1967–68 Season

House

House

Well-Known Member
One for the older bears. Looking back through the history books I'm amazed that we went into our final game of the season on course for an unbeaten season. We ultimately lost to Aberdeen an the poets pipped us to the league.

Amazing to think we nearly stopped their 9 in a row dead in tracks before it ever got going and yet missed on the league despite being unbeaten against the mentally challenged and losing only once all year.

What are bears memories of that campaign?
 
Memory is a bit hazy,but i'm certain that even if we'd beat Aberdeen that day,we still would'nt have won the league. Could be wrong though. As an aside,i was at that game,and all i can remember is, we led 1-0,then 2-1,then lost 3-2.
 
Did we not beat the mentally challengeds both times in the league?
 
Must have been too many draws.

Would we have won it if 3pts for a win back then?
 
House said:
One for the older bears. Looking back through the history books I'm amazed that we went into our final game of the season on course for an unbeaten season. We ultimately lost to Aberdeen an the poets pipped us to the league.

Amazing to think we nearly stopped their 9 in a row dead in tracks before it ever got going and yet missed on the league despite being unbeaten against the mentally challenged and losing only once all year.

What are bears memories of that campaign?
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My head is telling me the Saturday before the Aberdeen game we thought we had won the league at Rugby Park but Celtic scored an equaliser against Morton this was the week that fegucked us up. I didn't go to the Aberdeen game I jumped on the 34 bus to Hampden and went to the Hearts Dunfermline cup final.
 
MearnsUnionist said:
Did we not beat the mentally challengeds both times in the league?
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We definitely beat them 4 - 2 away, to my shame I can’t remember Ibrox result. Even if we’d beaten the sheep we’d have lost the league - we’d ended up with the same points but they had a better goal average. To answer dh’s Point - 3points for a win wouldn’t have made a difference.
 
House said:
One for the older bears. Looking back through the history books I'm amazed that we went into our final game of the season on course for an unbeaten season. We ultimately lost to Aberdeen an the poets pipped us to the league.

Amazing to think we nearly stopped their 9 in a row dead in tracks before it ever got going and yet missed on the league despite being unbeaten against the mentally challenged and losing only once all year.

What are bears memories of that campaign?
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1 Celtic 34 30 3 1 106 24 82 63
2 Rangers 34 28 5 1 93 34 59 61
3 Hibernian 34 20 5 9 67 49 18 45
4 Dunfermline Athletic 34 17 5 12 64 41 23 39
5 Aberdeen 34 16 5 13 63 48 15 37
6 Morton 34 15 6 13 57 53 4 36
7 Kilmarnock 34 13 8 13 59 57 2 34
8 Clyde 34 15 4 15 55 55 0 34
9 Dundee 34 13 7 14 62 59 3 33
10 Partick Thistle 34 12 7 15 51 67 −16 31
11 Dundee United 34 10 11 13 53 72 −19 31
12 Heart of Midlothian 34 13 4 17 56 61 −5 30
13 Airdrieonians 34 10 9 15 45 58 −13 29
14 St Johnstone 34 10 7 17 43 52 −9 27
15 Falkirk 34 7 12 15 36 50 −14 26
16 Raith Rovers 34 9 7 18 58 86 −28 25
17 Motherwell 34 6 7 21 40 66 −26 19
18 Stirling Albion 34 4 4 26 29 105 −76 12
 
auldyin said:
My head is telling me the Saturday before the Aberdeen game we thought we had won the league at Rugby Park but Celtic scored an equaliser against Morton this was the week that fegucked us up. I didn't go to the Aberdeen game I jumped on the 34 bus to Hampden and went to the Hearts Dunfermline cup final.
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They announced over the tannoy that the Tim's lost one nil,we thought wed won the league,cue massive pitch invasion.think the Tim's equalised in the 30th minute of injury time
 
Was that the season Davie Provan got his leg broken by Bertie Auld?

My old dad maintained that was every bit as bad an assault as Simpson on Durrant.
 
