1978/79 season

ao2 said:
I'm not defending him as a manager. It was a shambles and he was too driven by tactics domestically, setting up games against St Mirren or Motherwell as if it was Barcelona or Real Madrid. But in his first two seasons he seemed to be able to set us up going into games in Europe, especially away. The results he got there back that up. They weren't undeserved flukes. But his domestic record was shit. Losing to Partick three days after PSV says it all.
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I reckon he got lucky. Away from home tells us a different story.

His second season (79/80) in charge was abominable.

As for the rest...

I do not want to be on here battering heroes.
But I won't be on here defending what was never acceptable, should never be acceptable, ever.
 
Woodrow Call said:
Derek was living in Renfrew and in the pub most nights. Any pace he had was gone. He thought he could get away with it playing at the back.
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How can a player, a professional athlete, lose so much pace in three months?

He was the curly headed player of the year in the May.
He's washed out 12 months later?
#
Management, man management has to play a part here.
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
How can a player, a professional athlete, lose so much pace in three months?

He was the curly headed player of the year in the May.
He's washed out 12 months later?
#
Management, man management has to play a part here.
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While McLeod was a bit of a tit I reckon the reason he did not get on the park in Argenntina was down to his performance in training. I lived round the corner from him. Believe me he was in the pub most nights..
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
I reckon he got lucky. Away from home tells us a different story.

His second season (79/80) in charge was abominable.

As for the rest...

I do not want to be on here battering heroes.
But I won't be on here defending what was never acceptable, should never be acceptable, ever.
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I agree mate. 79/80 should have been his last season or certainly Chesterfield should have been the last straw.
 
A strange time in our history. Knocking out two top notch teams, who between them had fifteen players just back from the World Cup, yet as mentioned above couldn’t beat Thistle after knocking PSV out.

I remember there being a stutter after the PSV game but just checking up there, it was worse than I remembered. We won one of our next five games.
 
Greig was the wrong choice. He had no managerial experience, and was left to manage mates , who he had played alongside the previous season. That said, the juventus game at Ibrox will go down as one of the greatest nights of my life. Greig is a legend and nothing will shift my view of that.
 
Clicker said:
Still remember that night at the piggery, we thought we had clinched the title but our players just couldn’t see the game out. Carnage afterwards, we got a train from Bridgeton Central for Queen Street but it was totally wrecked by the time it reached High Street. Thrown off into the midst of celebrating mentally challengeds everywhere.
Although we won the two cups, The Scottish Cup Final was a turgid affair, two 0-0 draws against a poor Hibs team, we finally scraped the second replay 3-2 thanks to an own goal. I think only about 30,000 bothered to turn up for that one.
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I was one of them.
 
Whilst it was impossible not to appreciate DJ's performances on the pitch - he always could be a bit of a tit off it

Didn't JW have to drag him out of a boozer in King's road London to get him back to Ibrox - after he was awol from pre-season ?

I wouldn't like to cause JW any grief - & can only doubt the intelligence of anyone that would
 
derek145 said:
We missed John Greig on the pitch as well as the team growing old, ultimately we just misfired the whole season and things went downhill very quickly.
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Sums it up as far as I am concerned. Modernisation of Ibrox also commenced that season and as far as I can recall there was very little cash available to replace some of our important but older players. Given all of that, we should still have won the league that season.
 
jimbear said:
Sums it up as far as I am concerned. Modernisation of Ibrox also commenced that season and as far as I can recall there was very little cash available to replace some of our important but older players. Given all of that, we should still have won the league that season.
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We outspent all the other teams including them during Greig’s era. The problem was he could never get the players he signed to reproduce their form from their previous club never mind improve them
 
Two memories stick out - both involving bottles, one tragic.

The Juventus game at Ibrox and the menacing Romeo Benetti is warming up in front of the enclosure. A half bottle of El D is launched and arcs towards him. He sees it coming and when it reaches him he either traps it with his thigh or foot. He then gives a wee smile and a wink to the crowd. A bottle was definitely thrown and I’m sure it happened that way but it may have been embellished over the 40 years since!

The game at the piggery and a guy from school who stayed in Langside is hit on the head with a bottle thrown from the back of the Rangers end. He is obviously badly Injured at the time but is never the same person. Used to see his name writing in to the Evening Times but he died about 2 years later, never having fully recovered.
 
gersandproud said:
Whilst it was impossible not to appreciate DJ's performances on the pitch - he always could be a bit of a tit off it

Didn't JW have to drag him out of a boozer in King's road London to get him back to Ibrox - after he was awol from pre-season ?

I wouldn't like to cause JW any grief - & can only doubt the intelligence of anyone that would
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He'd gone on holiday and fell in with a squad from Clapham. I'm willing to bet there was some "skirt" involved too. On returning he went with his new found friends instead of heading home. Jock Wallace tracked him down to a pub in Clapham. I don't think he'dve done that for any old player, but DJ was a special talent.

What happened to DJ post May 1978?

For me, a lack of dedication to his physical fitness and a lack of man management on Greig's part did for Derek. He had a career most can only dream of but it could and should have been much much better.

