1960 European Cup Campaign

House

Well-Known Member
One for the Older Bears.

We often recall our European exploits from 1993, but what is often overlooked is the 1960 campaign, possibly because of bad taste in the mouth after the European Cup Semi Final against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Was it as much of a missed opportunity as it seems? What exactly went wrong? Were we just behind the times tactically compared to what was happening on the continent?

I have often wondered, if we had gotten through against Frankfurt; with the Final being played in Hampden could we have laid a glove on that Madrid team with home advantage and 130,000 Bears roaring behind us?

In a one off game on home soil you would have to had given us shout of lifting the European Cup in those circumstances.
 
Was it the following year we put 11 past Mönchengladbach?. The madrid team that beat Frankfurt were an exceptional outfit. Mental to imagine a rangers team conceding 12 over 2 legs or on the other hand score 11 as above.
 
One for the Older Bears.

We often recall our European exploits from 1993, but what is often overlooked is the 1960 campaign, possibly because of bad taste in the mouth after the European Cup Semi Final against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Was it as much of a missed opportunity as it seems? What exactly went wrong? Were we just behind the times tactically compared to what was happening on the continent?

I have often wondered, if we had gotten through against Frankfurt; with the Final being played in Hampden could we have laid a glove on that Madrid team with home advantage and 130,000 Bears roaring behind us?

In a one off game on home soil you would have to had given us shout of lifting the European Cup in those circumstances.

My Grandpa attended the Ibrox semi final and tells me that he thought Eintracht would win it after seeing us battered by them.

He then went to the final at Hampden with his pals and they were just awestruck by that Real Madrid side. 89 years old and getting a bit forgetful these days but he can still recount the details of that game.
 
I’ve just been looking at the quality of the teams that knocked us out of the European Cup in our first six attempts.

Nice, Milan, Eintracht, Standard Liege, Real Madrid, Inter.

Then you look at the easy run the mentally challengeds got all the way to the final in their first attempt.
 
Was it the following year we put 11 past Mönchengladbach?. The madrid team that beat Frankfurt were an exceptional outfit. Mental to imagine a Rangers team conceding 12 over 2 legs or on the other hand score 11 as above.

It was the same year !
 
I’ve just been looking at the quality of the teams that knocked us out of the European Cup in our first six attempts.

Nice, Milan, Eintracht, Standard Liege, Real Madrid, Inter.

Then you look at the easy run the mentally challengeds got all the way to the final in their first attempt.
We generally do come up against teams that make the final or win it even in recent times. Bayern and Valencia 99, feyenoord 2002, Galatasaray had just won the UEFA cup when we got them. Porto 2006 had won the champions league and uefa cup in the past couple of years. Barcelona would dominate after we got them in 08. I could go on and on. Yet we have this 67 thing peddled, fair play it’s an achievement but the competition was dukla Prague and nobodies other than inter.
 
Last edited:
We generally do come up against teams that make the final or win it even in recent times. Bayern and Valencia 99, feyenoord 2002, Galatasaray had just won the UEFA cup when we got them. Porto 2006 had won the champions league and uefa cup in the past couple of years. Barcelona would dominate after we got them in 08. I could go on and on. Yet we have this 67 thing peddled, fair play it’s an achievement but the completion was dukla Prague and nobodies other than inter.

Inter Reserves in the 1967 Final. The scum were knocked out in the first round the following year in 1968, I believe ?
 
I’ve just been looking at the quality of the teams that knocked us out of the European Cup in our first six attempts.

Nice, Milan, Eintracht, Standard Liege, Real Madrid, Inter.

Then you look at the easy run the mentally challengeds got all the way to the final in their first attempt.
Scottish football was no where near the level it was presumed to be at. NIce and Liege were insignificant but capable of beating a old fashioned Rangers team. The Bundesliga began in 1963, and the German teams were not consistently strong until then.
Honestly, looking at the thumpings we used to get, it might have been a good thing we avoided Real in 1960.
 
My Grandpa attended the Ibrox semi final and tells me that he thought Eintracht would win it after seeing us battered by them.

He then went to the final at Hampden with his pals and they were just awestruck by that Real Madrid side. 89 years old and getting a bit forgetful these days but he can still recount the details of that game.

My dad was there, and although I doubt he saw Alfredo di Stefano much apart from that 90 minutes, he was adamant that he was the best footballer of his lifetime.
Even better than Baxter presumably!
 
One for the Older Bears.

We often recall our European exploits from 1993, but what is often overlooked is the 1960 campaign, possibly because of bad taste in the mouth after the European Cup Semi Final against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Was it as much of a missed opportunity as it seems? What exactly went wrong? Were we just behind the times tactically compared to what was happening on the continent?

