Remembering Our European Glory, 40 Years On

[Senna 735]

If you're ever being waffled at about the European glory of a Scottish (née Irish) team, the chances are someone is prattling on about the fabulous, majestic, swashbuckling Lisbon Lions (who taught Brazil '70 everything) winning the European Cup in 1967.

In the minds of pretty much every Rangers fan, and a handful of learned neutrals, Rangers European Cup Winners' Cup win of 1972 was every bit as impressive, if not more so than the Perpetual Moaners' EC win. Any Scottish team to win a European trophy should be rightfully revered, however this one seems to get overlooked by not only the Pub Team win in '67, and somehow the Aberdeen ECWC win in 1983 as well.

Well, a provincial team like Aberdeen have the right to prattle on about their big success when they were a team to be feared, but the fact of the matter is Rangers do not get the credit that we deserve for that magnificent European run, taking on some of THE teams of the seventies.

In the first round, we started off by taking on the French Cup winners Rennes, dismissing them 2-1 on aggregate after a 1-1 draw in France, with goals coming from Willie 'Bud' Johnston and at Ibrox, Alex 'Doddie' McDonald. Rennes at the time were a decent side, and a good starting platform to launch our European campaign.

Bizarre isn't the word to describe the second round tie against a very strong Sporting Lisbon. Winning 3-2 at Ibrox, Colin Stein scoring twice and Willie Henderson netting in his last season for the club. Away from home, however, the score over 90 minutes was reversed, with the Portuguese side winning 3-2, taking the game to extra-time with a 5-5 aggregate score, Stein bagging another brace. Willie Henderson popped up again to give us a 6-5 aggregate lead, which was levelled 5 minutes before the end of extra time. Never mind though, we're through on the new Away Goals rule. Except that the referee forgot all about it. So briefly, Rangers lost on penalties, were knocked out, only for manager Willie Waddell to burst into the referees room afterward with a copy of the rules, and overriding the referee's decision. Rangers were through on away goals, and a trip to Italy beckoned.

Serie A leaders Torino were the quarterfinal opponents, enjoying their best season in many years and provided a stern test for Rangers. Again, 2-1 was the aggregate result, with goals from Willie Johnston in Italy and the only goal of the Ibrox tie came from the pocket dynamo Doddie. It should be noted at this time, that the Torino side were leading Serie A, ahead of the likes of Inter Milan, Roma, AC Milan and Juventus. Celtic in the European Cup at this stage, were squeaking past the mighty European power of Ujpesti Dozsa (nope, me neither) and managed to scrape through thanks to an own goal from the Hungarians in the away leg. The European Cup living on its' name and not so much the quality of participants it seems (not for the first time, but we'll get to that a little later.).

The best European team of the early to mid-1970s was the German colossus Bayern Munich. Three back-to-back European Cups, the majority of players from the victorious West German European Championship and World Cup winning teams of 1972 and 1974 were made up from the Bayern Munich players of the time. Two of the biggest names in world football were present - Franz Beckenbauer and Paul Breitner - and in Germany, we managed to hold out the overwhelming favourites to a 1-1 draw, with fans looking forward to at least taking the match back to Govan with a chance at going through. An early howitzer of a goal from Sandy Jardine gave us the advantage, and the soon to be triple-European Cup winners could not find a way through. Derek Parlane completed the scoring on 22 minutes, a somewhat scrappy goal essentially putting the best club team in the world at that point out. It's easy to over-hype this result from a Rangers fans point of view, and easier still to deride it from a, shall we say 'everyone who dislikes Rangers' point of view, as it was just the 'lowly' Cup Winners Cup. (In the European Cup on the same night we won 2-0, Dixie Deans skied his penalty to send Celtic tumbling out of the 'superior' competition.) I'll let journalistic legend Bob Crampsey sum our achievement up, saying, 'This is the best performance by any Scottish team in Europe.' He either rates this higher than the Laborious Lions of '67, or took Billy McNeill at face value when he claimed Pacific Shelf were just 'an Irish team playing in Scotland'. Either way, this was our finest hour in Europe in my opinion, even better than the final itself.

Speaking of the final, it was a cracker. As we all know, we took a marvellous 3-0 lead just after half-time, Colin Stein scored one, Willie Johnston two as the much-loved and newly-revived song goes. Two late goals from opponents Dynamo Moscow caused some late consternation in the Rangers side, but we held out nonetheless and even a late pitch invasion before the final whistle couldn't unnerve the defence, holding out to ensure that the club won a remarkably difficult European Cup Winners Cup. In terms of quality of opposition, the level was incredibly tough, and perhaps only matched by facing Barcelona, Fiorentina, Werder Bremen et al en route to Manchester '08.

The point of this whole piece though, is to illustrate just how difficult this run to the trophy was, and why we should celebrate it far more than seems to be done. Yes, okay, Pacific Shelf 595 have won the European Cup and we haven't, but let's examine that briefly, and compare it to the above run.

Round 1: Rangers 2-1 Rennes

Round 1: Celtic 5-0 FC Zurich

Round 2: Rangers (a) 6-6 Sporting Lisbon

Round 2: Nantes 2-6 Celtic

Quarter Final: Rangers 2-1 Torino

Quarter Final: Vojvodina 1-2 Celtic

Semi Final: Rangers 3-1 Bayern Munich

Semi Final: Celtic 3-1 Dukla Prague

Final: Rangers 3-2 Moscow Dynamo

Final: Celtic 2-1 Inter Milan

Torino aside, every one of our opponents have been played by either ourselves or Mump-And-Moan FC in European competition over the last ten to fifteen years. They are still decent enough teams now in some cases, and in others, still giants of their own leagues and big hitters on the European stage. (Sporting made the semi-final of the Europa League this season, Bayern the CL final) and we beat the lot of them. In the case of Bayern, we outclassed them, as mentioned before, probably the best club team on the planet at the time.

Flip-side of the coin, is anyone even sure Dukla Prague exist any more? Has anyone even heard of Vojvodina since then? Nantes and Zurich are European giants, oh, nope, sorry, they're not. Inter Milan are a huge beast in world football, but one game shouldn't merit you a Pub Team Cup and a shaky pedestal to blow smoke until armageddon about a challenge that wasn't all that impressive given the calibre of opponents.

It's an old cliché in saying that you can only beat what's in front of you, but if that is to be the case (and there is, like most clichés, a remnant of truth in it) then the Pub Team Cup win in 1967 is far and away eclipsed by the best European trophy victory by a Scottish team in history. Ironically, or probably not given the state of today's Scottish sports media, it's also the least celebrated.

http://www.rangersmedia.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=763:european-glory-40-years-on&catid=93:europe&Itemid=518

[JCDBigBear 10,831]

http://www.rangersmedia.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=763:european-glory-40-years-on&catid=93:europe&Itemid=518

No arguments with that really.

[elephants stoned 2,994]

Good post, nice to remember what they did that night,although makes me a little sad thinking where we are now compared to 40 years ago. Heres to the Barca Bears

[Thermopylae 15,287]

Even 40 years on their achievement hasn't been equalled ... I think when you look at the money that has been spent in the intervening years that speaks volumes

[Non_Sucumbi 876]

Was at every home game and the final but don't believe it was 40 years ago!!!!!

Time stands till for no man.