Ally McCoist - Rangers Legend

394 Pages·2014·10.43 MB·English

by  Aird

For Sharon, Eva and
Finlay – simply the best

CONTENTS

1.T itle Page
2.D edication
3.In troduction
4.C hapter One THE EARLY YEARS: 1962–78
5.C hapter Two THE SAINTS: 1978–81
6.C hapter Three ROKER DAYS: 1981–83
7.C hapter Four A DREAM COME TRUE: 1983–84
8.C hapter Five ALMOST THE END OF THE ROAD: 1984–86
9.C hapter Six THE AWAKENING: 1986–87
10.C hapter Seven GOALS, GOALS, GOALS: 1987–89
11.C hapter Eight MO JOHNSTON AND ITALIA ’90: 1989–90
12.C hapter Nine THE JUDGE: 1990–91
13.C hapter Ten A PAIR OF GOLDEN BOOTS: 1991–93
14.C hapter Eleven INJURY HELL: 1993–95
15.C hapter Twelve COOP: 1956–95
16.C hapter Thirteen THE LAST CHANCE SALOON: 1995–96
17.C hapter Fourteen EURO ’96, RECORDS AND NINE-IN-A-ROW: 1996–97
18.C hapter Fifteen THE FINAL HURRAH: 1997–98
19.C hapter Sixteen FOOTBALL IN PERSPECTIVE
20.C hapter Seventeen THE FINAL CHAPTER: 1998–2001
21.C hapter Eighteen AFTER THE BALL: 2001–07
22.C hapter Nineteen COMING HOME
23.C hapter Twenty RIDING THE ROLLERCOASTER
24.C hapter Twenty-One BOSS MAN
25.C hapter Twenty-Two WE DON’T DO WALKING AWAY
26.C hapter Twenty-Three REBIRTH OF THE RANGERS
27.A ppendix A GOALSCORING RECORD AND CAREER MILESTONES
28.A ppendix B GOALSCORING RECORD WITH RANGERS AGAINST SENIOR SCOTTISH
LEAGUE TEAMS
29.A ppendix C GOALSCORING RECORD FOR RANGERS IN EUROPEAN COMPETITION
30.A ppendix D ALLY MCCOIST’S INTERNATIONAL RECORD WITH SCOTLAND
31.N otes
32.P lates
33.C opyright
INTRODUCTION
F
or four months between February and June 2012 Rangers Football Club was
in turmoil and the tortuous administration process and eventual liquidation of the
parent company became the elephant in the room. From being an ardent follower
of all things Rangers I stepped back a little and rather than engage with all media
channels, I became detached, hoping that if I ignored the stories, this awful event
would go away. However, although it seemed impossible for an institution the
size of Rangers Football Club to be in such a parlous state, I had to face up to the
fact that the club was teetering on the brink of football oblivion, and at various
stages of our final home fixture of that fateful 2011/12 season against
Motherwell I seriously contemplated that this may well have been the last time
that I experienced the unique adrenalin rush of watching my heroes at Ibrox.
However, it is often said that where there is light there is hope and throughout
this desperate epoch the illuminating source of optimism for me and my fellow
followers was a man who epitomises what it is to be a Ranger, Ally McCoist.
From the day and hour we slipped into administration, Ally stood up, rallied the
troops with some rousing rhetoric and urged us to keep the faith. Although he
had always been my football hero since I was a wee boy, McCoist, midway
through his debut season as Rangers manager, was now elevating himself to the
ranks of footballing immortality.