That season. there was 94000 at league cup section game against them in Aug followed by 90000 at league game in Sep
 
Taki said:
That was the following season (4-2 at theirs and 1-0 at Ibrox). In 67-68, we beat them 1-0 at Ibrox and drew 2-2 at theirs.

Didn't lose a league game to them from 1966 to 1969.
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I stand corrected, the 4 2 away game was September 1968 and not the 67/68 season.
 
Taki said:
That was the following season (4-2 at theirs and 1-0 at Ibrox). In 67-68, we beat them 1-0 at Ibrox and drew 2-2 at theirs.

Didn't lose a league game to them from 1966 to 1969.
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That's a really interesting stat .
Taki said:
That was the following season (4-2 at theirs and 1-0 at Ibrox). In 67-68, we beat them 1-0 at Ibrox and drew 2-2 at theirs.

Didn't lose a league game to them from 1966 to 1969.
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The 4-2 game the following season, I think my grandpa and uncle were both at that.

Is that the game the Rangers end was covered at the piggery for the first time?
 
Obviously the draws fcuked us....I was at Hampden that day as a 7yr old....remember going back on the bus and the score came through on the bus radio.....was too young to understand what was really going on but as you get older you wonder why we played the same day as the SC Final ??
 
dh1963 said:
Must have been too many draws.

Would we have won it if 3pts for a win back then?
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Nope.
They dropped 5 pts all season,we dropped 7.
They won more games than us I'm sure.

We dropped pts to Celtic,Dunfermiline,Morton,Dundee U and of course Aberdeen.
It's the first season I can really remember.

On the penultimate Saturday we were at Rugby Park and won. We thought The Filth had dropped a point to Morton at Parkhead which would've seen us needing a win v Aberdeen to clinch the title but they scored a winner in the 26th minute of injury time......and the rest is history.
 
auldyin said:
1-0 at Ibrox and 4-2 at Celtic Park?
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That was 1968/69 mate. It was 1-0 at Ibrox and 2-2 at the piggery in 1967/68.

We should have won it in 1967/68 but losing to Hearts in the Scottish Cup and then Leeds in the Fairs Cup seemed to throw us. Even then we were still technically ahead with three games to go, as long as we beat Morton at Cappielow on 17th April. We were 0-2 and 1-3 down but fought back for a 3-3 draw, with a shot cleared off the line in the dying seconds. It left us level on points with the scum with 2 games to go, with them ahead on goal average. On 20th April we had a tough away game against Kilmarnock while they had what looked a routine game with Morton at home. Rangers fought back from a goal down to win 2-1 at Rugby Park whilst Morton equalised at the piggery. Gers game ended and the announcer gave the result from the piggery as 1-1, prompting a pitch invasion from The Bears, weeks of tension seemingly lifted. Hard to understand, as even that result wouldn't have won the league, but would have had us 1 pt ahead with 1 game to go. Needless to say the scum game had 4 mins of injury time and they won it with the last touch. Many Bears didn't know they'd won till they got home, car and bus radios being less common then. With one game to go we still had a chance as we were playing Aberdeen at home on the day of the Scottish Cup Final (which would never happen now) while the scum game at East End Park was off as Dunfermline were playing in said final (and won it). Aberdeen had struggled most of the season and Gers had won 3-0 in the League Cup and 4-1 in the earlier league match so we should have been able to win and pile pressure on them for their game the following Tuesday. Rangers played well and twice took the lead but Erik Sorensen had a nightmare in goal and gifted two goals, including the late winner. A Gers win that day and who knows what might have happened the following Tuesday as Dunfermline were fresh from winning the Scottish Cup and took the lead against them. But they had to lose 16-0 for us to win the league and the pressure was off, and they ran out 2-1 winners.

We could have won the league in 1966, 1967, 1969 and 1973, but 1968 was the year we definitely should have done it. Heartbreaking doesn't begin to describe it. 29 wins, 5 draws and 1 defeat would in any other year have been a sure-fire Championship. It's still unbelievable to this day.
 
ao2 said:
That was 1968/69 mate. It was 1-0 at Ibrox and 2-2 at the piggery in 1967/68.

