OVER THE TOP AND CLEAN THROUGH!! (Auxerre … 2 GERS … 2)

GET!

IN!

THERE!

YOU!

BEEE!

YOOOOO!

TEEEE!

FULLLL!

TED!

Y!

BEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GERRINTHERE!!

Oh, that’ll do the noo, troops. THAT. WILL. DO. THE. NOO!

Ya phuqing DANCER!

(… AAAAAND breeeeeathe …).

Oh, dear, dear, dear.

Oops - wait a mo. What’s this? It’s internal tremulations returning to ma tumultuous tummy… another wave of worry flushes over me and - gently breeeeeathe - I can let it go because it’s all over and we’re through.

MAN! That was, erm, “exciting”! Wasn’t it??!!

Let’s deal with the history first because - OH FU**ING YES!!! - this was an historic night!!!

We’re worried about the defence. Oui. It’s safe to say we’re more worried about the current Rangers defence than any kind of British person in Iraq, from military personnel to TV news crew, when they see a US tank at the end of the street. Our defence this season has a thing about teams in all-white - be they from Bourgeoise Perth or Bourgogne Auxerre: Savo Milne must have thought he was watchinge excerpts from his own life on TV when, sat in his front room in Broughty Ferry, he saw Brahim Hemdani watch a high ball go over his head and allow a striker in all-white to take 15 touches, have his dinner and read a good book, before slotting in a goal against Rangers. The goals we lost tonight were as bad as the two we lost to St Johnstone, in their away strip, the other week.

BUT - but - but. If we’re losing 2–0 at home to teams from the First Division in the CIS Cup - surely, to be drawing 2-2 AWAY to teams from Le Championnat, Ligue 1, in the UEFA Cup Group Stages a fortnight later is a MASSIVE IMPROVEMENT!

And, even if ye remain unconvinced about the team, I ask you, as I promised, to just LOOK AT THE HISTORY BEHIND THE RESULT.

Put simply, this is the first time IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, that Rangers have gone beyond Christmas in Europe for two successive seasons. And I was 37 in July, ye know. Most of you guys reading this keich, if unfortunate enough to be older than me, will also have no direct recollection of seasons 1966/67(cup-Winners’ Cup final), 67/68 (Fairs cup quarters) or 68/69 (Fairs Cup semi).

Most of you, like me, will have spent yer entire Rangers-supporting life with personal memories of only 3 or four progressions beyond December in continental contests. Now we’ve done it two seasons on the trot. Most of you, like me, will have spent the period 1992 to 2004 - TWELVE YEARS! - wondering if Rangers could EVER get out of any kind of UEFA Group: Now we’re doing it for fun. This time we’re even doing it with a game to spare, without having to rely on any other results either.

COME ON!! THIS IS MEGA!!

I think that fact deserves to take precedence over any bum-quivering rearguard inaction at the Stade l’Abbe Deschamps this fine European evening. We’re a club and a support OBSESSED with Europe and suddenly, what was considered the extent of possibility for Scottish Clubs in Europe for most of the last fifteen years, is becoming a wee habit The Gers just can’t get out of.

When we spend so much time abusing our owner and our managers for failure to achieve the minimum in Europe, we really have to sit back and take a minute or two - even a dram or two - to enjoy this evening’s result in its full and proper context. No-one’s asking anyone to give Murray or Le Guen credit. Personally, of course, I will do that but I would like this to be a night for the Rangers congregation to unite in celebration so I’m not asking Murray-haters or Le Guen-doubters to be swayed by this piece of progress - but, like Vic and Bob putting spoon to mouth from bowl, let’s TAKE STOCK of a quietly marvellous result for the following of Rangers.

And I mean “following” in both noun and verb. It’s such a great result for The Rangers support because, well, it changes a huge aspect of the act of supporting Rangers. We trail European failure round with us like so much psychological baggage. Every European adventure is so vital but always ends in a failure - even when we went ALL the way and won a trophy, we got banned from defending the thing. Every European glory night is, ultimately, outweighed by a couple or three European inglorious nights. It makes full and proper remembrance of each season you’ve followed the Teds bound to have a black spot. Every silver lining has a cloud formation for The Gers in Europe. Every season ends in failure of some sort but so many of the ones in my life have ended in total ignominy. Even failures which qualify as glorious have been rare - and insulting, because they tend to try and convince us we’re quite a small club which should be chuffed just to be allowed out the house.

We almost scorned domestic success, some of us, because, when faced with another Euro punting, we came to regard Caledonian silverware as almost boring. Fleetingly, mind - and only from the perspective of seeing the ball nestle in the back of our net via a Paraguayan’s arse after spending most of the game thinking we were gonnae beat the most famous team in Germany! Having grown up during the nine years we DIDNAE win the Premier League, I’d never have given up a league title - especially as there’s absolutely no connection between winning one and losing the other - but, at the time, when ye watched Bayern Munich or Monaco or whoever putting us out, when ye got that cold chill of elimination once more, when ye could almost feel the eyes of one hundred million worldwide soccer buffs pulling callously away from Govan and re-fixing their gaze on the Turins, Manchesters and Madrids of the PROVEN big boys once more, ye’d almost have swapped a Scottish championship for another round under UEFA’s auspices.

