Florence 1961, Nuremberg 1967, Barcelona 1972 …

This week, the number of Union Jacks in England will be doubled. The levels of Red, White and Blue bunting will treble. It’s silverware we want quadroupled. There’s been a few Scottish-led invasions of our southern neighbours in the past but none can have been so friendly - none can have seen the Saltire and Lion rampant so comfortable in the company of the UJ and the C of St G. This isn’t William Wallace or Bonnie Prince Charlie. This isn’t the Picts melting into the Romans because that Hadrian bugger’s built his garden wall too high. No. This is a different display of cross-border passion. There are different lusts to be sated here. No need to lock up your daughters, Manchester - just tell those Lancashire lasses to don a Gers scarf and get their round in. We’ll fraternise freely with the locals, okay. Our only beef, our only battle - our all-out war - is with history. On Wednesday 14th May 2008, Rangers are getting their name back into the pages of the the most recently-printed reference books. We, us, the Bears - we all know our club is massive. We’ve always known that. This Wednesday, the whole world will be reminded of the fact.

I doubt there’s anyone left to read my blog. And I love that. I’m setting off at the crack on Wednesday morning. I may even decide to head down on Tuesday night - so minimal are the chances of me getting any sleep between now and Thursday. Whenever I set off in the car now, whenever I decide to hit Maryhill Road and drop onto the M8 for the M74, for the M6, whenever I depart for Manchester, it’ll be later than tens of thousands of other Bears. They’re already travelling down to Lancaster, Blackpool, Pretson, Bolton and the Mancunian Metropolis itself. We’re already bedding in, digging the trenches, taking our positions.

It’s an all-out assault on history.

But first …

A few years ago my two mates and I decided we deserved a wee mini-break. Football and booze in a different city was all we required. So, me being an anorak, I suggested we should go to the brand new City of Manchester Stadium at Eastlands - two of us had already done Old Trafford a few times - to take in the FA Premiership match between Man City and Wolves, two past European finalists I had yet to see in the flesh. Brand new stadium, two smashing, history-soaked clubs, a big crowd and a Friday and Saturday night in one of the liveliest cities in Britain - all only a few hours away on the car. Lovely jubs.

So, having picked out this game months in advance, I was all organised with the Man City membership cards for me and the lads. We’ve all still got them, you need one before you can get in to see a Man City home game. We’ve got Man City membership cards with our names on them. Then, a fortnight before the big weekend, I phoned up to apply for the actual match tickets. “Can you phone back later, Sir - we’re having trouble with the telephone hot-line booking system.”

“Erm I’m actually at my work - can I book them on your website?”

“No - I’m afraid the on-line booking system is also down at the moment. You can come along to the stadium though and purchase them in person.”

“But I’m in Glasgow”

“Oh - sorry - well, if you’d like to phone back later …”

I phoned back later. Everything was back up and running - and they’d just sold the last available ticket.

I was gutted. It was gutting. Without the central theme of a big Premiership game to hang it on, the whole weekend disintegrated until, pathetically, we all got pished in Glasgow on the Friday, and drove down to see Gretna against Cowdenbeath on the Saturday (I hadn’t done Raydale at that point) and came back up to get less pished in Glesgae that night. The wives, girlfriends and leather-fetishist supplicants had all made their other arrangements in the belief their lesser halves were off to Manchester for a weekend. We had the weekend free - we had to do some sort of football feat and drink beer. But, obviously, a Scottish second division game at a glorified junior ground wasn’t quite as exciting as the 1970 Cup Winners Cup champions against the 1972 UEFA Cup runners-up at Britain’s latest super stadium.

But what made it worse - what was so much worse - was listening to Five Live on the radio as we drove back up from Gretna.

The three of us had decided we wouldn’t be too bothered abot our failed plans as long as we hadn’t missed too much action at the City-Wolves game.

