The manager wanted Rangers to be able to attract to Ibrox names such as Dundee United’s Andy Gray, recently acquired by Aston Villa, and Alan Hansen, who had left Partick to join Liverpool, instead of allowing these home-grown players to head south for financial reasons. Crucially, however, Wallace also demanded a hefty pay rise. Striker Derek Johnstone later recounted the manager’s explanation for his departure from Rangers, ‘When I saw him that Thursday he just said to me, “Deedle [Waddell] won’t pay me any more money. He just refuses an increase, and I know many managers in the game down south are getting much more than me, so I’m getting out and that’s where I’m heading.”’
Wallace and Waddell had in fact been engaged in a running dispute over money for a considerable period of time. The relationship between the pair had for several years now been fractious, and the situation could not have been helped by Waddell’s erratic state of mind at this time, as the lifelong Rangers man began to succumb to the disease of alcoholism from about the middle of the decade onwards. He would often be half-cut by early afternoon, provoking drunken tirades, usually directed towards Wallace, with the testimony of many contemporary journalists revealing the heated arguments and fraught exchanges between the pair, often filled with expletives, which could be heard as they attended their duties at Ibrox. Club physio Tommy Craig remembers, ‘Even at the time of winning Trebles under Jock Wallace, he would come into the dressing room and shake hands with everybody and ignore Jock completely before walking out again.’
Waddell later described Wallace, back in Scotland a few years later and managing Motherwell, as ‘a fucking clown’ in front of the Fir Park directors, an insult for which he was subsequently forced to apologise, although not to Wallace, but to the Motherwell chairman. The Ibrox supremo’s health and state of mind appeared to be deteriorating, his dependency on alcohol exacerbated by a stubborn refusal to seek help for his worsening addiction, and as he fell victim to the disease, Waddell, never much of a Pollyanna even at the best of times, became ever more difficult to deal with and relate to, an increasingly cantankerous drunk.
Despite his heavy drinking, however, Waddell remained the club’s vice-chairman and managing director, whereas Wallace was middle management, so in the end there was only going to be one winner. Wallace quit his beloved Rangers at the end of May to take up the challenge of steering Leicester City out of the English second division, although it wasn’t long before he was followed out the door at Ibrox by his former boss and erstwhile nemesis at the club. Clearly feeling the strain, Waddell also resigned just over a year later, although he remained a director until 1984 and oversaw the completion of the new stadium in 1981, at which point the board terminated his £15,000-a-year consultancy. After resigning his directorship, he retained the title of honorary director until his death in 1992.
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In the wake of Jock Wallace’s unexpected resignation, Rangers looked to their captain of the last 13 years, John Greig, who was appointed the club’s seventh manager on 24 May 1978, just a day after Wallace’s departure. With the two Jocks leaving their posts within a few weeks of each other, Greig would renew his rivalry with Scotland colleague and his counterpart at Parkhead for many years, Billy McNeill, who took over at Celtic as Stein’s replacement just four days later. An imposing defender, Greig had acquired near legendary status during his playing days at the club, a reputation which would later be confirmed when he was voted Rangers’ greatest ever player in a poll of the club’s supporters, and he appeared to be the obvious, ideal candidate to take over from Wallace.
Greig’s time in charge at Ibrox began promisingly with a famous win over Giovanni Trapattoni’s Juventus in the European Cup, a team which would provide nine of Italy’s World Cup-winning squad in Spain a few years later. Switching to a sweeper system with Sandy Jardine deployed behind a back four, Rangers escaped from Turin with a 1-0 defeat, but scored goals in each half through Alex MacDonald and Gordon Smith in the return leg at Ibrox to progress to a second-round match against PSV Eindhoven. The Dutch champions were defending a 25-year unbeaten home record in Europe, so when a 0-0 draw was secured at Ibrox followed by a first-minute goal for the home team in Holland, the Dutchmen became overwhelming favourites to progress. Rangers were fearful of another harsh lesson, similar to the one dished out to them in the same country only a year earlier by Twente, but they managed to turn the tie around late in the game, with a terrific final goal from youngster Bobby Russell securing a 3-2 aggregate win.