So MANY cold, stale, empty nights of European action - so many early exits. Think of Dortmund on penalties at the Westfalen - think of the first Parma clash when Albertz scored and it looked great on a December afternoon until Porrini was sent off. Remember the horror of Viktoria Zizkov - leading the tie in extra time and Ibrox rocking, they score the killer away goal but then Stefan Klos comes up for a corner - connects - heads the ball downwards and… AND … AAAND - past the post and we’re out in the first round. Remember Sparta Prague, Red Star Belgrade, AEK Athens - go all the way back to Dukla Prague, Osassuna, Porto in the cup-winners cup. Even just think of the last time we played Auxerre - that’s now the last time we failed to make it past Christmas in Europe and this is something we should LOVE, because, by fuck, we’ve all earned it.

There’s a lot of talk about the fact the Old Firm haven’t made it past Crimbo “together” since 1971/72. Much as I’d rather we were the ones in the Champions League (or that ,frankly, they’d been pumped out at the earliest possible stage - I’d be quiet happy if they never won another European game in their history), I do like the superstitious omens of that season - well, in terms of our Euro prospects this season: We were domestically shocking in 71/72 too - but we went on to win the Cup Winners Cup as celtic retained the title at home. They’re probably gonnae retain the title this season and - hey - they might even go out in the European Cup semis on pens to Inter as they did that year too - but I’d be less pained about domestic failure for this one season if we could repeat the feat of the Willie Waddell team of 35 years past…we played a French and an Italian team that season too …!

S’not gonnae happen - but its nice to dream. And, basically, the thing about tonight is that it lets us continue to dream.

What no-one seems to be mentioning is that the last time two Scottish clubs went past Christmas in Europe was 23 years ago - and neither of them were Rangers or Celtic. Jings, I can clearly remember it too - Aberdeen losing the Cup-Winners’ Cup semi to Porto (the sheep-shaggers were the holders too!) and Dundee United going out of the EUROPEAN CUP SEMI(!!)to Roma. Amazing days - and not good days for Rangers - so let’s enjoy tonight.

The goals we lost live on the BEEB and under the beautiful stare of the ARDROSSAN LOYAL flag were brutal - absolutely. Our defence was effing murder from the moment we lost that first goal after half an hour. A long ball over the top, seconds after we’d had a shot on the Auxerre goal. Hemdani is a midfielder and it showed on more than one occassion but Svensson doesn’t even have the excuse of positional confusion. Papac is cup-tied and, as also demonstrated by the brutal simplicity of the second goal we conceded - a cross to the near post, headed home unchallenged by a guy who’d been on the park for two seconds - we need to get a centre half or two in the January sales who are good enough yet haven’t played any European football this season. Difficult - but I hear Goughi’e training at Firhill.

Auxerre also hit the bar but we scored on the counter from that attack and here’s where the credit begins to be due for this Rangers performance: The spirit and the sharpness.

When Stevie Smith went off injured after 20 minutes and had to be replaced by Rodriguez (why didn’t J-Rod go in at centre-half and shift Brahim to left back??), we lost a bit of defensive solidity but also an attacking option: Stevie’s great on the overlap and I think the players have to be praised for not letting this loss to the gamne plan deter them from gaining the point we needed to qualify for the knock-out stages.

It seems to me Le Guen knows his defence is dodgy - but they can’t be allowed to be THAT dodgy - so he rests his hopes on scoring more or as many goals as the opposition. As in Livorno, he knew Auxerre would be duty-bound to come at us, and he knows we have in Ferguson, Clement and Adam a midfield three which now knows the front three of Prso, Boyd and Novo so well that they can cause a bit of a whirlwind up front. At least five of these six players were as good as the defence was bad and praise too to Allan McGregor for keeping us in this game with many a fine stop. PLG now has his keeper - he must now know McGregor is the man and the aforementiond six are his best options in midfield and attack. But we basically decided we were gonnae take the risk of exposing our defence to get as many goals as we lost - coz we’ve WAY MORE chance of scoring a whean than keeping the sheet clean.

The first goal was a thing of footballing beauty. Four players involved in an intricate maze of passes around and into the Auxerre box and the man who carried it from start to finish was none other than the resurrection himself, Nacho Novo. AGAIN the wee fellah nets a crucial goal and AGAIN he gives us real European clout this season. What a move, what a finsih.

And to go behind twice - especially with the second French goal coming with just 15 minutes left, and still equalise again, showed true spirit and an awareness that we could score so long as we didn’t dwell on the defensive blunders. How often over the years do you see Rangers playing away in Europe, fall behind and then never look like getting back into it. We’ve played three games on the road in Europe this season and we’ve yet to lose. And, since losing to St Johnstone, we’ve scored three increasingly solid results all with second-half, increasingly late goals: That’s not just spirit - that’s FITNESS.

Barry’s post-match TV interview was as perfect as his PHENOMENAL performance on the rain-soaked foreign pitch, where he covered every inch and explored every option. CLEAR Man-Of-The-Match and a true captain - he showed Kheredine Idessane, his interviewer, that he would ALLOW the positive result to take over from the defensive nightmares, but only for the moment. Barry’s so obviously gonnae get tore intae Hemdani and Svennson - and he’ll have a word for PLG too methinks. A real captain. He knows we have to be pleased with the result but he also knows what needs to be done for us to improve to a real Rangers standard.

Well, if the CIS cup exit was proof of our frailties and PLG’s misreading of the Rangers job, tonight’s early progression to the latter stages of Euro competition is equalising proof that he knows football to a high enough standard to be Ibrox gaffer.

Never mind the quality - for now just feel the result.

And isn’t it nice that, now, after four games in each of which they’ve scored twice against us, we now have a positive mental association for the name “Auxerre”. I can watch the French League highlights on Setanta a bit more regularly now … see, it’s all good news … European progress is ALL Good news …