I have often wondered, if we had gotten through against Frankfurt; with the Final being played in Hampden could we have laid a glove on that Madrid team with home advantage and 130,000 Bears roaring behind us?

In a one off game on home soil you would have to had given us shout of lifting the European Cup in those circumstances.

If we lost twelve goals to Eintracht what do you think a side that put seven past them would do to us in turn? Real Madrid would've torn us asunder no matter how many hundred thousand of our own were behind us.
 
Would It not be 65?. The year Baxter broke his leg against Vienna or am I getting that wrong.

EDIT : just checked, 64/65 season, my mistake apologies. Miss understood your post :).
78/79 was the missed opportunity. Having beaten Juventus and PSV Eindhoven we were drawn to play Cologne in the quarter final. Derek Johnstone missed the first leg in Germany because of a horrible leg gash requiring many stitches suffered the previous week at Rugby Park. Billy Urquhart, a boy just signed from the Highland League replaced him. Gordon Smith hit the side netting when through one-on-one to the goalkeeper and having gone past the keeper. We lost 1-0 to a free-kick. We battered them at Ibrox but their goal had a charmed life. We drew 1-1. Cologne should have beat Nottingham Forest in the semi having drawn 3-3 in Nottingham. I think we would have beaten Forest and Malmo in the final.
But 87/88 was also a massive opportunity. Had Butcher not broke his leg we would have beaten Steaua. The final, a dreadful game between two average sides PSV and Benfica, was decided on a penalty shoot-out.
 
78/79 was the missed opportunity. Having beaten Juventus and PSV Eindhoven we were drawn to play Cologne in the quarter final. Derek Johnstone missed the first leg in Germany because of a horrible leg gash requiring many stitches suffered the previous week at Rugby Park. Billy Urquhart, a boy just signed from the Highland League replaced him. Gordon Smith hit the side netting when through one-on-one to the goalkeeper and having gone past the keeper. We lost 1-0 to a free-kick. We battered them at Ibrox but their goal had a charmed life. We drew 1-1. Cologne should have beat Nottingham Forest in the semi having drawn 3-3 in Nottingham. I think we would have beaten Forest and Malmo in the final.
But 87/88 was also a massive opportunity. Had Butcher not broke his leg we would have beaten Steaua. The final, a dreadful game between two average sides PSV and Benfica, was decided on a penalty shoot-out.
Yeah I know mate, was just trying to establish if the poster meant 64 or 65. Turns out I got my seasons mixed up :)
 
78/79 was the missed opportunity. Having beaten Juventus and PSV Eindhoven we were drawn to play Cologne in the quarter final. Derek Johnstone missed the first leg in Germany because of a horrible leg gash requiring many stitches suffered the previous week at Rugby Park. Billy Urquhart, a boy just signed from the Highland League replaced him. Gordon Smith hit the side netting when through one-on-one to the goalkeeper and having gone past the keeper. We lost 1-0 to a free-kick. We battered them at Ibrox but their goal had a charmed life. We drew 1-1. Cologne should have beat Nottingham Forest in the semi having drawn 3-3 in Nottingham. I think we would have beaten Forest and Malmo in the final.
But 87/88 was also a massive opportunity. Had Butcher not broke his leg we would have beaten Steaua. The final, a dreadful game between two average sides PSV and Benfica, was decided on a penalty shoot-out.

Way, way too many ifs and should haves there to be taken seriously. If we'd beaten Cologne, Cologne should have beaten Forest, we'd have beaten both Forest or Malmo. Too many variables by far. I'm more in agreement with your 87/88 assessment. Steau, Benfica, PSV? Nothing to fear there.
 
Yeah I know mate, was just trying to establish if the poster meant 64 or 65. Turns out I got my seasons mixed up :)
Not quite, I was wrong in a way - The Rapid game where Baxter had his leg break was '64 but it was the '65 season (the final). Anyway back to the point, the loss of Baxter ended our chances and probably finished Baxter himself to some degree.
Had he not been so daft and the Rapid player not been a thug we would have had a great chance against Inter leaving a cursed Benfica in the final.
 
Not quite, I was wrong in a way - The Rapid game where Baxter had his leg break was '64 but it was the '65 season (the final). Anyway back to the point, the loss of Baxter ended our chances and probably finished Baxter himself to some degree.
Had he not been so daft and the Rapid player not been a thug we would have had a great chance against Inter leaving a cursed Benfica in the final.
I don’t imagine a person of Baxter’s lifestyle with a serious injury coping too well. Especially in those days were sports science was virtually non existent. Am I correct in saying inter put us out 3-2 ?.
 