We should have won it in 1967/68 but losing to Hearts in the Scottish Cup and then Leeds in the Fairs Cup seemed to throw us. Even then we were still technically ahead with three games to go, as long as we beat Morton at Cappielow on 17th April. We were 0-2 and 1-3 down but fought back for a 3-3 draw, with a shot cleared off the line in the dying seconds. It left us level on points with the scum with 2 games to go, with them ahead on goal average. On 20th April we had a tough away game against Kilmarnock while they had what looked a routine game with Morton at home. Rangers fought back from a goal down to win 2-1 at Rugby Park whilst Morton equalised at the piggery. Gers game ended and the announcer gave the result from the piggery as 1-1, prompting a pitch invasion from The Bears, weeks of tension seemingly lifted. Hard to understand, as even that result wouldn't have won the league, but would have had us 1 pt ahead with 1 game to go. Needless to say the scum game had 4 mins of injury time and they won it with the last touch. Many Bears didn't know they'd won till they got home, car and bus radios being less common then. With one game to go we still had a chance as we were playing Aberdeen at home on the day of the Scottish Cup Final (which would never happen now) while the scum game at East End Park was off as Dunfermline were playing in said final (and won it). Aberdeen had struggled most of the season and Gers had won 3-0 in the League Cup and 4-1 in the earlier league match so we should have been able to win and pile pressure on them for their game the following Tuesday. Rangers played well and twice took the lead but Erik Sorensen had a nightmare in goal and gifted two goals, including the late winner. A Gers win that day and who knows what might have happened the following Tuesday as Dunfermline were fresh from winning the Scottish Cup and took the lead against them. But they had to lose 16-0 for us to win the league and the pressure was off, and they ran out 2-1 winners.

We could have won the league in 1966, 1967, 1969 and 1973, but 1968 was the year we definitely should have done it. Heartbreaking doesn't begin to describe it. 29 wins, 5 draws and 1 defeat would in any other year have been a sure-fire Championship. It's still unbelievable to this day.
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Great summary mate.
 
Sounds like Morton must have had a decent team, going by the tough games they gave us and them in the run in.
 
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Even beating Aberdeen , we needed them to drop points against Dunfermline. That in itself wasn’t that improbable, as Dunfermline won the cup that year then the following year reached the semis of the CWC, beating West Brom along the way. They had also finished 1 point behind Killie and Hearts in 64/65. So they were a good side back then. We could have gone the entire season unbeaten but not won the league.
 
dh1963 said:
Sounds like Morton must have had a decent team, going by the tough games they gave us and them in the run in.
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They qualified for Europe (the Fairs Cup) for the only time in their history that year, losing to Chelsea the following season.
 
ao2 said:
Cheers mate. I just wish it had had a happier ending!
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By the way, I used to have your avatar picture on my wall when I was wee.
Kai Johansen goal in the 1966 cup final. Never saw the game, but it was the last thing we won for a few years coinciding with my first interest in The Rangers.
 
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Did we draw with Morton twice that year.
As an aside when we beat them twice the following season , it was the first time that one or the other of us had done that and not went on to win the league.
 
Surely it would have been be a world record to complete a league season unbeaten and end up somehow not winning the damn thing?
 
The season and the disappointment from it still lingers strongly in this older Bear's mind. The 3-3 draw in the midweek at Cappielow, where we opened the door for them to go in front of us on goal difference or goal average is a game that will never leave me. We came back to equalise from 3-1 down in the last 10 minutes and in the dying seconds a Morton defender (possibly Stan Rankin) stretched as far as he could to divert a net bound shot from Penman off their goal line. On the Saturday after it we went down to Killie and won 2-1. We all thought that Morton had got a 1-1 draw at the piggery but learned later that Bobby Lennox had scored that mob's winner with what was literally the last kick of their game.

