Revenge - A Dish Best Served Cold

THE LATE, GREAT HUGHIE TAYLOR'S piece on Rangers' first European campaign, in his Scottish Football Annual, number four I think, had a great deal to do with me wanting to become a Sports Writer. Kilmarnock's finest's tale of how the Fans With Typewriters adjusted to this new world of European travel over three incident-filled games, really captured my imagination.

Little did I then know, for instance, that I would later be by-lined on the same page as Hughie, who I was pleased to call a friend and mentor, but, I too, would know the relief of having Tommy McGhee, name-checked as Hughie's copy-taker as he telephoned in his report from Nice, saving my arse in similar circumstances, some 30 years later, in the days before lap tops and the world-wide web.

These thoughts crossed my mind last night, as, Courtesy of TNT Sports, I watched Rangers crush Nice 4-1 in their latest Europa League game. Now, I cannot really comment on the relative merits of the Nice team of 1956 and the shower which Rangers took apart last week – after adopting that Ibrox classic: “The cry was no defenders”. I do however, in my mind, know that Niven; Shearer, Caldow; McColl, Young, Logie; Scott, Simpson, Murray, Baird, Hubbard, the first Rangers XI to venture into Europe, was a better team than the one which won so-easily on Thursday night.

Older Rangers fans still insist, their team was kicked off the park back in 1956 – Thursday night's win showed, Revenge truly is a dish best served cold.

Yes, it was a very-good win, but, they were playing nobody and probably left three or four goals out there. The squad which Philippe Clement has assmebled is probably better-suited to playing a counter-attacking “European” brand of football than it is the Charge of the Light Blue Brigade style demanded by their fans against the diddy teams they face in Scotland. There are still, however, several players in the present-day squad who are quite clearly Not Rangers Class.

AT LEAST Rangers won. Hearts were woeful in falling to Cercle Brugge in their Europa Conference League game. Right from the off, I could only ever see one result, a home win. Hearts have one or two reasonable players, but, as with the Ibrox outfit, they are giving a wage to several players who are clearly not Hearts class.

When I was young, the DC Thomson school of comics: Adventure, Hotspur, Rover and Wizard were print comics, you had to read the stories, rather than gaze at comic strips.

I remember one about an eccentric millionaire football club owner, who built his team by kidnapping good players then transferring their skills to unknowns, who would immediately become superstars for his team.

OK, very far-fetched pre-Marvel stuff, but, watching Lawrence Shankland in Brugge, I was wondering if maybe that's what has happened to him. Right now, the Hearts' Captain cannot even buy a goal and it's tragic to watch him struggle.

However, I am sure, once he does get one into the net, the curse will be lifted and the goals will flow again.

I MENTIONED this on Facebook on Wednesday night, but, no harm in rehashing it. Wining the Scottish Cup in 1987 got St Mirren into the following season's European Cup-Winners Cup, where they went out to “Belgian Minnows” Mechelen.

The Buddies were roundly criticised in Scotland for losing to such an apparently weak team. Except, Mechelen went all the way to the final, where they beat Ajax to lift the trophy. As my old mucker Campbell Money is still insisting – Mechelen were a very-good team, losing to them was no disgrace.

Mind you, regardless of the fact they have a habit of beating us at international level, while Mechelen thumping St Mirren is not the only instance of a Belgian club knocking a Scottish one out of Europe, we Scots still appear to think the Belgians are not as good as us. Well Club Brugge knocked that one on the head at Celtic Park on Wednesday night.

I thought they were the better team on the night, but, well done to Celtic for coming back to earn a draw.

IT IS ONE THING to beat a virtual reserve team in Europe in midweek, quite another to limp past dire domestic opposition at the weekend, and that's the big problem facing this Rangers team at the moment. They really are a curate's egg of a team right now.

An old friend of mine, no longer with us, but happy to admit he was never more than a journeyman professional, even though he strutted his stuff in the old pre-Premiership English First Division, once told me this story.

He had been down South at a reunion of his old English side and the club's veteran kitman asked him: “What's gone wrong with Scottish football and Scottish footballers? You guys used to come down here, demanding the ball all the time in training and in games, influencing affairs, nowadays the Scots we get here don't appear to want the ball – they will run all day, but can no longer create.”

OK, there are gey few Scottish accents, or Scottish-reared players in the current Rangers team, but, otherwise, they exactly meet the critique of that old kit man. Yes, they generally pass the diddy teams off the park in domestic games, but, for me, a lot of the passing is a case of passing the buck.

Rangers have always had players who could play a killer pass; just from the guys I've seen: Jim Baxter (the best of them all), Ian McMillan, Bobby Russell, Ian Durrant, Derek Ferguson, Paul Gascoigne, to name but a few. None of the current lot comes remotely close to that level of invention.

And, at Perth, on Sunday, they were playing a St Johnstone team I would rate as no more than good Junior standard. I fear a long, hard winter for Ra Peepul. This league is now more than ever, Celtic's to lose.