LA VIOLA RAVIOLI

…the 1972 European Cup Winners Cup win: It was followed by a riot, we weren’t allowed to defend it, the final wasn’t shown live on the telly and the highlights are recorded in black and white … as we finished third in the league, sixteen points off the top and without a domestic trophy or even a domestic final to our name: We won’t finish third this season. We’ve already won the League Cup and have just reached the Scottish Cup final. If Rangers were to win a European trophy this season, Walter wouldn’t just reaffirm the legend of the Rangers Football Club to a new generation - he’d repackage and rebrand what happened in 1972 for all the generations who yet cherish that glorious triumph as their own.

Tonight:

Biggest game of my life? Yup.

So excited I can’t speak? Nope.

So completely and utterly befuddled by having my every dream laid out before me this Thursday evening that I don’t actually know if I’m excited, cool as James Bond, underwhelmed, shocked, numb, retarded, dead, New York or Newmilns? Yeah - that sounds more like it.

“Ravioli”? FUCK’S SAKE, ECK!! RAVI-FUCKING-OLI??!!

What next - jokes about ice cream and surrendering in two world wars??!! What a moron. Florence isn’t just the home of one of the greatest, most romantic and mental clubs on the planet - it’s one of the CRADLES OF BASTARDING CIVILIZATION!! MAN!!! I have a wee statuete of Lorenzo de Medici sitting to my right as we speak - I bought it at a jumble sale in Preston, right enough, just before playing for my workls Xi at Deepdale when it had the all-weather pitch in the late eighties and they hired it oot tae the public but - “RAVIOLI”???!!

Sorry, Florence. Sorry Room With A View. Sorry Uffizi. Sorry Dante. Sorry Gabriel Batistuta. And, most of all, sorry to the memory of Rangers’ FIRST EVER EUROPEAN FINAL. The ravioli is my brain.

Look - this is what I’m talking about … or NOT talking about. When I START with the omens, portents, history and symbolism I can usually go on all night - and that’s just for a postponed Scottish Cup tie at home to East Stirling. But when yer playing a team ye’ve grown up lusting about, in a scenario ye’ve grown up dreaming about, and that team is from a city where ye sat on a train from Milan to Rome as it was delayed in Firenze station and fought with your partner because you wanted to get off and just put yer foot on the plattfoirm to say “I’ve been in Florence” but she was insisting the train would pull away and the two of us would be stranded in seperate parts of Italy so ye sarcastically wrote “I’m in Florence” in big letters on your travel diary and had her take a photo of you with a petted lip and that scrawled message as ye sit on the train and ye still have that photo, and when Tuscany is the sight of Rangers’s only win on Italian soil, and when Fiorentina are the first opponents we met in a European final BUT THAT FINAL WAS ALSO PLAYED ON A HOME AND AWAY BASIS … with the Ibrox leg first … like it will be forty seven years later … then there really is a serious danger of (a) me having a heart attack or (b) you, Dear Reader, taking a stroke if I even ATTEMPT to delve into the layers upon layers of meaning and allusion behind RANGERS’ NEXT MATCH.

(deep breaths)

I was gonnae start with a reference to Machiavelli. Ye know, try to be all intellectual and cultured. Like. Ya cunt.

I was gonnae make some rambling metaphor out of the Machiavellian ways of Italian teams and how we had to show we were “The Prince” in this tie and flavour my doggerel with florid Florentine flatulence coz, ye know, Machiavelli also wrote a history of Florence and was a well known ultra at the Artemio Franchi the last time La Viola won Serie A.

I was gonnae dae all that but, if I ever knew a way to make that interesting, my brain just couldn’t do it tonight.

