Gary Stevens (1988 to 1994)
Graeme Souness completed the signing of England’s right full-back in the summer of 1988 for a fee of £1m, thus uniting him with international team mates Terry Butcher and Chris Woods.
At 25 years of age, Stevens had already gained a wealth of experience South of the border winning two League Championships and an FA Cup in the process. He was part of an exceptional Everton side who had managed to briefly put their Merseyside rivals Liverpool in the shadows by the mid-80’s. European success was also achieved as the Cup Winners’ Cup made its way to Goodison in 1985. However, the events of Heysel Stadium just two weeks later denied Gary and his team mates the opportunity of a crack at the European Cup in season 1985/86. Rangers would soon capitalise on an ability to almost guarantee England’s elite players the opportunity of European Football.
Graeme Souness had been a long time admirer of Gary, the two having competed against each other regularly in highly charged Merseyside derbies. The combination play between Gary and midfielder Trevor Steven was a huge part of Everton’s rise to the top and both had gone on to demonstrate their qualities at the very highest level with England. Graeme could not fail to have noticed and both would soon be swapping the blue of Everton for the blue of Rangers.
With Captain Terry Butcher having recovered from a leg break and Richard Gough now cementing his place at centre-half (in the absence of Butcher), it was Graham Roberts who looked likely to find himself shunted to his less preferred full-back position for the start of season 1988/89. The sudden and abrupt departure of Roberts eased any potential selection headache and, instead, Rangers now had the best right back in Britain. Roberts may have suspected Souness had engineered his own departure perfectly.
During his first four seasons with Rangers (1989 SCF apart), Gary was a model of consistency and picked up a further seven major honours. His fruitful partnership with Trevor Steven was resurrected in the summer of 1989 when Souness would plunder Everton once again with Steven making the same journey from Goodison to Ibrox.
Gary was a player who would absolutely thrive in the modern game, he was exceptionally athletic and could get up and down the line for the full 90 minutes. Strong defensively, he was ahead of his time in an attacking sense where his overlapping runs and deliveries were a prominent feature of our offensive play.
Unfortunately, Gary would suffer an injury whilst on international duty in the build up to the 1992 European Championships and this would curtail his Gers career as he missed out on the majority of our Treble winning season of 1992/93. He did return to the side the following year but niggling injuries began to take their toll and by 1994 he was deemed surplus to requirements.
In all, Gary made 246 competitive first team appearances for Rangers. He scored nine goals, including the historic first during the sequence of nine successive league titles. It would be hard to argue that we have had a better right full-back over the last thirty five years.
by Rick Plews
