HEROES, HISTORY - HEAVEN! (Sporting … 0 GERS … 2)

As ye saw Jean-Claude run onto it you knew this was the moment. Years of ambition and pain gnarled up into one moment of intestinal trauma … We knew they were a bad team but, rocking back and forth on our sofas, with our chins in our hands, we still fretted. Then on came Cousin and Whittaker and on came the counter-attacks and on came the kind of magical, individual moment of elongated, inevitable, teasing, of mountingly momentous genius with which the law says every seminal football performance must be crowned … Some sunk to their knees, some grabbed their mates, some almost broke their wives’ ribs as they spun them round the room, some stood with their arms outstrecthed, just howling - all of us felt the joyous explosion of an unknown pleasure meeting the long-held desire.

Club captain and all-round inspiration, John Greig missed the home-leg of the last two-legged European semi-final in which Rangers competed: Barry Ferguson tonight … nuff said.

In that Semi, Rangers met Bayern Munich, a team to whom we had lost a previous European Cup Winners Cup final: We have also lost a previous European Cup Winners Cup final to Fiorentina.

The other semi-final of the 71/72 European Cup-Winners Cup was between a German team and a Russian club who had never previously played in a European final: In the 2007/2008 UEFA Cup semi Bayern Munich - of Bayern, of Munchen, of Deutschland - will play Zenit ST PETERSBURG, who have never before played in a European final.

A team from Moscow eneded up playing a European final in Barcelona in 71/72: This season Barcelona could end up playing a European final in Moscow.

In 1972 it was five years since Celtic had won a European trophy: In 2008 it’s five years since Celtic reached the UEFA Cup final.

In 1971/72 we played a French team, a Portugese team, an Italian team and a German team - before meeting those Russians in the final: In 2007/2008 we’ve already played a French team, two Bundesliga clubs, a Portugese team and now face Italians with the possibility of Russians making the final.

In 1971/72 we played in the Jose Alvalade and the Nou Camp for the first time: In 2007/2008 we’ve played in the Jose Alvalade and the Nou Camp for the second time.

Erm … erm … in 71/72 we wurnae playing in our traditional Red and Black socks - this season in Europe we’ve been doing a lot of damage in the Blue and White socks … erm .. erm … yup … that’s all the coincidences I can muster just now. That’s all the silly symbolism I can accrue at this juncture.

I could usually go on all night with this kind of anally-retentive irrelevancy but, tonight, for some reason, my brain just isnae functioning in it’s normal manner. Tonight, somehow, my brain has been taken over, mashed up, fogged up, beat up and mucked up. As we float from Thursday into Friday my heid has been emptied of all it’s trivial pattern-searching and and replaced by COLD, HARD, FACTS:

Rangers have conceded just two goals in SIX UEFA Cup knock-out matches this season.

Rangers have kept TEN clean sheets in Europe this season.

Rangers have eliminated five clubs from Europe this season while playing the second leg away from home.

Rangers are in their first European semi-final for 15 years.

Rangers are in their first official two-legged, traditional European semi-final for THIRTY SIX years.

If you count the old FAIRS CUP as being the same as the UEFA Cup this is only our second ever semi in this competition and our first for THIRTY NINE YEARS. If you don’t, this is our first UEFA Cup semi-final EVER!

This is our SEVENTH European semi-final, equalling the record for a Scottish club.

If Walter wins a couple more SPL games and three more Scottish Cup matches against First Division sides, we are one European tie away from THE GREATEST SEASON IN OUR HISTORY.

Yet these cold, hard facts aren’t as unwelcome as most cold, hard facts - ye know, the ones about income tax, annual bonuses and penis size actually mattering. In fact, these facts, as a matter of fact, are actually - and factually - as warm and soft as the deepest duvet on the most comfy bed, next to the most curvacious pillow partner/s imaginable. These particular facts are filling me with a glow of satisfaction normally reserved for … well, it’s a glow of satisfaction I’ve never really experienced before, save for something SLIGHTLY similair in 1992/93.

Oh yeah, that’s why my brain’s goine to mush tonight - I remember now - it’s because I’M HIGH AS A FUCKING KITE ON COCAINE!