I’m gone. My nerves aren’t so much shattered as simply not there anymore. I’m guesing you folks are the same. This is fucking major. This is the real deal. This is zero hour. This is happening. I’ll talk for myself and hope I can tap into something you troops recognize. Please share - You lot have been a major help to me as I watched Rangers play the maximum number of games possible in a European home season for the first time in fifteen years. Your posts keep me sane. I’m not “writing” anymore this season - if I ever did - I’m not even ranting: Ever since we destroyed Werder at Ibrox I’ve realised our club was on the verge of history and I’ve done nothing but use this blog as one, long cry for help. Some of you are always cool, some of you are worse than me with the nerves and the mood swings, some of you are perma-confident, some of you are automatically pessemistic. I don’t care - I love you all and cherish all your varied views to let me know I’m not fucking insane to be THIS excited, at my age, about something which doesn’t involve an MOT, an under-dressed female dance troupe on a Saturday night variety show, a change in my tax code or a sale at Marks and Spencer’s. Just let’s keep each other company in this, our time of footballing greed. This blog is now a self-help group. I’m just that over-eager, verbose bastard who always starts the session with a self-interested yammer.

Tomorrow night I get part 1 of what I always wanted - to attend a European semi-final at Ibrox.

Part 2 would be to attend a European final with Rangers. Part 3 would be to see us win a European trophy. Part 4 would be to see us win the Champions League and part 5 would involve us retaining it. Part 6 is where me and Real Madrid start falling out … so I’ll save that for nearer the time.

But, like you Bears, I’m so fucking excited right now I can’t function.

Instead of lucid, rationally-constructed thoughts, I just have a series of flashing images - some of which move me to tears because they all suddenly remind me of how long and how hard I’ve fantasised about a night like Thursday 24th April 2008. That it is now here is unbearably glorious.

If you have a copy of Ferrier and McElroy’s The Complete Rangers, get a hold of it now and turn to page 229: There’s a photo there of the last time Fiorentina were at Ibrox. That crowd in the backgorund, on the old Rangers End, is 80,000 strong. This is a picture of the first ever European Cup Winners Cup final. That and the thought of Rangers being in it has made this photo very dear to me - I’ve seen it other places than this book. Rangers have just been awarded a penalty, WHICH ERIC CALDOW IS ABOUT TO MISS AS WE FAIL TO SCORE AT HOME, and Jim Baxter is stood with a slightly confused look on his face - coz he’s watching Italians do what Italians do (although I’m sure one of them is Swedish legend Kurt Hamrin) - they’re approaching the ref to protest as if they’ve just been accused of a war crime - their assistant coach is already in the penalty box, berating and intimidating the ref.

We’ve been getting that kinda shit all week from Celtic - this mid-week we’ll get the real thing. And I fucking LOVE IT.

Another flashing memory: Last year, a pub in the Merchant City. I’m having a pint with a Celtic-loving mate, among the Espanyol fans before heading off to the 2007 UEFA Cup final at Hampden. In the corner, smiling with friendship but their eyes wracked with pain, are four Werder Bremen fans, decked out in club colours. Their team lost to Espanyol in the semi - oh, I remember watching that game too and thinking “we could play defensive like Espanyol and get ourselves into this final” and we’ve gone damn close while also beating the very same Germans - but these four Bremen punters alreadyhad their tickets for thr final, their accom booked in Glesgie, so they came to the final anyway. I have my ticket for the 2008 final, the days off work booked.

I could watch us at St Mirren on the Tuesday night, on the Wednesday morning I could drive down with another bluenose who has already secured the seat next to me at Eastlands, come back up on the Thursday in time for Motherwell at Fir Park. We COULD be those Werder Bremen fans, in three weeks’ time. I don’t want to be. I want to return the tickets gained through UEFA’s ballot and replace them with the one I’ll get from the Rangers Travel Club … for Manchester 2008.

I think about Batistuta - how I always loved him but never saw him in the flesh.

I think about watching Fiorentina at Everton and instantly regretting the fact La Viola will wear their away strip at Ibrox if we got them. In 1961 we wore stripes and, in that photo, that black and white photo, you can still see the deep violet of the away team’s home strip. If you know who they are, you see the colour.