First caller on the 606 that night: “Greeney - oh, Greeney - I just have to say that was one of the greatest experiences of my life today. Just lovely - just smashing …

“Who do you support, sir? Where were you?”

“Oh, sorry, Greeney - sorry - I’m a Wolves man and I’m just on me way back from Manchester. Look, I know we’re going down mate - I know we’re headed back down to the Championship but THAT, today, was what being in the Premiership is all about. In fact, it’s what being a FOOTBALL FAN is all about! A 3-3 draw, both sets of fans singing their hearts out and an absolutely lovely stadium …Oh, Alan Green, I have to tell you … ”

I started crying as I drove, my mate in the rear seat began a 200-yard stare which would last two hours and amigo numero tres simply switched off the tuner and banged on the Led Zeppelin.

I’m paraphrasing that caller but I’m not exaggerating his enthusiasm or the greatness of the game we missed. We made a point of catching the highlights on MOTD that night - some of the goals were fucking astounding, natch’. As Morrissey says “I can smile about it now but at the time it was terrible”.

Cowdenbeath won 1-0.

Ever since then we’ve occassionaly laughed about how “one day” we would yet go to Manchester, we would eventually attend the City of Manchester stadium.

Well, now, finally, I am going. I just didn’t realise how much company I’d have.

I could go on with stuff like that all night. We all could. Because, at the end of the day, we all spend our entire Rangers-supporting lives looking for the smallest signs of significance - the tiniest hints that, somehow, European finals are fated for us. Because when ye want something as bad as we’ve wanted a European final for the last 36 years, you need to cling to more than just the earth-bound. You need “fate” on yer side, don’t you…?

No.

Turns out, we have something better - we have Walter Smith and David Murray on our side.

Last year, I was stood at Hampden, amidst all the Sevilla fans, watching a cracking 2-2 draw with Espanyol, chuffed I’d completed the set of personally attending all three European club finals. yet I also wondered what it would be like if, ONE DAY, I could attend such a final with Rangers. The Spanish fans made a beautiful din and put on a marvelously colourful display - but their passion, I knew, was nowhere near the kinds of levels Rangers fans would reach on such a stage.

On the Rangers thermometer, Seville and Espanyol were barely raising the temperature to CIS Cup final levels.

NOW I will discover exactly what Rangers fans would do to a UEFA Cup final. The fact it is also in Britain makes it so much more explosive. We’re gonnae tear those ITV microphones a new one.

The year before Hampden hosted the final I watched Seville experience something closer to what we’ll experience on Wednesday. Seville are huge, a massive club, but play in a massive league with three or four even more colossal clubs. History has not been kind to them and when I saw them in Eindhoven in 2006, destroying Middlesbrough 4-0, I was so happy for the Andalucians. I kind of knew how they felt. For some neutrals, 52 Scottish league titles amounts to about the same as Seville’s one Spanish title. The “Vamos Campeon” song - which I had the pleasure of joining in with last May - wafted round the Philips Stadion like an enchanting, haunting song of a behemothic mythological creature re-emerging from a twilight netherworld.

Seville became part of the planet’s football consciousness again that night in 2006. You could see the rawness of their re-birthed demeanour in the faces of that crowd, the celebrations of those players and the caucophony of noise from one half of the PSV arena. By the time they reached Hampden, a year later, Seville were incorporated members of the UEFA Cup Legacy Company - they were passionate and happy but they were now on familiar territory.

There’s nothing like the first time and, as Rangers fans, we don’t get to see our team do many things for a first time.

During the Eindhoven final I remember watching one Seville fan, in particular - one the cameras kept homing in on. He was crying, almost hysterically, when they went a goal ahead against Steve McLaren’s side. He was your typical over-emotional zealot. He was slightly embarrassing to watch - because I knew I’d be exactly the same if my team was in the same situation. Now I hope I have the chance to prove it. I hope The Rangers can make that move from European legend to Living European legend. I hope I’m greetin like a big stupid wean as the ITV cameras pan round the City of Manchester stadium on Wednesday night.