From the moment I first read about Ally McCoist in the match programme for
the 1986 Scottish League Cup semi-final, I have developed a kaleidoscope of
magical McCoist memories, with his stunning overhead kick against Hibernian
in the 1993 League Cup Final and the spectacular diving header against Leeds
United standing out. Then there is the match at Stark’s Park, Kirkcaldy towards
the end of the 1995/96 season when his hat-trick in a last-gasp 4-2 win over
Raith Rovers hauled us off the ropes as our hopes of holding off Celtic as we
sought an eighth successive league title were taking a pounding. There is no
doubt that McCoist’s goals that day were among the most important he netted
for Rangers and that is why this memory sticks out for me. Without them the
cherished target of nine-in-a-row may well never have been reached and, for me,
this epitomised McCoist and what his presence meant to Rangers; his
goalscoring instinct and ability to score crucial goals meant he was
indispensable.
Ally’s Rangers career may have come to an end over fifteen years ago but the
images of him netting goals with breathtaking regularity in that revered royal
blue jersey live on. In my opinion this country has not produced anyone of his
calibre in the past thirty years and contemporary accounts from previous decades
suggest that he is arguably the finest purveyor of the art of goal scoring that
Scotland has ever produced. I also believe that McCoist deserves to be
mentioned alongside the most potent marksmen who have played in the British
Isles – Ian Rush, Alan Shearer and their like – and it irks me that the reason why
he is not is because he plundered the majority of his goals north of Hadrian’s
Wall. Critics also tell us that he was lucky and that he missed more chances than
he converted, but McCoist was a natural goal-getter and by the time he had
honed and perfected that art in the late 1980s he would have scored goals
consistently in any company.
I have always enjoyed reading and writing about Rangers and paid close
attention to Ally’s post-Rangers career too, following the fortunes of
Kilmarnock for the three seasons he played in Ayrshire and I rarely missed an
episode of A Question of Sport when he was one of the team captains. And in
2007, not long after Ally had returned to Ibrox as assistant manager to Walter
Smith, I teamed that passion with the litany of McCoist memories I had, to
develop a biographical account of Ally’s career. The manuscript eventually took
shape and I am grateful to John Blake Publishing who believed that Ally
McCoist – Portrait of a Hero was worthy of publication. This was updated in
2011 and the original incarnation evolved into Ally McCoist – Rangers Hero and
this latest revision has allowed me to recount the role that Ally has played in one
of the most harrowing periods in Rangers’ 141-year history.
Administration and the subsequent resuscitation of Rangers was a painful
experience for everyone with an affinity for the club and I did not relish opening
up old wounds when it came to researching this grim episode in our history. I
hoped that it might prove cathartic, that finally delving into the details of that
ghastly spell would help to heal the scars that were created. In the end the
process was far from therapeutic but by focusing on the role that Ally McCoist
played in this debacle I drew one clear conclusion: my idol has been a colossus
over the last eighteen months. Even neutral observers have to concede that he
has gone above and beyond the call of duty during the days when his beloved
Rangers lurched towards possible obscurity.
Still a managerial novice and battle weary after spending months fighting fires
that he should not have had to fight – infernos that even the most experienced
football manager would have struggled to douse – McCoist found himself in the
firing line, with some, including members of the Rangers supporting fraternity,
seeing fit to criticise and question his suitability for the managerial role at
Rangers. Ally has made some notable mistakes over the period and his tactical
approach on occasion has been questioned – but how many others have had to
cut their managerial teeth at a gargantuan club like Rangers whilst carrying the
weight of that club’s woes squarely on their shoulders? There were times when
he was spending as much time suited and booted in boardrooms wooing
investors and defending the club’s honour as he was on the lush green training
pitches at Murray Park readying his players for a forthcoming match. Hopefully
now McCoist can focus on managing and coaching his players in season 2013/14
and beyond, leaving all and sundry better placed to assess his managerial
credentials. As a reward for the dignity, pride and passion that he has showed in
the last eighteen months he deserves the opportunity to lead Rangers back to the
pinnacle of the Scottish game.
There are some individuals that I’d like to give special mention to, notably
Michelle Signore, Allie Collins and latterly Clare Christian at Blake who
provided support and understanding throughout the publication process, and Paul
Smith, Rob Mason and Richard Cairns who provided valuable assistance and
indispensable information about Ally’s time with St Johnstone, Sunderland and
Kilmarnock respectively. I would like to give special mention to the staff at The
Mitchell Library in Glasgow too as they were always polite and helpful as I
trawled through the archives in my attempts to unearth as much information as I
could about one of Scotland’s finest and most popular footballers.
