board in 1983. Many thought that was the end of the Lawrence family dynasty, but although Marlborough relocated to the USA, it was always his intention to continue to have a say in the operation of the club. And that was where David Holmes came in.

Holmes started looking into Rangers and formulating a recovery plan in 1984. By November 1985 he had been appointed a director and a couple of months later, Marlborough acquired a 65.9% controlling interest in Rangers. That gave Holmes that platform to implement a blueprint that would see Rangers reestablish themselves at the top of the Scottish game.
The pivotal part of his 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 in April 1986.
After doing his due diligence on the existing squad, Souness wielded the axe and armed with a handsome transfer kitty, he set about bucking the trend of the time. In the 1980s, the cream of Scottish talent would most likely move south of the border to ply their trade in England. But aided by the ban on English clubs from participating in European competition after the Heysel disaster in 1985, Souness was able to lure the likes of Chris Woods and Terry Butcher to Ibrox.

Butcher would be the cornerstone of the success that Souness would enjoy. He had been at the heart of the defence of an Ipswich Town team that had won the UEFA Cup and finished second in the First Division. He had captained England and represented his country at the World Cup in 1982 and 1986. In short, he was one of the best central defenders in the world.

Ron Atkinson wanted to take Butcher to Manchester United, but Souness convinced him to come to Scotland instead. The fee was reported to be £725,000.
The signing had the Rangers fans rejoicing. Bringing someone in of that stature and calibre showed that Souness meant business.
Butcher wasn’t part of the touring party that went to West Germany at the end of July – Rangers won two, drew one and lost one of the four matches they played - and he also missed out when Rangers drew 1-1 against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane in a testimonial for Paul Miller. He eventually made his debut in a 2-0 defeat against Bayern Munich at Ibrox on 5 August, four days before the league season was due to kick off with a trip to Easter Road.And kick off is exactly what the season did.

The atmosphere was at fever pitch ahead of Rangers’ opening league match against Hibernian, and you could tell that the Hibernian fans and players wanted to be the first team to bring the new-look Rangers down a peg or two.

The home side took the lead, but a penalty from Ally McCoist after 18 minutes brought Rangers level. It was delicately poised, but the game erupted after 36 minutes.

Souness had been booked earlier in the match for a foul on Billy Kirkwood, so when he caught the former Celtic player, George McCluskey, with a rash challenge, everyone knew what the outcome would be. The referee, Mike Delaney, ordered Souness off and the incident sparked a melee that involved all of the other players apart from the Hibernian goalkeeper, Alan Rough.
There would be retrospective action for all involved, and to make matters worse, Hibernian won by two goals to one. This wasn’t how Mr Holmes envisioned the new era starting!

Another McCoist penalty secured the first league win of the Souness era four days later – Falkirk were beaten 1-0 at Ibrox – but the alarm bells were tolling the following Saturday when Rangers let slip a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2 at home to Dundee United. A narrow win over Hamilton at Douglas Park followed before East Fife gave the Light Blues a fright in the Skol League Cup.
McCoist saw a penalty saved by former Rangers goalkeeper Gordon Marshall at Bayview, but he stepped up again to score in the shoot out that followed the 0-0 draw. It was the proverbial great escape, but the match will be forever remembered as the one the effectively ended the Rangers career of Colin West. He sustained a knee injury that ruled him out for a number of weeks, and by the time he was available for selection again, Robert Fleck had claimed the number eight jersey.

Fleck’s renaissance was a remarkable one. Seemingly bound for Dundee for a paltry £50,000, he made his first league appearance of the season when he came on as sub for Ted McMinn in a 2-0 win over Motherwell at Fir Park. A week later, he was in the starting XI and scored a hat trick in a 4-0 win over Clydebank at Ibrox. He followed that with another treble four days later against Ilves Tampere in the UEFA Cup. After that, he never looked back. The only games he didn’t appear in for the remainder of the season were the home and away legs against Borussia Monchengladbach, and Fleck ended the season with 19 league goals.
But despite the goals from Fleck and McCoist, Rangers were still consistently inconsistent, particularly in the league. The emphatic win over Clydebank was followed by a 1-0 defeat at Dens Park, and although Aberdeen were beaten 2-0 at Ibrox, a 0-0 draw at Tannadice kicked off a run of three games without a win, the sequence culminating with a 1-0 defeat at home against Motherwell. After 16 games, Rangers sat fourth in the league table, six points adrift of leaders Celtic.