Ye know that scene in Basic Instinct where Sharon Stone asks Michael Douglas if he’s ever fucked someone while their both on coke? If I was one of the polismen sat next tae Michael I’d now chip in, “Naw - cannae say ah huv. But ah’ll tell ye whit, doll - see that night we PUMPED SPORTING LISBON IN THE UEFA CUP QUARTER-FINAL … I’M TELLIN YE, I THOUGHT I WAS GONNAE HUV TAE BE SCOOPED AFF THE CEILING LIKE A WET BOG ROLL CHUCKED ONTAE A FAN AND SPLATTERED AW OOWER THE ARTEX! I WAS FUCKING AFF MAH TITS, SHAZZA - AFF MY BAWS ON PURE, UNADULTERATED, FRENZIED RANGERS HEAVEN! Noo, huv a fly peak while I swing my pins roon mah tackle …”

Fuck me gently!

When Darche made it 1-0 I just kinda stood up, held my head in my hands, sat doon, began tae bubble, got a grip, lost my grip, forgot what I was gripping, checked my wallet tae remember my name and address and why I was here on this sofa and then stared at the telly as if it this strange programe I was watching wiz all a bit unbelievable and unreal.

When Barry kopped his booking, sixteen months of tension and resentment came pouring out me like a gutter-mouthed psychotic unloading on the parents who fucked up his id and his ego before his super-ego even had a chance - it was dark, nasty, horrible and utterly shameful what I shouted at the captain whose done so much to get us to this point but (a) I thought he’d fucked up oor chances of a European trophy by getting rid of Le Guen and here he was doing it again, (b) I’d been saying all week we’d either lose this game or win it with Ferguson being suspended so, when ye wait for something to happen, and then it happens so cheaply and predictably, ye lose it and (c) it wasn’t really about Barry it was about a preternatural yawl of deep-delved, thirty-year old raging desire to see Rangers win a European trophy which was coming so close to fruition in front of me then being perhaps taken away in the same moment and so I wouldn’t be allowed that moment of screaming ecstacy I’d always promised myself that this unrelenting obsession to love Rangers unconditionally would always bring, and then …

Steven Whittaker won a great tackle on our side of the centre circle, well into his own half. I didn’t think Whittaker should even have been on the park. I don’t think he’s really of a sharp enough mentality to cope with the rigours of European football. I’ve said all season he defo has the skills but too much belief in those skills because he frequently delays on the ball as if he’s unaware European clubs shut ye down much quicker than Falkirk and Gretna. I like arrogance in a player but he’s often negligent in my mind so WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T HE SLIP IT INSIDE TO COUSIN???!!! SEE???!! I TOLD YOU HE DOESNAE KNOW WHAT HE’S … Oh, right - THAAAAT’s why he didnae slip it to Cousin - because he can run it into the box himself and …SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREE THE GREATEST GOAL OF MY FUCKING RANGERS-SUPPORTING LIFE!!!!!

Two and a half hours of football gone in this tie; Rangers score the first goal of this tie. Three full hours of this tie completed and Steven Whittaker wraps it all up with the best European solo goal since Bobby Russell sealed PSV Eindhoven’s first ever European home defeat, in 1978/79.

NOW we could ALL have that preternatural yawl of deep-delved, thirty-year old raging desire to see Rangers win a European trophy … coming so close to fruition in front of us … be allowed that moment of screaming ecstacy we’d always promised ourselves that this unrelenting obsession to love Rangers unconditionally would always bring…

I’d tried to have that moment a few minutes earlier, when Big Danny had his shot pushed up onto the outside of the rigging - I thought it was in and the head-rush of blood only subsided as Rangers were taking the resultant corner.

Where are the boo boys now? Where are those cunts? What are they saying now. Probably slagging Ferguson, as I did. Oh shit. But I’ll claim an excuse - first of all, I’d never do it at a game. Secondly, something had to give, psychologically, with me and every other True Blue in the Alvaldade or watching ITV4:

I’d been doing the “we’re gonnae get humped” thing all week. Yeah, I genuinely thought we were going out. I need pessemism to reinforce myself against the far-more real prospect of pain when watchng Rangers in Europe. I want Euro glory so much more than I want the SPL title, Celtic humped, Scottish and League Cups lifted, etc. I want European glory for The Teds the way a rose wants rain, the way an igloo wants ice, the way a pot noodle needs boiling water … just up to the little lip of the plastic. And yet, as stated above in laborious detail, if European semi-finals and finals are what constitute real continental success for Rangers, we’ve only previously has six of one and three of the other. Europe has been the greatest desire but the most infrequent achievement down Ibrox way. It would actually drive ye insane if ye let yerself get carried away every time we had a few good results early on in Europe. Ye need to steel yerself somehow.