The signs of progress under Greig were indisputable and the manager had raised hopes of a potentially memorable European campaign with his detailed and thorough preparation, learned from Waddell, and his intelligent analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of continental opponents. However, after a narrow 2-1 defeat in the following round to the German side Cologne, who progressed to a semi-final meeting with eventual winners Nottingham Forest, many senior players wore the look of men who knew that their last chance of winning a European trophy had gone. The side was ageing and Greig was now determined to put in place a youth programme, something which had been conspicuously lacking at Rangers under his predecessor, and he managed to persuade the club’s best young player, Derek Johnstone, who had been agitating for a move, to remain at Ibrox. The new manager handed the versatile and experienced 25-year-old the Rangers captaincy and switched him to his preferred position in central defence, but ultimately, over the next few years, Greig struggled to implement the changes which he felt were necessary at the club.
The championship that season came down to a final ‘Old Firm’ encounter on 21 May 1979 in a game held over from the freezing winter. Earlier in the month, Rangers had beaten Celtic 1-0 at Hampden, where the game was moved to accommodate the largest possible crowd, with work already under way on the reconstruction of Ibrox. Rangers knew that even a draw at Parkhead would suit them, as the club still had two fixtures remaining in the league due to a twice replayed Scottish Cup Final with Hibernian, which the Ibrox men eventually won 3-2.
With the League Cup already secured as well, another Treble was in the club’s sights when Rangers took the lead through Alex MacDonald after only nine minutes and the visitors’ chances improved even further when Celtic’s Doyle was red-carded early in the second half. It proved to be a topsy-turvy game, however, as Celtic fought back, with the ten men edging ahead following goals from Aitken and McCluskey. The title was heading to Ibrox once again when Bobby Russell equalised to make the score 2-2 late in the game, but an own goal from Jackson allowed Celtic to regain the lead and Murdo MacLeod made it 4-2 with an effort from distance, with what was almost the last kick of the game, on a famous night for the Parkhead men. It was the closest John Greig would come to winning the league as Rangers manager.
Sadly for the Ibrox men, over the next few years, they never seemed to fully recover from the traumatic setback of losing the league to Celtic in such a fashion, after being a goal up and a man up in the second half of a decisive game from which only a draw was required. The following year, Greig’s side finished the season without a trophy, trailing in a distant fifth in the Premier Division behind Alex Ferguson’s victorious Aberdeen team, who claimed the championship for only the second time in the club’s history with a flourish after a 5-0 trouncing of Hibernian at Easter Road. The Pittodrie side finished a point ahead of Celtic, who were held to a goalless draw by St Mirren on the same day, and in the process delivered Ferguson the first trophy of his career in management. Aberdeen had earlier inflicted further disappointment on Rangers by eliminating them from the League Cup at the third round stage, and frustratingly, after a decent draw in Spain against eventual winners Valencia, Greig’s side were knocked out of the Cup Winners’ Cup following a 3-1 defeat in the Ibrox return, a result inspired by the legendary Argentinian forward, Mario Kempes.
The Scottish Cup offered the prospect of respite after Rangers made it to the final, but they eventually lost to Celtic, with the only goal of the game coming in extra time when
McGrain’s shot from distance was deftly turned into the net by McCluskey. It turned out to be a memorable final, although sadly not for the match itself, decent spectacle though it was, played out in glorious sunshine, but for the shocking scenes of alcohol-induced hooliganism which succeeded it. The sight of Celtic supporters, some already on the pitch after the game and celebrating with the Parkhead players at the traditional Celtic, or King’s Park end of the ground, was too much for some to bear, as hundreds of Rangers fans, in their indignation at the result, swarmed down from the terraces on to the field in an attempt to confront their rivals.
The Hampden match commander, Chief Superintendent Hamish MacBean, described the unfolding scene, ‘It was kids who came on at first from the Celtic end, over the safety fence. Now, when you get one side winning an Old Firm final, the supporters of the losing side normally head for the exits as quickly as they can, leaving the stadium to the victors. But I will never forget what I saw at the other end. The Rangers supporters were heading out and most of them were halfway up the terracing. But I always remember the sudden change of direction. For when they saw what was happening at the other end, with bodies coming over the fence, they suddenly stopped, turned en masse, headed downwards again and swept on to the pitch. They were then joined by reinforcements and in no time the field was covered.’