I think of a big chip shop/cafe in Nelson Street in Largs - fuck it, I’m going to see Largs juniors this Saturday, I’ll go and see if this chippie is still there - where I used to get my chips between girlfriends many years ago. It always had a single pennant on the wall behind the counter: It was violet, with the club crest and no writing. It was a Fiorentina pennant and, in those days, I was one of only a few people who knew that or cared. I knew they’d played Rangers in the 61 CWC final. I wanted those days of semis and finals back at Rangers. That was almost twenty years ago when I used to get a cheap thrill from that chip shop pennant. Wonder if the owner or his family will be under the Broomloan Jumbotron this mid-week.

I think of another picture from an old Playing For Rangers annual handed down to me by an auntie. It shows the late and terribly named Andy Penman missing a penalty at another packed Ibrox, against Newcastle United, in the semi finals of the Fairs Cup … the forerunner of the UEFA cup. First leg of that semi was at home - we drew 0-0, we lost the second leg 2-0. Missed penalties, troops. Missed penalties.

I think of the last game in which we could progress to a European final - CSKA Moscow at a sunlit Ibrox in 1992/93. We missed so many chances. Didn’t matter - job wasn’t down to us by that time - but we missed so many chances. We drew 0-0.

All these games, all these April/May European games with huge crowds at Ibrox and Rangers never scoring. And I haven’t been to one of them - couldn’t get a ticket for anything other than the home game with Marseilles in 92/93, after attending the biggie with Leeds before the group stage. Tomorrow I’ll be there. Biggest game of my life.

So far.

All these huge games where Rangers don’t score at Ibrox. And yet, in all our UEFA cup games so far, it hasn’t just been Rangers failling to score at Ibrox - no opponent has done so yet. Right now I’d settle for another 0-0 - even though I don’t think, this time, that’ll be enough in Florence.

Right now I’m thinking we’ll lose 3-0 tomorrow. Can’t think exactly why - a lot of it is to do with Fiorentina’s ability, obviously - but something’s making me think about our Champions League campaign and how it started so beautifully, got scarily dreamy and then ended with a 3-0 loss to Lyon at Ibrox. Maybe it’s simply because Fiorentina don’t play in green and white. Their away kit is red.

Or maybe I’m thinking we’ll draw 2-2 and go out 3-3 on aggregate, because that’s what happened in the previous best game of my life - Villarreal.

Maybe I’m just being fed depression by the fact we have neither Thomson nor Ferguson tomorrow and to make a European final while I’m old enough to understand it is just too much for me to ask. Now that it’s upon us maybe I’m just protecting myself because, as far back as the EVE of the Wedrer Bremen away game, I had it all worked out:

I wanted every English team out the UEFA cup that week because, if we got to Manchester I didn’t want the increased chance of a riot which playing Everton, Spurs or Bolton in Lancashire would involve. That’s what happened. Switching between ITV4 and Channel 5 on the Wednesday, Everton and Spurs both lost penalty shoot-outs. Switching over to Channel 5 after the final whistle at Bremen on the Thursday, Bolton went out to Sporting Lisbon.

I wanted us to survive the second leg of the tie with Werder - that happened. I wanted us to draw Sporting Lisbon next because they looked the easiest team of the seven others left - that happened and we beat them. I wanted to avoid Bayern or Getafe because, having not yet seen Zenit in action, I thought these would be the two toughest teams in the comp and we could only beat them in a one-off game - ie the final: Bayern and Getafe not only drew EACH OTHER but did so in the other side of the draw - we could only meet them in Manchester.

And, finally, as I sat the night before the Werder away leg watching ITV, I decided I wanted Fiorentina in the semis. That has happened. It’s all panning out, eh!!!

However, the reason I wanted La Viola in the semis was because I thought an Italian team would underestimate us. I forgot about the fact Fiorentina beat us in their ONLY succesful European campaign - Italians may be bad at many things but they’re fantastic at honouring their past heroes: We mean as much to them as they do to us. They won’t underestimate Rangers Glasgow. The fact their second Cup Winners Cup final was also played in Glasgow (before going to a losing replay in Stuttgart) means this game is as memory- and significance-laden to a giant of calcio which will regard a European trophy as the final confirmation of their triumphal rebirth from an all-too-well-remembered bankruptcy.