But ye still have to believe, lest ye end up booing yer ain team off the pitch after a great first leg draw. And there’s a difference between a cold, objective prediction of what’s gonnae happen - even if the unqualified fluctuations of football form are what guides yer asessment - and knowing that there’s absolutely no normal reason for your team to lose. If anything, it was the fact Rangers were SO CLEARLY CAPABLE of eliminating Sporting Lisbon which had me worried.

I was out my seat cheering when we drew the Portugese Celtic, the day after eliminating Werder. I was out my seat cheering and asking my boss for two days off in May because I knew they were the easiest team left in the quarter-finals. And yet there’s always the chance that a team like Rangers this season, a team chasing so many trophies with such little experience as a unit, will unconsciously rest-up when playing a team vastly inferior to those we’d already dealt with in Europe this season. I worried that a team like Sporting are this season - struggling, unpredictable - would have the reserves of energy and surprise with which to take Rangers, because they certainly weren’t using any of it up in the Portugese league! In short, this was the European equivelant of Aberdeen at Pittodrie - they’ve been shite all season but have been waiting for us to arrive.

The most painful feeling in football - other than what happened to Eduardo at St Andrews - is knowing your team went out to someone pish. We lost to Barcelona and Lyon in the Champions League - it wiznae nice but we’re being done over by two great sides. No disgrace, no moaning. But the UEFA Cup quarter-finals contained one team I KNEW we were better than - and we drew them. What we did tonight removed any last chance of negligence from this season’s European campaign. After all the Zizkovs, Grasshoppers Zurichs, Steaus, Dortmunds, Gotherburgs and Auxerres - oh, the endless Auxerres! - all we have in front of us now in the UEFA cup is one or two more teams, one or both of whom are incontestably brilliant. Even, if we make the final, the team who loses the other semi will still have been more of a favourite to win the trophy than Rangers. There is no-one left in this competition who a neutral would think Rangers can beat. We are the weakest team left in the contest and I LOVE IT!

Because now, for the first time since 1971/72, we know Rangers have done the VERY, VERY best they can. It’s the second time in thirty six years we’ve played the full number of possible home games in Europe. There will be one more European game at Ibrox in 2007/2008 - there can be only one more and it’s our NINTH. The Champs League final in 1992/93 was very doable - we should maybe have won in Brugges but, if we had, perhaps Marseilles would have done us at the Velodrome??!! Ye know, coz they would then have had to. We certainly gave it all we could against Villarreal in 2005/2006 and I’ve rarely been more thrilled during two games or proud of Rangers than I was during that epic - but, ye know, Boyd’s chance at El Madrigal … and it was “only” the last 16 …

No, I think now, with a Serie A side, and a famous one at that, waiting for us in the semi and either the legendary Bayern Munich or the scintilating, moneyed-up Zenit St Petersburg awaiting the winner in the final, Rangers know now that there is no possibility of ending this European campaign with even a hint of regret, far less embarassment or humiliation, as we’ve ended a few others.

What McLeish started with the Villarreal epic and Le Guen continued with last year’s UEFA Cup campaign, Walter has augmented and embellished. And, involved in that embellishment, are moments of doubt and endless weeks of hypothesising, and nights of tension, worry, hope, belief and utterly orgasmic joy.

On Monday I needed another pessemistic vibe to replace the one about us losing this game by a couple of goals. Ye know, to keep me grounded, fopcussed - because my thoughts are beamed directly to Walter and the players via my Smartcard season ticket (Yours too, ye know. Honest. Ye just lick it and stick it tae yer forehead before ye go tae sleep every night. Zap! - Murray Park’s Punter Transmitter picks it up and beams it straight into the team’s nappers). So, early this week I began to focus on Barry Ferguson’s need to avoid a caution in Lisbon. Fantasising about Rangers making a European semi-final was far from alien to me. However, considering it as a realistic prospect was as alien as two martains without passports in the Nothing To Declare section of Glasgow Airport. I couldnae handle it. I needed to make it real - I needed to slot such a feat into a compartment of my brain which could relate. Lace it with dissapointemnt and - BINGO! - I can relate: So I imagined us leading the game, looking good to go through and then, ala Gazza at Italia 90 or Ballack at Korea/Japan 2002 (both in the semis, I know), he kops a booking and is suspended for the next game. That allowed me to think we might do it tonight - if there was a big steaming turd of regret attatched to the win.