On the following Saturday we played the sheep in the last game of the season at Ibrox. Co-incidentally, it was also on the same day that Hearts were playing Dunfermline in the cup final at Hampden. We had the bigger crowd. Dave Smith scored a lovely goal with a shot to put us 1-0 up. They equalised, but Fergie then made it 2-1 for us with a header from a sharp Henderson short cross from the byline. In the second half we coasted until they snatched an equaliser. We pushed on again to try to get the winner but they hit us with a break up the park in the last minute and got it instead. Our unbeaten league record fell on the last minute of the last game of the season. I don't think I have ever felt lower leaving any game at Ibrox in all of the years since that day.

We did play some absolutely great football that season, but it did not result in any trophies. Out of all the years I have followed Rangers, that season is the one I remember more than any other.
 
House said:
Surely it would have been be a world record to complete a league season unbeaten and end up somehow not winning the damn thing?
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It certainly would have been a weird situation, where one team could not be beaten all season yet weren’t champions.
 
The League Cup that season was a tale of woe too.

We were in the same section and outplayed them at Ibrox, only to go a goal down through a penalty and then miss one of our own. Andy Penman made up for his miss by equalising with a late free kick. Two weeks later at the piggery we went 1-0 up through Willie Henderson and were looking comfortable till 14 mins to go when we got a penalty and the chance to surely win the group. This time it was taken by Kai Johansen and he crashed it against the bar, the ball bouncing down onto the line. Johansen and Penman ran towards it and if Johansen had left it it would have been a tap in for Penman and 2-0 to the Gers. Johansen though thought the ball had crossed the line and crashed it into the net in "celebration". From the resulting kick they ran up the park, won a corner and scored from it. From being in control and seemingly certain to qualify from the group Rangers fell apart and lost two more goals in the last 10 mins or so. To say we had no luck that season is putting it mildly, though a habit of missing penalties didn't help (we drew a league game with Hearts that had yet another miss from the spot). They were a great team for sure but those Rangers sides of the late 1960s could and should have won many of the trophies that went to them.
 
dh1963 said:
By the way, I used to have your avatar picture on my wall when I was wee.
Kai Johansen goal in the 1966 cup final. Never saw the game, but it was the last thing we won for a few years coinciding with my first interest in The Rangers.
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It's still to this day one of my favourite goals against them mate. Yeah, that was the last trophy till October 1970 and another iconic goal, DJ's winner in the League Cup. We may not have won that much then but when we did we did it in style :D
 
NONOTONE said:
Obviously the draws fcuked us....I was at Hampden that day as a 7yr old....remember going back on the bus and the score came through on the bus radio.....was too young to understand what was really going on but as you get older you wonder why we played the same day as the SC Final ??
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The day Thistle beat Celtic in the league cup final we also had a game on, I know some guys who went over to Hampden at half time when they hears Thistle were 4 0 up , can't recall who we were playing.
 
Mason Boyne said:
Did we draw with Morton twice that year.
As an aside when we beat them twice the following season , it was the first time that one or the other of us had done that and not went on to win the league.
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No mate, the Ibrox game against Morton was a 1-0 win for us.

Yep, we did the double over them in 1968/69 and still didn't win it, mainly due to some daft results against teams we should have been beating. But at times our football was devastating, especially around March time when we were scoring for fun, culminating in a superb 6-1 win over Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup SF. Those Rangers teams may not have been successful but they were bloody good on their day. Unfortunately we made crazy decisions off the park (sound familiar?) that contributed to some bad times on it.
 
September 16 1967, a league match at Ibrox we beat them 1-0 courtesy of an Orjan Persson goal.


The next league encounter on January 2nd 1968 at the piggery was a 2-2 draw with Willie Johnston & Kai Johansen scoring our goals.


Alex Ferguson was Top Goalscorer that season on 27, with 19 in league matches.
 