I also thought the way Everton beat them 2-0, with fast-paced British football was very achievable by Rangers - but now we have no Barry or Thommo, I worry if we can do that. Go for a shut-out then? Try to beat them on penaltiues next week? The sight of Adrian Mutu’s belter of a free-kick in the Philips Stadion against PSV also demosntrated with harrowing frankness just how much our own catenaccio of 2007/2008 will mean to La Viola of the same vintage.

Most of all, however, I remember a number of Italian teams playing European semis in the CWC or UEFA Cup where their stadium wasn’t even half full. For Italian teams, like English clubs (Bolton chucked their game with Sporting in lieu of a Premier League RELEGATION BATTLE!!) only the Champions League is as valuable as their own domestic league. With Fiorentina locked in a battle for the fourth Champions League slot in Serie A, I thought they’d be distracted enough to give us a real chance.

But

Fiorentina are now four points clear in the battle for that 4th spot.

I had it all worked out? Yeah - I had FUCK-ALL worked out. Fortunately, Walter Smith has had it worked out all season. This is the greatest moment since the Stade Velodrome in April 1993. Like everything else since his return to Ibrox, Walter can use the memory of that night in Marseilles to work out how he goes one stage further this time. Do the business over these two MASSIVELY DIFFICULT games agin’ a HUGELY TALENTED AND INTIMIDATING CLUB and Walter will know that thousands upon thousands of Bears like myself will suddenly feel their entire sporting life has been as outwardly justified as it alwasy has been inwardly: If Waldo pulls this off he will have a million people like me remembering him as we pass away. I don’t want to go just yet but, if I see Rangers lift a European trophy - even if I see us in a final - I’ll know the greater part of me can die happy.

I once wrote a book about our only previous European trophy win. One main reason for writing it was to examine why, thirty years later, the Barcelona Bears didn’t seem to be getting the fervent legend status they deserved for this unique feat. We discovered the following about the 1972 European Cup Winners Cup win: It was too soon after Lisbon, it was followed by a riot, we weren’t allowed to defend it, the final wasn’t shown live on the telly and the highlights are recorded in black and white, it came in the middle of Celtic’s Nine-In-A-Row and our greatest rivals beat us four times that season - three times at Ibrox - as we finished third in the league, sixteen points off the top and without a domestic trophy or even a domestic final to our name.

We won’t finish third this season. We’ve already won the League Cup and have just reached the Scottish Cup final. If Rangers were to win a European trophy this season, Walter wouldn’t just reaffirm the legend of the Rangers Football Club to a new generation - he’d repackage and rebrand what happened in 1972 for all the generations who yet cherish that glorious triumph as their own.

That’s all supposition on my part. We know how reliable a source that is. Let’s focus on more recent examples of similair scenarios in orer to gauge this week’s game: What I do know is that, unlike our home game with Sporting or Celtic’s UEFA Cup semi first leg at home to Boavista, Rangers will not think about the final and get nervous because Fiorentina at home is a massive enough occassion to take care of itself, to focus you on the matter in hand. As big as Sporting are, everyone was still buzzing from the Werder defeat and, frankly, I think a bit non-plussed by Rangers playing a proper European game in DAYLIGHT! The atmos was shit. Celtic-supporting mates have confirmed my own TV memory of the last UEFA Cup semi to be played in Glasgow - the hairy hoops were so nervous about the prospect of NOT making the final, as they, for the first time in that run, played a club with a lesser reputation than Celtic, that the crowd was riven with fear and the players froze with thoughts of what they might lose. Fiorentina are undoubtedly considered bigger than The Teds, if for the league they play in if nothing else: We’re under no illusions about this obstacle - for many of us this game is an end in itself and that will get the Bears on message as the teams come down the tunnel and for the entire game.

Thursday 24th April 2008 will be ferral. Lets’ roar, Bears - let’s ROAR!

Right now I’m dumbstruck. But, come kick-off, like all you Bluenoses, I’m AYE READY!!

Aye Yours

Fat Eck