Unfortunately, MacBean had stationed most of his troops outside the ground, where the worst trouble was anticipated, instead of deploying a cordon of officers around the track at the end of the game, and with both sets of supporters enjoying almost unfettered access to the Hampden pitch, a full-scale riot ensued. As the Rangers fans swarmed towards the opposite end of the stadium, police, other officials, anyone in fact who was unlucky enough to be in the way of the rampaging Bears was subject to the same treatment. A photographer, who was dealt a hefty kick in the shin by a light blue warrior, retaliated by smacking his assailant over the head with his camera, leaving the unfortunate victim to be carried off the field on a stretcher. Unpoliced, both sets of fans had now invaded the field in considerable numbers and there were charges in both directions, accompanied by a hailstorm of glass bottles being hurled hither and thither.
All of this was played out live on television, with BBC commentator Archie Macpherson, by his own admission lapsing into war correspondent mode, observing on air, ‘It does seem to me pathetic, scandalous and disgraceful that this should have been allowed to happen. Hampden Park meets all the requirements for curtailing spectators from coming across and yet I am astonished that there didn’t seem to be a cordon of police down that end of the ground. That’s where it started. These supporters didn’t come on belligerently, they came on to congratulate their team but that was enough to signal a counter-charge from the other end.’
Eventually the cavalry arrived, mounted police charging into the midst of the drunken combatants and dispersing them, but not before 100 people had been injured in the disturbance. The final tally of casualties could have been far higher, but it seemed that, in their drunkenness, the rampaging fans were largely incapable of any serious fighting and the entire incident had lasted no more than a few crazy and eventful minutes. Just 160 people were eventually arrested inside the ground, a small percentage of those who had participated in the disorder.
Afterwards the SFA, through president Willie Harkness, blamed the Celtic players for celebrating in front of their fans, wearing hats and collecting scarfs, and Celtic supporters for their over-exuberance. The lap of honour celebrations had been banned in Scotland after similar scenes at the League Cup Final back in October 1965, when disgruntled Rangers fans invaded the Hampden pitch following Celtic’s 2-1 win. By 1980, it seemed, lessons still hadn’t been learnt. The police, on the defensive and refusing to accept any blame themselves for stationing the majority of duty officers outside the ground, and leaving those inside Hampden under-resourced and outnumbered when trouble erupted, seemed to agree with Harkness that it was all the fault of the Celtic players and supporters, despite what the match commander had witnessed. Even the Secretary of State for Scotland, George Younger MP, reiterated the SFA’s view in the House of Commons that it was ‘drink and the actions of some Celtic fans’ that was responsible.
The Rangers board, wary of the club’s dreadful reputation by this stage and anticipating an avalanche of condemnation in the press as well as the inevitable questions once more over the signing policy, issued a terse and wholly inadequate statement saying that they concurred with the views of Harkness and Younger. Celtic chairman Desmond White, perhaps just as predictably, immediately suspected a conspiracy among the blazered community. ‘They blame us,’ he stated in reference to the reactions from the SFA, the police and Rangers. ‘It annoys me. In fact it appals me,’ White added, pointing out that the only people who had entered the field with the intent of causing trouble were the Rangers fans, and he claimed that the Celtic players had in fact received permission to approach their supporters.
In the end, both clubs were fined £20,000 and ordered to a meeting where they were asked to renounce all forms of sectarianism. Celtic complied, but Rangers responded with defiance, maintaining that the club’s policy on the matter was already in accordance with the governing body’s wishes, a reply which was not to the SFA’s satisfaction. However, the matter was soon dropped and another opportunity to address the perennial issue affecting football in the west of Scotland was missed. There were, though, other repercussions for the game over the longer term, as a blanket prohibition on alcohol at all football grounds in Scotland, and on trains and coaches carrying spectators to matches, was introduced after the final, a ban which remains in place to this day.
