1960/61: Rangers v Borussia Monchengladbach, European Cup Winners Cup

THE winds of change were blowing at Ibrox, and by the start of the 1960s there were real signs that Scot Symon was creating a special team, befitting of the swinging new era.

This new Rangers squad dispelled many of the old stereotypes attached to Ibrox teams of the past, that they were dour, defensive and battered the opposition into submission. It was always a lazy description anyway, but the group assembled by Symon at the start of the sixties was one of the most talented ever seen in the southside of Glasgow. In fact, many fans consider it to be the best Rangers line-up of all time and the names still trip off the tongue today: Ritchie, Shearer, Caldow, Greig, McKinnon, Baxter, Henderson, McMillan, Millar, Brand and Wilson.

The success of the European Cup had led to UEFA introducing a second tournament for the 1960/61 season, contested by the winners of each country’s national cup competition. The European Cup Winners Cup was less glamorous than it’s older brother, but it would prove to be a productive competition for Rangers. With Scottish league winners Hearts competing in the European Cup, Rangers qualified for the new tournament by defeating Kilmarnock in the 1960 Scottish Cup Final.

After beating Hungarian Cup holders Ferencvaros, the second round saw Rangers drawn against West German opposition for the second successive season, in the form of Borussia Monchengladbach. The team from Germany’s Rhineland was an emerging force in a country that was slowly beginning to recover from the after-effects of the war. The West German national team had shocked many by winning the 1954 World Cup in Sweden against Hungary, and while professionalism was still (officially) outlawed, the humiliating defeat Rangers suffered at the hands of Eintracht the previous season meant no-one at the club expected anything other than a tough battle.

Having been so soundly beaten by Eintracht Frankfurt the previous season, the Rangers supporters had gone into the Borussia match with some trepidation, but their concerns were allayed by a clinical European away performance in Dusseldorf's Rhinestadion.

The match was probably Alex Scott’s finest hour. His name does not feature on the list of the players who make-up Scot Symon’s ‘best-ever’ team, but he was an outstanding performer for Rangers, during his seven years at Ibrox. A fast and powerful right-winger, it was on the European stage that he really came to the fore. Before the Borussia match, Scott had played in all 18 of Rangers’ games in Europe, scoring four goals in the process. He went on to make a total of 28 European appearances, including 27 in a row, and eventually took his goals tally up to eleven. Scott thrived on the unique atmosphere that the European ties created. As he recalled in an interview shortly before his death at the age of 64 in 2001, ‘If you couldn’t play football in that atmosphere, you couldn’t play football at all.’

He considered the Monchengladbach tie as one of his best ever performances, and the goal he scored in the first leg was his favourite. He took on the entire Borussia defence in an exhilarating run, which culminated in a clinical left-foot strike past the goalkeeper Dresbech.
Scott’s goal was the second of three that Rangers scored without reply. After four good chances early on, Jimmy Millar opened the scoring from a pass by Ian McMillan, who had beaten four defenders during a mazy run. Scott doubled the lead before half-time and McMillan himself completed the scoring with a glorious shot in the 56th minute.

In typical European fashion, the game had been marred by rough play, particularly from the Germans. Bedfurtig found himself in hospital with a broken jaw and minus two teeth, after one foul too many. Unlike the Anderlecht match a couple of years earlier, this time Harold Davis got his man, and landed a punch a heavyweight boxer would have been proud of.

The second leg at Ibrox was a less towsy affair, and goes down as one of Rangers greatest ever results in Europe. Jim Baxter scored his first ever European goal in the second minute and set Rangers off on an eight goal spree that would remain a record victory for almost 30 years. Playing with skill and precision, Rangers toyed with the Germans, who had no response. By half-time, the Scots were five goals up, Ralph Brand, McMillan and Millar adding to Baxter’s strike and an own goal by Pfeiffer. The flood of goals was matched by a deluge from the skies, with torrential rain leaving huge puddles on the Ibrox turf, but the weather did little to dampen the Rangers performance. Brand and Millar scored again, with Brand completing his hat-trick in the 65th minute.

Scott recalled later, ‘That must go down as one of the best performances ever by a Rangers team in Europe. To beat a German team by 11-0 that’s got to be one of the best performances. You don’t beat German teams very easily as we’ve seen over the years. Everything just went really well for us.’ In the book Follow On: 50 Years of Rangers in Europe, Davis recalled, ‘We were up to our knees in mud that night but we ploughed through and gave them a hell of a beating.’