But although they were trailing in the race for the title, Rangers had by that point snared the first piece of silverware, the Skol League Cup.
Rangers suffered a blow ahead of the final against Celtic as Souness was ruled out. He had picked up a calf injury in the midweek win over Boavista in the UEFA Cup, so his place was taken by Cammy Fraser. Dave McPherson was suspended so Ally Dawson was alongside Butcher in the centre of the defence.
Rangers had won the first Old Firm match of the season, and the sides had also drawn at Parkhead in November. Ally McCoist had scored the Rangers goal in the 1-1 draw, but Ian Durrant, the matchwinner at Ibrox when he latched on to a sumptuous reverse pass from Davie Cooper to advance on goal and score, opened the scoring at Hampden, lashing the ball into the net with his left foot. Brian McClair equalised, but Rangers got the winner with five minutes to go.

Derek Ferguson, who was superb and later voted man-of-the-match, swung a free kick to the far post, and the referee, David Syme, adjudged that Butcher had been impeded by Roy Aitken. With fingernails being nibbled and folk not able to look, Davie Cooper calmy slotted the penalty kick into the net, sending Pat Bonner the wrong way in the process.

Before the match ended, there were two red cards. Mo Johnston was dismissed after an off the ball incident – he compounded matters by blessing himself as he left the pitch – and Tony Shepherd looked to be joining Johnston in the partaking of an early bath when Syme brandished a red card in front of him too. Syme had thought Shepherd had struck him, but when it was pointed out that the referee had in fact been hit by an object from the crowd, the Celtic man was allowed to stay on the pitch.

But despite lifting the first trophy available, as 1986 drew to a close, Souness’s side still hadn’t found top gear. They were still toiling in the league and their UEFA Cup adventure had ended in West Germany. A 1-1 draw against Borussia Monchengladbach at Ibrox was followed by a 0-0 stalemate that saw Munro and Cooper dismissed, the West Germans therefore progressing on the away goals rule. But the goal scored by Uwe Rahn at Ibrox proved to be significant for the Rangers defence would not be breached again until 31 January, a run of 1,196 minutes that would see Chris Woods chalk up 12 consecutive clean sheets. And during that run, Rangers hit the Premier Division summit.

The New Year dawned with a virtuoso display from Souness as Rangers defeated Celtic 2-0 at Ibrox. The season’s goal-den couple, Fleck and McCoist, got the goals. Sixteen days later, Hamilton were beaten by the same scoreline at the same venue. Durrant and Graham Roberts, signed from Tottenham Hotspur in December, were ordered off, but for the first time since the early part of the previous season, Rangers were top of the table.
A 0-0 draw at Easter Road on 6 December had seen Rangers fall eight points behind Celtic. But seven wins in a row thereafter had toppled the reigning champions from their lofty perch. Rangers were in the driving seat.
There would be an unfortunate blip two weeks later when the Accies, rooted to the bottom of the Premier Division, breached the seemingly impregnable

Rangers rearguard to eliminate the Light Blues from the Scottish Cup. But sights were quickly reset with a 5-2 win at Tynecastle the following Saturday, the first time Hearts had lost at home for 21 months. And those who had the audacity to question Fleck and McCoist, who had both failed to score against Hamilton and Aberdeen in the league the week before, were made to consume some humble pie. Fleck scored twice, while McCoist netted his 18th league goal of the season. Roberts and an own goal from the former Rangers player, Kenny Black, completed the rout.
McCoist almost seemed piqued by the criticism he had received after firing those successive blanks. In the 13 league games that followed the win over Hearts in February, he scored 16 times, including hat tricks against St Mirren and the Jam Tarts. In so doing, he became the first Rangers player to score 30 league goals in a season since Jim Forrest had done likewise in season 1964/65.
With an obdurate defence and a rapier-like forward line, Rangers were on the cusp on their first league title for nine years. But with two games to go, the race was finely poised.

A couple of Brian McClair penalties had helped Celtic bounce off the ropes with a 3-1 win at Parkhead in April. That was the first time that Rangers had lost in the league since November – a run of 19 games unbeaten that comprised 16 wins and three draws – and with Rangers due to travel to the Granite City to face Aberdeen in their penultimate league fixture while Celtic hosted a Falkirk side battling relegation, many reckoned that the three-point lead held by Rangers was under threat.

Pittodrie hadn’t been a happy hunting ground for Rangers – they had won just once there in the league since the inception of the Premier Division in 1975 – and their chances of ending that run seemed to be dented when Graeme Souness ended the season as he had started it by getting himself sent off. On this occasion, Jim Duncan was the referee who dismissed the Rangers player-manager after he had scythed Brian Irvine down after 31 minutes.
But the Rangers response to playing with 10 men was almost immediate. Five minutes from the interval, Cooper was impeded by Stewart McKimmie, and from the resulting free kick, his pinpoint delivery was met flush on the forehead by Butcher. Jim Leighton was helpless as the ball flew past him into the net. And although Irvine restored parity on the stroke of half time, Rangers held on to earn a point that ultimately was enough to make them champions of Scotland. Remarkably, Celtic had lost 2-1 against Falkirk which gave Rangers an unassailable four-point advantage.
When both results were confirmed, nine years of pain were washed away and the Rangers supporters lucky enough to be inside the ground flooded on to the pitch. The Rangers players were engulfed and by the time they had made it to the dressing room, many had been stripped of what they were wearing as their followers swooped for souvenirs of a momentous day.