With no European distractions to concern them after a dismal, trophy-less campaign, an ageing Rangers team managed to remain unbeaten in their first 15 games of the new season, a run which included home and away wins over Celtic, with the 3-0 victory at Ibrox in November inspired by Willie Johnston, one of the heroes of Barcelona. Approaching his 34th birthday and back at the club on a short-term deal, Johnston had in the meantime enjoyed a seven-year spell at West Brom and been sent home in disgrace from the 1978 World Cup after failing a drugs test. Since his return to Ibrox, he had already been sanctioned for stamping on Aberdeen’s John McMaster, with the forward claiming in his honest, if somewhat flimsy defence, that he had mistaken his victim for Willie Miller.
Rangers’ season fell apart, however, after elimination from the League Cup by Aberdeen was followed by an ignominious exit from the Anglo-Scottish Cup at the hands of Chesterfield. Respite once again came in the Scottish Cup, where after a replay in the Hampden final, Dundee United were beaten 4-1, and later in the year, in November 1981, the League Cup was also won, with Ian Redford’s last-minute chip from the edge of the box giving Greig’s side a 2-1 win in the final, again over the Tannadice men, but overall the sense was one of stagnation and decline. The club was struggling to attract players, as Ally McCoist, later an Ibrox hero, rejected Greig’s advances to sign for Sunderland, and the team were well off the pace in the league. Aberdeen took Rangers’ scalp in the 1982 Scottish Cup Final, 4-1 after extra time and the European adventure had lasted only one round, after an early exit in the Cup Winners’ Cup to Dukla Prague.
Despite the capture of two cups in the space of six months, the emergence of the ‘New Firm’ was bad news for Greig and Rangers, for although Celtic managed to keep up with the ‘Dandy Dons’ of Aberdeen and the ‘Tangerine Terrors’ of Dundee United, capturing the league in 1981 and ’82, Rangers could not. In 1982/83, Greig’s team reached two cup finals but lost both, 2-1 to Celtic in the League Cup and 1-0 to Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup, while Dundee United took the league title for the first and only time in the club’s history. The Tannadice men had claimed the championship by a single point from Aberdeen and Celtic, but Greig’s Rangers were nowhere to be seen in the title race, eventually finishing fully 17 points off the pace.
In Europe, spirits were raised by a 2-0 aggregate win over Bo
russia Dortmund, but against Cologne in the following round, after a 2-1 win at Ibrox, Rangers were thrashed 5-0 in Germany. One of the main problems for Greig was in replacing his ageing squad with reliable youngsters who shared the same hunger and ambition as the old stalwarts. Colin Jackson, another veteran from the successful Cup Winners’ Cup campaign of 1972, stated his belief, ‘Many of the younger lads were unprofessional… They didn’t have the same kind of respect for the manager or Rangers and that is probably why none of them went on to make a real name for themselves in the game, despite their ability.’
While there was undoubtedly some truth in Jackson’s observations, the manager also came up short in terms of the qualities and attributes required to be a successful coach at the highest level. Despite his undoubted inspirational qualities on the field, Greig, to the surprise of many observers, turned out to be a poor man manager, unable to relate to the needs and difficulties of his players in ways which might have been expected of a former captain of the club, as former team-mate Alex MacDonald remembered: ‘He lost the dressing room. He had absolutely no man management skills, absolutely zero. You wanted Greigy on the park beside you. When he wasn’t there, you missed him. Off the park his influence wasn’t the same.’
Striker Gordon Smith, he of ‘Smith must score’ fame, after his agonising late miss in the 1983 FA Cup Final against Manchester United, returning to Ibrox on a short-term loan deal from Brighton and Hove Albion, agreed, ‘As soon as I went back into the dressing room I felt, right away, that the place was a disaster. It was the worst atmosphere ever. When I had been there in my first spell the team spirit was great, the dressing room was bubbly. It was nothing like that on my return.’
Confronting the manager, Smith found that Greig was aware of the problem but incapable of rectifying the situation. Smith admitted, ‘He said, “I know, there’s a terrible atmosphere down there in the dressing room.” I couldn’t avoid saying, “Well, whose fault is that then?” He just said, “I know,” as if acknowledging his own failure. For although he was a good coach and tactician, he knew nothing about man management.’
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