I was at the game at Ibrox, and I must admit I had never seen football like it, I don't think a Rangers fan left Ibrox, that night thinking any other team would win the cup, so to then see RM win it was a real shock, it just told me how far we were behind the other clubs had advanced.
 
Didn’t we miss out on a European cup final in the sixties due to a coin toss after a draw only to find out later we had been done because our away goal should’ve counted double???
 
You not thinking of Lisbon in 72 where we went through ?. Only other coin toss was in 67 where we went through against Zaragoza I think.
I don’t know, I’m sure I remember reading this in a rangers history book when I was a kid in the 70s, but of course I could be very wrong
 
Liverpool in 1978?
Almost been forgotten that in winning 2 European Cups Forrest had to first put Liverpool out over 2 legs in the first round 78/79.
If they had lost that match against arguably the best team in the World at that point they would have won Zero European Cups.
 
My Grandpa attended the Ibrox semi final and tells me that he thought Eintracht would win it after seeing us battered by them.

He then went to the final at Hampden with his pals and they were just awestruck by that Real Madrid side. 89 years old and getting a bit forgetful these days but he can still recount the details of that game.


Exactly what my late grandpa told me.

He couldn't see anyone beating Eintracht after our semi final and he was then at Hampden to see Real Madrid tear them apart.
 
78/79 was the missed opportunity. Having beaten Juventus and PSV Eindhoven we were drawn to play Cologne in the quarter final. Derek Johnstone missed the first leg in Germany because of a horrible leg gash requiring many stitches suffered the previous week at Rugby Park. Billy Urquhart, a boy just signed from the Highland League replaced him. Gordon Smith hit the side netting when through one-on-one to the goalkeeper and having gone past the keeper. We lost 1-0 to a free-kick. We battered them at Ibrox but their goal had a charmed life. We drew 1-1. Cologne should have beat Nottingham Forest in the semi having drawn 3-3 in Nottingham. I think we would have beaten Forest and Malmo in the final.
But 87/88 was also a massive opportunity. Had Butcher not broke his leg we would have beaten Steaua. The final, a dreadful game between two average sides PSV and Benfica, was decided on a penalty shoot-out.

I was lucky enough to get tickets for all 3 home ties in season 78/79 for a reduced capacity Ibrox and I do not recall us battering Cologne at Ibrox. From what I remember we were pretty poor on the night and only a late and very fortunate equaliser from McLean stopped us losing the match.
 
We generally do come up against teams that make the final or win it even in recent times. Bayern and Valencia 99, feyenoord 2002, Galatasaray had just won the UEFA cup when we got them. Porto 2006 had won the champions league and uefa cup in the past couple of years. Barcelona would dominate after we got them in 08. I could go on and on. Yet we have this 67 thing peddled, fair play it’s an achievement but the competition was dukla Prague and nobodies other than inter.
Juventus in 1995/96 as well.

CSKA Moscow also won the UEFA Cup in 2004/05 after knocking us out the CL qualifiers.

Manchester United made the CL final in 2010/11 as well.
 
Eintracht - for a team themselves not even fully professional - were pretty much shocked or aghast even at our lack of prematch preparation and drills and our tactical naivety throughout

This is one decent article about the tie and how we developed a relationship of sorts with Eintracht throughout the 60s


Rangers probably had better players man-for-man than Frankfurt, had much more of the ball over the two legs and created a similar number of chances; yet they were comprehensively outthought tactically and picked apart at will on the counter-attack.

Can’t remember the article I read where Eintracht looked on with bemusement at our warm up routines but it’s out there somewhere
 
I was lucky enough to get tickets for all 3 home ties in season 78/79 for a reduced capacity Ibrox and I do not recall us battering Cologne at Ibrox. From what I remember we were pretty poor on the night and only a late and very fortunate equaliser from McLean stopped us losing the match.
That’s the way I remember it.
 
My Grandpa attended the Ibrox semi final and tells me that he thought Eintracht would win it after seeing us battered by them.

He then went to the final at Hampden with his pals and they were just awestruck by that Real Madrid side. 89 years old and getting a bit forgetful these days but he can still recount the details of that game.
Done exactly the same as your grandpa mate,altho a bit younger I was 8 ,my first season at Ibrox, my dad took me,in 1960,saw the semi final,then the janitor at our school,took 8/9 of us to the final!
 