Finally I must thank my family for their patience and understanding. My mum
and dad have kept me on the right lines and chipped in with a constructive
critique when they proofread the manuscript, while my wife Sharon understood
how passionate I was about writing this book and she has too often had to play
second fiddle as I shaped this tribute to my idol. Sharon has also provided me
with two fantastic children, four-year-old Eva and Finlay, who arrived in March
2011. I dedicate this book to them all; they are simply the best!
And I must thank Ally too, not just for the joy he brought during his glittering
playing career but also for the role he played during the recent dark days. This
man bleeds red, white and blue and I hope somewhere in his office at Murray
Park there is a well-thumbed version of one of my books. Hopefully Ally and the
Rangers supporters who idolise him just like I do are satisfied with the tribute
that I have paid him.
CHAPTER ONE
THE EARLY YEARS: 1962–78
I
n 1962, the 24th of September fell on a Monday. The players and staff of
Rangers Football Club were on their travels, destination Seville, for the second
leg of their first-round European Cup-Winners’ Cup tie against the local side.
They arrived in the Spanish city in fine fettle, defending a four-goal lead from
the first leg at Ibrox and having thrashed Hibernian 5-1 at Easter Road in the
Scottish League Championship two days earlier.
This was a Rangers team maturing into one of the club’s greatest-ever sides.
Under the astute stewardship of James Scotland Symon, they had reached the
last four of the European Champions Cup, the continent’s premier club
competition, in the 1959/60 season (where they lost heavily to Eintracht
Frankfurt), and had become the first British side to contest the final of a major
European tournament when they lost 4-1 on aggregate against Italian cracks
Fiorentina in the 1960/61 European Cup-Winners’ Cup.
At that time, Rangers boasted players of the calibre of Jim Baxter, Davie
Wilson, John Greig, Ralph Brand and Jimmy Millar, and while they had not won
the League Championship in 1961/62 (they were runners-up, finishing three
points behind Dundee), they had secured the Cup Double by winning the
Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup. The current season, 1962/63, would
witness the reclamation of the championship and the retention of the Scottish
Cup, but the following season would surpass all of those achievements, as
Symon’s men went on to sweep the board in Scotland to complete the domestic
Treble for only the second time in the club’s ninety-year history.
Away from football matters, the early autumn of 1962 saw Elvis Presley
topping the UK singles chart with his rendition of ‘She’s Not You’, while boxing
fans were at fever pitch as they looked forward to the world heavyweight title
fight between champion Floyd Patterson and the fearsome Charles ‘Sonny’
Liston on 25 September. Elsewhere in 1962, cinema-goers willing to part with
the equivalent of 14p were able to take in the blockbuster movies Dr No, Cape
Fear and Lawrence of Arabia, although all the talk in Hollywood was of matters
off-screen following the death on 5 August of the iconic actress Marilyn
Monroe, who passed away after taking an overdose of sleeping pills.
Oblivious to all these goings-on was a new arrival into the world. At Bellshill
Royal Infirmary in North Lanarkshire, proud parents Jessie and Neil McCoist
announced the birth of their second child, a son they named Alistair Murdoch
McCoist. Little did anyone know at the time, particularly the Rangers people in
Seville, but the arrival of young Mr McCoist would ultimately prove an
extremely significant event in the history of Rangers Football Club. The new
addition to the McCoist family shared a birthday with the famous American
author F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, who were
born on this day in 1896 and 1936 respectively. McCoist’s birthday also
coincided with the anniversary of the world’s oldest horse race, with the St
Leger Stakes being run at Doncaster for the first time on 24 September 1776,
thus providing an early indication that the ‘Sport of Kings’ would play a
significant role in the life of the new arrival.