Davidsmith1 said:
The day Thistle beat Celtic in the league cup final we also had a game on, I know some guys who went over to Hampden at half time when they hears Thistle were 4 0 up , can't recall who we were playing.
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Motherwell mate. It was 0-0 at Ibrox and the team was booed off at half time. Then the score came through from Hampden and the place erupted. Gers were a transformed team in the second half and ran out 4-0 winners. But like you say, some Bears had jumped in taxis and got to Hampden in time to wallow in the scum's 4-1 tanking from Thistle :D
 
happytobeblue said:
It was that season. Auld was,and still is,a horrible,horrible bastard.
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I have a photo of Davie Provan being carried off that day and most of the players, theirs included, are genuinely distraught at what they've just witnessed. The look on Auld's face on the other hand has a look of "job done" about it. A rancid, despicable excuse for a human being he was and still is.
 
ao2 said:
That was 1968/69 mate. It was 1-0 at Ibrox and 2-2 at the piggery in 1967/68.

We should have won it in 1967/68 but losing to Hearts in the Scottish Cup and then Leeds in the Fairs Cup seemed to throw us. Even then we were still technically ahead with three games to go, as long as we beat Morton at Cappielow on 17th April. We were 0-2 and 1-3 down but fought back for a 3-3 draw, with a shot cleared off the line in the dying seconds. It left us level on points with the scum with 2 games to go, with them ahead on goal average. On 20th April we had a tough away game against Kilmarnock while they had what looked a routine game with Morton at home. Rangers fought back from a goal down to win 2-1 at Rugby Park whilst Morton equalised at the piggery. Gers game ended and the announcer gave the result from the piggery as 1-1, prompting a pitch invasion from The Bears, weeks of tension seemingly lifted. Hard to understand, as even that result wouldn't have won the league, but would have had us 1 pt ahead with 1 game to go. Needless to say the scum game had 4 mins of injury time and they won it with the last touch. Many Bears didn't know they'd won till they got home, car and bus radios being less common then. With one game to go we still had a chance as we were playing Aberdeen at home on the day of the Scottish Cup Final (which would never happen now) while the scum game at East End Park was off as Dunfermline were playing in said final (and won it). Aberdeen had struggled most of the season and Gers had won 3-0 in the League Cup and 4-1 in the earlier league match so we should have been able to win and pile pressure on them for their game the following Tuesday. Rangers played well and twice took the lead but Erik Sorensen had a nightmare in goal and gifted two goals, including the late winner. A Gers win that day and who knows what might have happened the following Tuesday as Dunfermline were fresh from winning the Scottish Cup and took the lead against them. But they had to lose 16-0 for us to win the league and the pressure was off, and they ran out 2-1 winners.

We could have won the league in 1966, 1967, 1969 and 1973, but 1968 was the year we definitely should have done it. Heartbreaking doesn't begin to describe it. 29 wins, 5 draws and 1 defeat would in any other year have been a sure-fire Championship. It's still unbelievable to this day.
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Great summary of my 1st season following Rangers .
Remember Aberdeen game very well, Sorensen mistake for 3rd goal.
Other great memories from that season 10-2 Raith game, Stirling Albion 5-0 home game , Orjan Persson goal direct from corner.
Rangers top of league for most of season till away draw at Morton 3rd game from end.
18 wins and 2-2 New year draw at Parkhead from November to the end of March .
Draws at Dundee Utd and Morton in April allowed Celtic to catch up .
 
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ao2 said:
I have a photo of Davie Provan being carried off that day and most of the players, theirs included, are genuinely distraught at what they've just witnessed. The look on Auld's face on the other hand has a look of "job done" about it. A rancid, despicable excuse for a human being he was and still is.
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I'll tell yeez something, see if that bastard pops his clogs any time soon don't expect me to pass on any warm thoughts in any threads on here.

He's a fuukin despicable wee prick.
 
Sitting top then drew 0_0 with Dundee u on the 3rd of April. Won our next 2 then on the 17th of April drew 3_3 with morton those 2 draws cost us
 
A terrible day. I was at the Oval watching Linfield lose 3/1 or 3/2 to Crusaders in the Irish cup final. Wood and Cathcart missed penalties for the Blues. Somebody had a radio and was in despair as Rangers were losing.
 
My memory is a little hazy, but seem to recall that Bobby Lennox knocked the ball out of the Morton keeper's hands for that 30th minute of extra time winner...

Kilmarnock that day was my first away game.

Football Special loyal.
 
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