78/79 was the missed opportunity. Having beaten Juventus and PSV Eindhoven we were drawn to play Cologne in the quarter final. Derek Johnstone missed the first leg in Germany because of a horrible leg gash requiring many stitches suffered the previous week at Rugby Park. Billy Urquhart, a boy just signed from the Highland League replaced him. Gordon Smith hit the side netting when through one-on-one to the goalkeeper and having gone past the keeper. We lost 1-0 to a free-kick. We battered them at Ibrox but their goal had a charmed life. We drew 1-1. Cologne should have beat Nottingham Forest in the semi having drawn 3-3 in Nottingham. I think we would have beaten Forest and Malmo in the final.
But 87/88 was also a massive opportunity. Had Butcher not broke his leg we would have beaten Steaua. The final, a dreadful game between two average sides PSV and Benfica, was decided on a penalty shoot-out.
PSV were hardly an average side though were they? 5 players in the Dutch side that won Euro 88 not long after the final. They also knocked out a Real Madrid team that had Jorge Valdano, Hugo Sanchez, Butragueno, Santillana and Michel in it.
 
78/79 was the missed opportunity. Having beaten Juventus and PSV Eindhoven we were drawn to play Cologne in the quarter final. Derek Johnstone missed the first leg in Germany because of a horrible leg gash requiring many stitches suffered the previous week at Rugby Park. Billy Urquhart, a boy just signed from the Highland League replaced him. Gordon Smith hit the side netting when through one-on-one to the goalkeeper and having gone past the keeper. We lost 1-0 to a free-kick. We battered them at Ibrox but their goal had a charmed life. We drew 1-1. Cologne should have beat Nottingham Forest in the semi having drawn 3-3 in Nottingham. I think we would have beaten Forest and Malmo in the final.
But 87/88 was also a massive opportunity. Had Butcher not broke his leg we would have beaten Steaua. The final, a dreadful game between two average sides PSV and Benfica, was decided on a penalty shoot-out.
87/88 wasn't helped by having no fully fit strikers for the Steua tie. Falco and Fleck were sold and Ally was 10 days post cartilage surgery at the fırst leg.
 
If we lost twelve goals to Eintracht what do you think a side that put seven past them would do to us in turn? Real Madrid would've torn us asunder no matter how many hundred thousand of our own were behind us.
But then you get days like Berwick mate in a cup final anything can happen , FFS QOTS brought it back to 2-2 agZinst us with us winning , who would have thought that would happen that day or Falkirk giving us a real fright
 
I was lucky enough to get tickets for all 3 home ties in season 78/79 for a reduced capacity Ibrox and I do not recall us battering Cologne at Ibrox. From what I remember we were pretty poor on the night and only a late and very fortunate equaliser from McLean stopped us losing the match.

yip this in my eyes too , remember the school kids in getting the snow off the pitch the day before as well
 
My Grandpa attended the Ibrox semi final and tells me that he thought Eintracht would win it after seeing us battered by them.

He then went to the final at Hampden with his pals and they were just awestruck by that Real Madrid side. 89 years old and getting a bit forgetful these days but he can still recount the details of that game.
I couldn't see any team in the world beating Eintracht after watching them demolish us at Ibrox. Real were Spanish "tanner ba' merchants that would crumble against a German team. Aye right.

That Cup Final was a revelation and I lost 5 bob on it.
 
78/79 was the missed opportunity. Having beaten Juventus and PSV Eindhoven we were drawn to play Cologne in the quarter final. Derek Johnstone missed the first leg in Germany because of a horrible leg gash requiring many stitches suffered the previous week at Rugby Park. Billy Urquhart, a boy just signed from the Highland League replaced him. Gordon Smith hit the side netting when through one-on-one to the goalkeeper and having gone past the keeper. We lost 1-0 to a free-kick. We battered them at Ibrox but their goal had a charmed life. We drew 1-1. Cologne should have beat Nottingham Forest in the semi having drawn 3-3 in Nottingham. I think we would have beaten Forest and Malmo in the final.
But 87/88 was also a massive opportunity. Had Butcher not broke his leg we would have beaten Steaua. The final, a dreadful game between two average sides PSV and Benfica, was decided on a penalty shoot-out.

Big Tam Forsyth broke Flohe's ribs at Ibrox.

He ran their team. They would have beaten Forest with him in their team, he was that good imo.
 
There was a joke back in the day and in the 2nd leg at Ibrox, Eintracht score and one wee German in the Rangers end celebrates the goal and then immediately shuts up what with being surrounded by bears.

A wee Rangers fan next to him says just celebrate, you're here to support your team. There's nothing wrong with that.

Eintracht score a 2nd, a 3rd a 4th, a 5th and finally when they score their 6th the wee Rangers fan whacks him across the napper with a bottle.

The bloodied and dazed German cries out; 'What was that for? You said it was okay to support my team.'

The wee Rangers fan says; 'That's not for the football, that was for bombing Clydebank during the war!'

Was probably funny at the time.
 
Back
Top