The spectacular victory sent Rangers into the semi-finals, where they faced the much tougher proposition of English FA Cup winners Wolverhampton Wanderers. The first ever Anglo-Scottish clash in European competition, the tie has gone down in Rangers folklore as one of the most famous encounters in the club’s history.

1959/60: Rangers v Eintracht Frankfurt, European Cup

THE great Rangers team of the early sixties was beginning to take shape as the Light Blues entered the 1959/60 European Cup. They were taking part in the competition for the third time, having won the Scottish League ahead of Hearts. It was a European campaign that started with some promise, only to end in humiliation at the hands of their first ever German opponents.

Anderlecht, Red Star Bratislava and Sparta Rotterdam were defeated en route to a semi-final clash against West German champions Eintracht Frankfurt. Rangers went into the tie knowing the final was to be played at Hampden Park, against either Barcelona or four-times cup-winners Real Madrid.

But Rangers’ dreams of taking on one of the Spanish giants in their home city were extinguished as they suffered one of their worst ever defeats. Eintracht were undoubtedly a good team, but there have to be question marks over how well prepared Rangers were under their manager Scot Symon. In Tor! - his history of German football - Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger tells how, on landing in Germany, ahead of the first leg, Symon was asked his views on the local favourites. His reply was surprisingly dismissive. ‘Eintracht? Who are they?’ Later, asked if he would like to inspect the pitch, Symon answered: ‘Why? One pitch is like the next. We'll have time to inspect the pitch during the match’.

It was an astonishing attitude to take. In the previous round, Sparta coach Denis Neville had shown what could be achieved with thorough preparation. A team of undoubtedly inferior players had gone close to knocking Rangers out, almost entirely because their manager had identified the threats they would face and how best to nullify them.

It would perhaps be unfair to single Symon out for criticism on this issue though. His approach was hardly unusual at the time, particularly among British managers, and subsequent Rangers managers undoubtedly took the same attitude, particularly when taking on ‘lesser’ teams.

As Jim Baxter put it, ‘We would play against Inter Milan the way we played against Partick Thistle and Third Lanark. We didn’t change anything but you can’t do that in Europe.’ Team mate Harold Davis also questioned the approach taken in the early days of European competition in the book Follow On: Fifty Years of Rangers in Europe. ‘I think Rangers did pretty well considering, in these European ties, but I don’t think we were up to the standard we should have been. Our tactics were a bit behind the times; we were plodding a wee bit. Scot Symon was a great manager, but, like the rest of Scottish football, he was slow in catching up with the times. His attitude was: Get it up the wing, get it over and head it in the net. But times were changing and Scot didn’t. '

In the first leg in Frankfurt, on April 18th 1960, things looked good for Rangers as they held the Germans to one-all in the first half. Stinka’s goal in the 27th minute was quickly cancelled out by a Caldow penalty, given after McMillan was brought down. But in the second half, the Scots were blown away. Cheered on by a raucous crowd of almost 80,000, Eintracht came flying out of the blocks, regaining the lead in the 51st minute. The goals kept coming, each one met by rockets and fireworks from the crowd, and each attack looking like it could result in a score. The final score was 6-1, leaving Rangers no chance of making the final.

The torture continued in the second leg at Ibrox, where an astonishing 70,000 had turned out in hope of a miracle. It was not to be. Rangers managed to breach the German defence three times through McMillan (2) and Wilson, but Eintracht scored another six goals, giving them a 12-4 aggregate victory.

The Rangers fans sportingly applauded the Germans at the end of the match and the players returned the compliment by standing in a line and raising both their arms in acknowledgment, first to the supporters in the terracing then to the main stand.

The Eintracht performance was big news back home in West Germany, with the sportswear firm Adidas taking out adverts in the sports papers hailing the victorious team and showing them lined up before the match in the brand’s distinctive three-stripe boots.

It was a humbling experience for Rangers, but there may have been some sense of relief as they saw Real Madrid thrash Eintracht 7-3 in the famous Hampden cup final. Given their demolition of the team that had so easily dismantled the Scottish champions, what would the Spanish maestros have done to Rangers?

Rangers winger Alex Scott later admitted the tactical shortcomings of the Scots were partly to blame for the Eintracht capitulation. He said, ‘Ten minutes into the second half of the first leg it was one each. If we had a little bit of tactical know-how, like the Italians, and just held it, then it could have been different. But we only knew how to play one way and that was to go forward. The game finished 6-1 and they came over here and we did what we had to do which was all-out attack and it ended 6-3. So we scored four goals against them, but we lost 12! The score flattered them a bit but they proved they were a good side when they gave Real Madrid a good game in the final. It was one of the best finals you were ever likely to see.’