Incidentally, Rangers’ pre-match confidence was somewhat misplaced, as
they got an almighty scare in the city famous for its orange crop. The Light
Blues lost by two goals to nil in the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium, but still
managed to progress to the next round 4-2 on aggregate. The tie was marred by
an ugly brawl that unfolded in the closing stages. All twenty-two players were
involved in the fracas, prompting the referee to call time on the match before the
ninety minutes had elapsed. Elsewhere, in the boxing bout, Liston ruthlessly
hammered Patterson, knocking him out inside two rounds to become world
heavyweight champion, a crown he would hold until a young upstart named
Cassius Clay took it from him some three years later.
The McCoist family were from East Kilbride, the first of Scotland’s ‘new
towns’. Prior to the Second World War, the city of Glasgow was overcrowded
and poor housing standards were rife, so the Clyde Valley Regional Plan was
drawn up in 1946 with the purpose of alleviating the congestion through the
building of satellite ‘new towns’. East Kilbride, located approximately ten miles
south of Glasgow, had swelled from a small village to a large burgh in 1930, and
became one of the sites chosen to handle the overspill. In 1947, it was the first
town to be awarded ‘new town’ status and set the benchmark for the others that
followed in Glenrothes, Cumbernauld, Livingston and Irvine.
McCoist’s parents, Neil and Jessie, set up home in the Calderwood district of
the town, one of the largest areas of East Kilbride and one which is famous for
being the birthplace of two of the eighteenth century’s medical pioneers, the
Hunter brothers, William and John. Both were outstanding anatomists, with
John, in particular, credited with innumerable medical advances, and sited at the
place of their birth today is the Hunter House Museum.
McCoist’s father worked as a fitter with Weir Pumps of Cathcart, while his
mum was a secretary. Ally and his older sister Allison, who completed the
family unit, enjoyed an excellent upbringing, with their parents grafting hard to
provide a comfortable life for them. ‘My dad did constant night shifts for twenty
years to provide for me and my sister,’ said Ally some years later. ‘We [he and
Allison] were brought up to appreciate the value of money.’1
Both parents were also hugely supportive of Ally’s early football career. Neil
eventually took over the running of the local boys’ club that McCoist played for,
but there was no favouritism where his son was concerned, with young Ally
being treated the same as the other players in the team in a bid to ensure that he
kept his feet firmly on the ground. Jessie also lent a hand by providing some
much-needed sustenance for the aspiring footballers after games and training
sessions, and the McCoist residence would often double as a dormitory for the
players. After McCoist elected to pursue a career as a professional, Neil and
Jessie would also make regular trips to watch their son in action, with Jessie still
a regular in the Ibrox stands every other Saturday.
That unstinting parental support was welcome, because it was apparent from
an early age that young McCoist had a penchant for the game of football. ‘The
Beautiful Game’ was popular in the family, as both his mother and father were
avid football followers. Neil followed Rangers and was involved in the running
of a local boys’ club team, while Jessie had been an ardent supporter of
Hibernian in her younger days. She idolised Gordon Smith, one of the quintet
that made up the Edinburgh side’s ‘Famous Five’ forward line that terrorised
Scottish defences when Hibernian won the Scottish League Championship three
times between 1948 and 1952, and had been a football devotee ever since her
teenage years.
In those early years of his life growing up in East Kilbride, seldom was young
McCoist seen without a football at his feet. His mum still has his first pair of
football boots – ‘They’re so small they look like toys,’2 she told Sue Mott in an
interview for her son’s testimonial programme in 1994 – and she was sure from
an early stage that her boy was destined for greatness. She wasn’t alone either. ‘I
admit he looked like a budding star to me, but I might have been biased,’ she
said. ‘I knew, though, that he had something special when a gentleman that
stayed across our street in East Kilbride told me that when Alistair played with
the ball he suddenly looked so much older and more capable than all the other
children.’3