And so it is. Thomson is also out. And we’re playing Fiorentina without them. The fact that it is at Ibrox will mean as much to the Florence giants as playing PSV in Eindhoven meant to them tonight. But it will help us. We’ll certainly need our two best mifdfielders more in the away leg.

Ferguson didn’t have his best game tonight. And I thought that was because he was trying to avoid a booking! Yet, although it wasn’t shown on TV, the incident in which he kopped the yellow was clearly utterly needless. The game was all but won, the ball was nowhere near him, the ref had to be approached rather than him simply being close by as, perhaps, say, Barry swore tae himself. There was just a picture of the ref writing on the back of his yellow card and a blue shirt with a white 6 on the back being the shirt closest to him. Oh man, my heart fucking sank troops. I have tae tell ye. My heart sank, my furstration booted my heart back up out the water and - BOOM! - the explosion of rage began. I wanted to belive it was ome arrogant plan of ours - that Bazz was ordered by the bench to get booked so he wouldnae miss the second leg in Florence or even the final - but a bit of lip-reading of Ally McCoist’s exchange with Walter in the immediate aftermath soon told me I was being “fuckin stupit!”.Just like Bazza.

It’s the most painful booking I’ve seen since Graeme Souness kopped a straight red at Parkhead twenty one years ago. I felt it in my stomach. Still can. FUCK’S SAKE!

But Davie Weir will be back. Dailly will push up alongside Hemdani. Steve Davis is a god. Whittaker, McCulloch, Novo or AN Other will be required to compensate for the creativity and shape Barry always gives us. We struggled against Partick Thistle without Ferguson. Thank god our main aim at home against Fiorentina will be to keep a clean sheet. Yet, unless they become distracted by the race for Serie A’s Champions League qualifying spots, Fiorentina will be a far tougher prospect on their home patch than Sporting Lisbon. But I doubt they’ll be tougher than Werder Bremen.

Truth be told, because of the Serie A factor and the fact they’ll totally underestimate Rangers, I wanted Fiorentina in the semis. As soon as I saw them against Everton I worked out our route to the final. And in the final, in Britain, in a one-off match where Rangers have the most support and the most desire, is the only time and place we’ll ever do Zenit or Bayern this season. It IS all set up. It has been since we did Werder 2-0 at Ibrox, troops.

We started the game tonight like Real Madrid, missed a great chance through Darche and then let them come back into it as Christian settled in beside the newly deified Carlos Cuellar. How IMMENSE was Carlos tonight!!! I can’t decide between him and Davis for MOM. Sporting hit our post. We had another pop at their desperate defence. Second half, they looked much better and ye began to fear The Gers hadn’t set our stall deep enough for the 0-0, extra-time and pens.

No such worries.

Just as our horrible hosts began to think they had us on the ropes, two of them missed a long clearence up to lone-man Darche. Playing even better than he did in Blegrade, Jean-Cluade nodded it brilliantly out to Steve Davis, brilliantly retsed on Sunday by Walter and utterly magnificent in this game, and the wee Ulsterman squared a fantastic ball back across the box. As ye saw Jean Claude run onto it you knew this was the moment. Years of ambition and pain gnarled up into one moment of intestinal trauma. To miss it would render us chokers. To score it would crown us kings.

Darche side-footed it first time, back the way it came, letting the cushioned momentum roll itself under their keeper and into the Sporting net for one of the greatest goals of all our lives.

It doesn’t go blank after that, as it did, for example, when I heard Motherwell had gone 2-1 up on 22nd May 2005. Because I need to know what’s happening for things to go blank. I need to instantaneously understand. When Darche scored tonight I simply couldn’t breathe it in. I couldn’t comprehend the fact of it. I just kept looking, trying to compute.

They needed two goals in half an hour without being opened up at the back again like they just had been. We knew they were a bad team but, rocking back on forth on our sofas, with our chins in our hands, we still fretted. Then on came Cousin and Wittaker and on came the counter-attacks and on came the kind of magical, individual moment of elongated, inevitable, teasing, of mountingly momentous genius with which the law says every seminal football performance must be crowned.

Everyone and their auntie heard ITV wanking lyrical about Arsenal’s second goal at Anfield on Tuesday - simply because Theo Walcott of ENGLAND teed it up with an admittedly brilliant run. But Walcott has phenomenal pace - he just burns up the grass. Whittaker merely has standard pace - his slaloming run wasn’t just yer athletic speed-mesiter going off on a tacky sprint: It needed skill, poise, genuine dribbling ability and, unlike Walcott, Steven didn’t play in a team-mate or two to seal the goal - Steve just finished what he’d started himself: Tackled the man in his own half, slipped it past the keeper in the opposition goal. In-between was the slowest dawning realisation of greatness in my Rangers life. Ball duly dinked into net, Steven just ran behind the goal, blowing kisses to the delirious travelling Bears. He’s always known he’s THAT good!

