1967–68 Season

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?
aberdeen beat us 3-2 at Ibrox that day,April 27 my 13th birthday.Bastards then bastards still.
 
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?

Also reached UEFA Cup semi final...
 
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.

Fantastic Summary - thanks for posting. I was only 9 at the time and had been to my first game at Ibrox earlier that season, a 3-1 win over Hamilton in the SC and the same day that Dunfermline went to the piggery and knocked them out 2-0. I can remember the tension of the last few weeks of the season & the disappointment of the Aberdeen result which virtually handed them the title.
 
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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.

Was at the the above as an impressionable 8 year old. Feet never touched the ground leaving Cappielow that night!
Can remember more about that game than i can remember last week's game:(

Great summary of the end of season 1967/68 by the way
 
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1-0 at Ibrox and 4-2 at Celtic Park?

I remember big ‘Legend’ scoring in a 1-0 win… possibbly a penalty.

Just can’t remember if it was 67-68 or 68-69.

Think the ‘boy white’ was in charge and we wore the all royal blue shirt with the round neck.

Can still picture Greigy with arm aloft saluting the supporters!!

Dementia Loyal
 
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Fantastic Summary - thanks for posting. I was only 9 at the time and had been to my first game at Ibrox earlier that season, a 3-1 win over Hamilton in the SC and the same day that Dunfermline went to the piggery and knocked them out 2-0. I can remember the tension of the last few weeks of the season & the disappointment of the Aberdeen result which virtually handed them the title.


Them losing in the first round of both the European Cup and the Scottish Cup probably helped them win the league. They could concentrate on that while we had the Fairs Cup and Scottish Cup to go for as well as the league. Cup replays only added to our backlog and we ended up winning nothing. Desperate stuff, and it should have all been so different.
 
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I remember big ‘Legend’ scoring in a 1-0 win… possibbly a penalty.

Just can’t remember if it was 67-68 or 68-69.

Think the ‘boy white’ was in charge and we wore the all royal blue shirt with the round neck.

Can still picture Greigy with arm aloft saluting the supporters!!

Dementia Loyal


2nd January 1969 mate, 1-0 to Rangers with 85,000 there to witness it:


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Remember talking to
I remember big ‘Legend’ scoring in a 1-0 win… possibbly a penalty.

Just can’t remember if it was 67-68 or 68-69.

Think the ‘boy white’ was in charge and we wore the all royal blue shirt with the round neck.

Can still picture Greigy with arm aloft saluting the supporters!!

Dementia Loyal
Yeah, that was the January 1969 game.
 
Orjan Persson scored some special goals, and this was one of them - direct from a corner in a 5-0 win over Stirling Albion on 16th March 1968:


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A lost season to me had joined the army in 67 as a boy soldier and went to Chepstow. No tv in the barracks and my only updates was a copy of the record rolled up and posted to me once a week by the old dear.
The old man though made sure that copy was the one with that weeks match report.
 
Orjan Persson scored some special goals, and this was one of them - direct from a corner in a 5-0 win over Stirling Albion on 16th March 1968:
In the west enclosure that day , remember Persson goal at the Rangers end.

2i0yetc.jpg
 
Rangers winning a Fairs Cup tie v Dynamo Dresden on 7th October 1967 (2-1, 3-2 agg):


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The ‘loan’ Ranger being …the late Andy Penman?

Jeez ……Billy McBungle looks like he is about to banjo Ronnie Simpson!


Actually I'm not sure about that one as their keeper was Fallon that day (he had a 'mare and was responsible for both our goals, especially the second!). I think the third one may be from the League Cup match on 30th August 1967, which they won 3-1.
 
Actually I'm not sure about that one as their keeper was Fallon that day (he had a 'mare and was responsible for both our goals, especially the second!). I think the third one may be from the League Cup match on 30th August 1967, which they won 3-1.
I remember Fallon being a fat b even then … had a square heid ……but you are probably right!
 
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It was, and it was uncalled for. I always felt sorry for Davie White. At a different time and with more experience he could have been a success with Rangers. He didn't exactly get much time but he came close and was desperately unlucky in many ways.

If memory serves Waddell who was a full time journalist castigated White in the Express? after our humiliation at the hands of Gornik …home and away!

And then ………replaced him as manager………I think!
 
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If memory serves Waddell who was a full time journalist castigated White in the Express? after our humiliation at the hands of Gornik …home and away!

And then ………replaced him as manager………I think!


You're right! He'd been on his case for a while. Stuff like players with moustaches and turning up late for training, standards slipping etc. Yet Rangers played some cracking football under White and with time probably would have come good. Unfortunately with them winning so much (not least the European Cup) time wasn't on his side. He did well at Dundee when he left, winning the League Cup and taking them into Europe.
 
We should have stopped them gaining their first in 65/66.

We dropped 6 points out of 8 in the month of March, and they went on to win the league by two points.

Two years later the two draws at Tannadice and Morton were our undoing.

Even still, if we had beat Aberdeen, the filth would have been under pressure to actually get a result the following midweek at Dunfermline.

Whereas, they took to the pitch knowing that they couldn't be caught on GD or Goal average. So no pressure on them.

65/66, 67/68 and 68/69 could have seen us win the title.

But, it's all ifs, but and aunty having baws.
 
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Another great manager we let slip through our fingers!

Waddell will mostly be remembered as a manager at least …for the League Cup and Scottish Cup wins as well as our European win……superb … of course……but I think we struggled badly in the league in just about every season he was in charge?
 
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Another great manager we let slip through our fingers!

Waddell will mostly be remembered as a manager at least …for the League Cup and Scottish Cup wins as well as our European win……superb … of course……but I think we struggled badly in the league in just about every season he was in charge?


His record in Old Firm games was terrible, other than that 1970 League Cup Final. He dismantled the team and rebuilt it and it meant we became more of a cup team than a league winning side. We did start winning stuff again (not least the Cup-Winners Cup!), even more so when Jock Wallace took over, but those Rangers teams of the mid-late 60s had some amount of talent and I wish we had players of that quality today.
 
His record in Old Firm games was terrible, other than that 1970 League Cup Final. He dismantled the team and rebuilt it and it meant we became more of a cup team than a league winning side. We did start winning stuff again (not least the Cup-Winners Cup!), even more so when Jock Wallace took over, but those Rangers teams of the mid-late 60s had some amount of talent and I wish we had players of that quality today.

Ditto mate……enjoyed the walk down ‘memory lane’
A very small part of our illustrious history.
 
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It was, and it was uncalled for. I always felt sorry for Davie White. At a different time and with more experience he could have been a success with Rangers. He didn't exactly get much time but he came close and was desperately unlucky in many ways.

Saturday night, even when we had been at the game, was always me and my old man.

My ma and wee bruv were in the living room watching The Two Ronnies. Me and my da were in the kitchen and he would be telling me about the Rangers teams when he was growing up; the iron curtain defence, and Willie Thornton, his childhood idol.

And mostly Baxter, Baxter, Baxter.

Now we're getting into the early to mid 70s here, when Jock Wallace was coming into his own and my old man maintained even then, if Davie White had won a trophy in the late 60s, he'd still have been the manager at that point.

Because of circumstances, Davie White, possibly the hardest done by manager, most unfortunate, we've ever had.
 
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