Coz I only greet - ever - when Rangers win.

I’ve attended all three Euro finals in Britain. CWC at Villa Park, UEFA and Champs League at Hampden (Also did Euro 96 final at Wembley but that’s a different boring story). Like Rangers, I’m attending my fourth European club final this week. And this is the one I dreamed of when I attended all the others. In fact, this is the one I’ve dreamed of for as long as I could dream.

Now, I know most Bears will say that but, if I haven’t told you this before then let me tell you again [Wha…??]: My only party trick is that I can recite the winners and runners-up of every European final ever played, in all three competitions. This shit means more to me than it should. I LIVE for European finals AND Rangers. Now that’ I’m putting the two of them together … Anyway. In the days when I actually used to go jogging and do half marathons (yes, it happened) I would focus my concentration by running through all European Cup/Champions League, Cup Winners Cup, Fairs/UEFA Cup winners and losers, in order. I can do it standing on my head now - unlike the jogging. So when, last week, the five-a-sides got going again at work I decided I needed to get some road work in lest I have a heart-attack on a plastic pitch in 44-inch-waist shorts. Oh man, you’ve no idea the buzz when I got to the end of my UEFA Cup monologue, half-way along Great Western Road, and realised that, next time I’m out jogging, RANGERS will be included in that rant as well as the three menchs we already get in my CWC incantation.

The first UEFA cup final I remember watching was the second leg of Ipswich at Az 67 Alkmaar (played in the old Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam) in 1981. Big Terry Butcher scored as the team in blue sealed the cup. The highlights of IFK Gothenburg stunning Hamburg in Germany are still vivid in my mind as, when I was 12 years old, I still thought winning the first leg 1-0 at home meant you’d get gubbed in the away leg. It was one of my first memories of counter-attacking brilliance.

And, so on, down the years with Spurs v Anderlecht at White Heart lane - Graham Roberts scoring before it went to the famous Pens - being a stand-out for all fitbaw lovers of my generation. I was delighted just to finally ATTEND a UEFA Cup final last season, even if it is now a one-off affair rather than a home-and-away gig. But to see my own team there …

Look, we can’t get too emotional just yet. We DO have to celebrate the fact we’re IN the final but we have to keep some back to roar the team on to an even greater victory. All through this tournament I’ve been thinking only of the next stage. To get to the quarters reeked of great success and competence because that stage had the word “finals” in it. But then I wanted the semis because it would mean seeing the full number of games possible at Ibrox in a European season. And then i wanted the final because no-one remembers a losing semi-finalist and, with Celtic having so recently got to Seville, we’d be seen as coming up short in the eyes of some idiots. And, now that we’re in the final, I’m telling myself I just don’t want to see us gubbed. As long as we don’t lose heavily I’ll enjoy just being there.

Bullshit!

The UEFA Cup has no handles. It’s always been particularly difficult to hold. Only two teams have retained it and one of them was Real Madrid. No Scottish Club has ever won it and a Russian club has won it very, very recently. And CSKA Moscow won it by beating Sporting Lisbon on their own Portugese patch in the final. So if we think our greater number of fans at Manchester will be SO much of an advantage we are sorely mistaken.

Zenit St Petersburg will, I feel, crucify us if we try to come out and play open “exciting” football. Particularly now they have the incredibly quick Arshavin back in the side, they will play through us if we stretch out. Defence has got us to this final - defence can win us the UEFA Cup. Also, more importantly, I think we should all stick to our “next hurdle” mentality. The support AND the players AND the management have been allowed no relaxation this season. We go from one game to the next wandering when it’s all gonnae come crashing down on us because EVERY GAME WE PLAY IS MASSIVE.

The moment we realise that this, in the City of Machester Stadium, is IT … we’re dead. So, as far as I’m concerned, this isn’t a UEFA Cup final - this is the SUPER CUP SEMI-FINAL! We wanted to go to Moscow but we eneded up in Manchester and now we can get to Monaco and maybe mangle Man United. This week is M-M-M-M-Massive.