The gamble David Holmes had taken had paid off. The appointment of Souness and the subsequent signings of Woods, Butcher and Roberts had served to reawaken a giant of the Scottish game from an almost decade-long slumber. The good times were rolling again for the Rangers fans and after being starved of success for so long, they would spend the next 10 years like gluttons, gorging themselves on a diet of domestic silverware.

Key Events of the Season - by Iain Manson

01-Jul
Rangers signed Chris Woods for a world record fee for a goalkeeper £600,000 from Norwich City

07-Jul
Israel’s Captain Avi Cohen of Maccabi Tel Aviv joined Rangers for training

24-Jul
Rangers made a bid of £700,000 for English International Terry Butcher of Ipswich Town

01-Aug
Rangers signed Terry Butcher for a Scottish Record fee of £725,000 from Ipswich Town

07-Aug
Rangers re-signed Jimmy Nicholl from West Bromwich Albion in exchange for Bobby Williamson also Maccabi Tel Aviv set a fee of £100,000 for Avi Cohen which Rangers rejected

08-Aug
Iain Ferguson was loaned to Dundee for the season

19-Aug
Dundee United made a bid of £150,000 for Ian Ferguson, who turn down the move so Rangers recalled him to Ibrox, also Dougie Bell was loaned to St Mirren

22-Aug
Iain Ferguson was transferred to Dundee United for £150,000

03-Sep
Rangers failed in a bid for Davie Dodds of Swiss club Neuchatel

21-Sep
Rangers gave free transfers to John MacDonald, Graham Currie, Alan McCluckie, Tom Young and Alex Rae

29-Sep
Phil Boersma joined the club as trainer-coach taking over from Physiotherapist Bob Findlay who left

30-Sep
Rangers recalled Dougie Bell from St Mirren

30-Oct
Rangers put Nicky Walker on the transfer list

10-Nov
Rangers failed in a bid of £150,000 for Avi Cohen of Maccabi Tel Aviv

11-Nov
David Holmes took over from John Paton who left the club as Chairman

14-Nov
Rangers signed Lindsay Hamilton from Stenhousemuir for £25,000

27-Nov
Rangers were linked with Graham Roberts of Tottenham Hotspur

14-Dec
Rangers signed Neil Woods of Doncaster Rovers for £100,000, and put Hugh Burns on the transfer list

18-Dec
Rangers failed in a bid of £850,000 for Richard Gough of Tottenham Hotspur

21-Dec
Rangers signed Graham Roberts of Tottenham Hotspur for £450,000

31-Dec
Rangers transferred Dougie Bell to Hibernian, Craig Paterson to Motherwell, Stuart Beattie and Colin Miller to Doncaster Rovers

08-Jan
Serville failed in a bid of £200,000 for Ted McMinn

20-Jan
Ted McMinn was transferred to Serville of Spain for £225,000

31-Jan
Chris Woods set a New British Record of 1,125 minute without conceding a goal

03-Feb
Donald Mackay left the club to become Manger of Blackburn Rovers

05-Feb
Israeli David Pizanti joined on a month trial

10-Feb
Colin West was put on the transfer list

12-Feb
Colin West turned down a £170,000 move to Sheffield Wednesday

26-Feb
Rangers failed in a bid for Republic of Ireland International Ray Houghton of Oxford United

12-Mar
Rangers failed in a bid for Gary Mills of Nottingham Forest

19-Mar
Rangers signed David Kirkwood from East Fife for £30,000

20-Mar
Rangers signed Jimmy Phillips from Bolton Wanderers for £75,000

24-Mar
Hugh Burns joined Hamilton Accies on loan for the rest of the season

29-Mar
Rangers were linked with Mark Hateley of AC Milan

14-May
Rangers asked about Ricky Hill of Luton Town and also new interest in Avi Cohen

17-May
Rangers signed Avi Cohen from Maccabi Tel Aviv for £100,000

24-May
Rangers signed John McGregor from Liverpool on a free transfer

31-May
Rangers made a bid to sign Trevor Francis from Sampdoria

08-Jun
Mark Hateley turn down a move to Rangers to sign for AC Monaco

11-Jun
Hearts made a bid of £500,000 for Davie McPherson

23-Jun
Rangers made a bid of £750,000 for Trevor Steven of Everton