Every worry about Alan Hutton’s sale went right out the window. Every pang of jeaousy about John Hartson’s sensational second at Anfield in the 2003 UEFA Cup quarter-finals fell from our memories like snow off a dyke. Every doubt about this season being one of the most magical in our history was extinguished. Every Bear in christendom and beyond went utterly fucking mental. Some sunk to their knees, some grabbed their mates, some almost broke their wives’ ribs as they spun them round the room, some stood with their arms outstrecthed, just howling - all of us felt the joyous explosion of an unknown pleasure meeting the long-held desire.

We wanted it, we’ve got it. We didn’t want this season of joy to end - it hasn’t. Partick Thistle at Firhill suddenly becomes momentously important. It’s a massive banana skin but the hunt for four trophies could end more readily in Maryhill than it ever could have in Lisbon. Weve all seen trebles before - but none of us Bears have seen a quadrouple. THAT’s what’s making EVERY game so heart-heavingly special these days.

Talking of banana skins. Did ye see Darche come off the pitch when he was subbed? - and how UNBELIEVABLY HYPOCRITICAL WAS IT OF THAT CHEATING LISBON BASTARD TO TRY AND HURRY HIM OFF THE PITCH AFTER THEIR ANTICS AT IBROX, AFTER THEIR REFUSAL TO GIVE US THE BALL BACK IN ANYTHING BUT THE MOST DIFFICULT POSITIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES THIS EVENING AFTER WE’D BROKEN DOWN A KILLER COUNTER-ATTACK BECAUSE ONE OF THEIR WHINGING PIGS WAS ACTING AS IF DECAPITATED??!!! - Darche came off and could be seen making what looked like seriously sarcastic aplauding gestures to what must have been home fans. A minute later ye see him on the bench, with a banana, saying to the rest of ooor subs “Should I? D’ye dare me?!!” Burke, Alexander and co all egg him on, Darche heads to get up off the bench, the camera cuts back to the on-field action and when it returns shortly afterwards to the technical area, Darche is high-fiving everyone on the Rangers bench - all the sub players are pissing themselves. Seems to me the crowd had made monkey noises at him and he decided to play up to it to piss them off even more than our lead already had. Fucking well done, Darche!

And yet. I discovered this afternoon I have a ticket for Parkhead on 27th April. Sporting weren’t “Celtic in disguise” - green and white hoops would be a pretty shit disguise for Celtic .. I’d recognise them straight away. Not so funny - Nakamura did not eat my dog. I’ve never had a dog and I don’t do blatant fucking racism AND there ARE still Tims in Europe - Miroslav Klose blesses himself with more regularity than his compatriot in St Peter’s Square. Luca Toni of Bayern used to play for the mob we’re gonnae meet next - think they’re mostly Catholic too.

Worry about Celtic when we’re playing them. Name check them when we do something only they had previously done. But, on an night like tonight, on an occassion like this, I really just want to be thinking about Rangers.

Though, even that can be unhealthy - what Sharon Stone didnae tell us was that such fervernt consumation of yer deepset animal desire can blow yer arteries oot their rib cage.

I’m drained, troops - abslutely drained. Many a Rangers set-back has taken days and weeks to kick in properly. You know what I was like when Le Guen left. But now, thanks to Walter, Ally and Kenny, I need a quiet time alone to allow a massive TRIUMPH to kick in. Ironically, it’s the very kind of triumph I thought we’d given up on by dispatching our previous manager. Now it’s here. Now it’s real. I need a wee bottle of beer and a wee hour or so on the sofa with the video of the game. I’m off down to England tomorrow. Durham to be precise. Will get back into Maryhill and park my car there before I go to my hoose again. That gives me the space and the time to let this sink in properly.

Now I just need to add the beers …

This season has rolled out endless glory. Orgasm after orgasm after footballing orgasm has left me sated, spent and so overflowing with spiritual happiness that my corporeal being needs time to recharge and meet the challenge of allowing so much satisfaction and contentment inside a space so unused to it. Yup - that’s right - I’ve had my oats, doll so now I want tae go oot and get BLADDERED!!

Still got a semi though …