I don’t count the Super Cup as a “proper” European final - only Aberdeen are desperate enough to do that. But We’ll use its presence on the horizon and the fact I could probably only ever bag it by going to the tiny Luis II stadium as a Rangers fan with my Travel Club membership, as a way of, yet again, thinking about “the next match”. That’s how, this season, we’ve always won THIS match.

I’ll take a blanket in the car. If we lose I’ll come straight home and lie in bed til it’s time to hit Springfield Quay and Paisley Road West on Thursday. If we win, I’ll be slumped on a hotel room floor or the boot of my car, in Manchester, WHILE Bazza and the players are parading that beautiful big flower vase round Govan

I’ve wanted it my whole life. I’ve believed we can do it my whole life. I’ve believed for my entire life that Rangers SHOULD be in European semis and finals every three or four years. And yet, now that it’s finally here, I still can’t fucking believe it.

When the teams come down the tunnel, either side of the UEFA cup, and one of them is mine, I’ll believe it. When I see Rangers playing in a neutral venue which isn’t Hampden, which isn’t Scottish, then I’ll believe it. When I see the UEFA flag flying, the dignitaries and junketeers packing out the main stand and when I see 100,000 Teddy Bears crammed into Manchester City centre - THEN I’ll believe it. And, for the rest of our lives, in every drunken reminiscence of our careers as Rangers fans, we will BELIEVE it. So we must hope my gut feeling - that we’ll lose 4-0 - is as lucky for us as all my other bleak predictions have been in this incredible European run.

At the moment I can’t think of the “carnival atmosphere” in the city centre as anything other than a potential distraction. I just want to be in the stadium as soon as possible. I just want to forget all about the pre-match frivolities in the streets and squares of Manchester’s urban landscape and get ripped into the game-time stadium carnage. Zenit are an absolutely sublime team, representing a decent club. Rangers are an absolutely amazing club with what is currently one of the best defensive units Europe has ever seen. We, the punters, CAN make a difference. How? Well, it seems appropriate now to paraphrase the words of Factory Records creator and Salford stalwart Tony Wilson, the words he used to explain why he chose Warsaw (later Joy Division, later New Order) as the winners of a Battle Of The Bands gig he’d organised in the late seventies despite the fact other groups that night had far superior technical skills:

The Zenit team are in Manchester because they want the riches and fame a UEFA cup win would bring: The Rangers players are here because we don’t have ANY FUCKING CHOICE. Our team is just programmed that way - our club is simply ABOUT greatness - even if the attaining of it kills us.

We, the Bears, can let Zenit know they’re just playing at it. Let’s give them HELL.

We, the Bears, can let Barry and co know that they’re laying health and fitness on the line for a worthy cause, that they’re right to think we want it THAT much. Let’s give them HEAVEN!

ITV4 Loyal - I’m setting the video coz, this Wednesday night, I WON’T BE HOME.

But we’ll all be far from away.

Could we not wear the Red and Black socks with the blue shirts and blue shorts? It’s breaking my heart to think we won’t wear the Red and Blacks this mid-week when it’s only our white shorts which clash with any aspect of the Zenit strip. But, then again, we didn’t wear the Red and Black socks when Colin Stein and Willie Johnston did the business on 24th May 1972.

And I’ll be wearing mine anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m gonnae buy a Rangers top tomorrow. S’been a while since I did that. The last time I bought a Rangers top I got the name and number of my favourite player printed on the back. I hadn’t outgrown that jersey by too much when, a few years later, I parted with it. I left it outside the gates at Ibrox, face down, the name and number still all too proud on the reverse. I left it alongside a few thousand other jerseys and scarves. I didn’t really want to buy another Rangers jersey after that.

But now - this week - I don’t think Davie would mind.

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Published:
05.12.08 / 10pm
Category:
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