When you think of the talent available to Greig during season 1978-79 with Russell,Cooper,Johnstone,Jardine,McDonald and Forsyth still regulars it is a travesty as well as a damning indictment on Greig's managerial capabilities that we didn't end the season as champions.
 
History shows that we won 2 domestic trophies and defeated both Juventus and PSV.

However, I know that 4-2 game at the piggery is still the worst game in my old man's 60 years on this earth and he's not missed many games since then either.

He still can't believe that a defence that shut out Juventus and PSV, conceded 4 goals in 45 minutes against a 10 man Celtic team we'd dominated all season.
 
Staying strictly with the original OP's query which was 1978-79, and not what followed thereafter.

John Greig at the age of 36, with still one year left on his playing contract, was told he was now the Manager of Rangers Football Club.
He took over a team that had won 2 Trebles in 3 years.
The same team he had been playing in weeks earlier, consisted of 7 players who were on the wrong side of 30.

Was He Unlucky?.........In that initial season, I would say Yes.

Despite the horrendous start to his Managerial career, winning only 1 of our opening 9 League fixtures, which left us in 7th place in a 10 team League, just 4 points ahead of bottom placed Motherwell, a quarter into the season,
John Greig's Rangers recovered, and by the season's end, were only one good win and a draw away from giving Rangers arguably our greatest ever season
(winning the Treble, and taking us to the Semi Finals of the European Cup).

He took us to the last 8 in the European Cup with two results that would still qualify today in our Top 5 Euro performances of ALL TIME!
Knocking out Favourites Juventus who had at least 7 of the Italian national side in their ranks with a 2-0 win at Ibrox.
He then went to Holland and defeated their national champions PSV Eindhoven 3-2 on their own patch, where they had NEVER been beaten in 25 Years of European Competition.

With regards to Derek Johnstone, and his 'preference' to play Centre Back, where he has subsequently been accused of lacking drive.
Derek Johnstone still weighed in with a staggering 16 goals over the course of the season
(which was only two less than top scorer Gordon Smith with 18 goals).
Johnstone was out injured for our match in Cologne, and was only fit enough to make the bench for the return game at Ibrox.

Prior to the Parkhead debacle, we had played 6 games in 18 days, which included 4 straight League wins. 4-0 v Hearts, 2-1 v Motherwell, 1-0 v Celtic, 2-0 v Aberdeen, then followed with 2 Scottish Cup Finals v Hibernian that both ended in dull 0-0 draws, as Rangers looked a very tired and weary team.
We then faced Celtic at Parkhead.
It was Celtic's last game of the season, Rangers still had four games to play, 3 League games, and another Scottish Cup Final replay.
10 man Celtic had fought back from 0-1 down to lead 2-1 after 74 mins.
Bobby Russell equalised in the 76th minute. At 2-2 we were on course for the treble.
With only 5 mins left to play, a cross from McCluskey was cut out by McCloy, and inadvertently came back off the head of Colin Jackson and cruelly ended up in the Rangers net.
Rangers threw everyone forward in those last few minutes in search of that equaliser, and in the final minute, a desperate clearance by Celtic found Mcleod, who with seconds left booted the ball as hard as he could towards the Celtic fans behind the goal, and the ball ended up in the postage stamp of the goal!
It was a Disaster for us.
A disaster that would take years to recover from.
 
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Poor start to the season and a very harsh winter that caused a fixture backlog cost us a Grand Slam of four trophies. Endless run of fixtures in April & May.
 
During the Greig years, they bought players like Provan & MacLeod who’d be mainstays in their team for around the next 10 years.

For more money we bought the like of Stevens and McAdam and couldn’t give them away
 
MearnsUnionist said:
History shows that we won 2 domestic trophies and defeated both Juventus and PSV.

However, I know that 4-2 game at the piggery is still the worst game in my old man's 60 years on this earth and he's not missed many games since then either.

He still can't believe that a defence that shut out Juventus and PSV, conceded 4 goals in 45 minutes against a 10 man Celtic team we'd dominated all season.
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We hadn't really dominated them all season.
Celtic won the first league encounter 3-1 at the Piggery in Sept.
After only 4 league games played, we were 6 points behind Celtic!
We drew 1-1 with them at Hampden(our home league game) in Nov.
At this point in the season (13 games played), only 3 points separated the top 9 of the 10 teams in the League. Dundee Utd were top on 15 points, Hearts were second bottom on 12 points!
Celtic were 4th on 14 points, 1 point ahead of Rangers in 6th place!
We beat them 3-2 in the League Cup Semi Final courtesy of an own goal in extra time, in December.
At the beginning of May, Celtic were still 1 point ahead of us in the League, with both teams having 5 games to play (2 against each other).
We beat them 1-0 at Hampden (our home League game) with a sclaffed Alex MacDonald strike, just over two weeks before the Parkhead debacle.
That win put us 1 point ahead of them with 4 games to play, which meant both teams had the title in their own hands.
4 wins for them guaranteed them the Title,
and for us, 4 wins, or 3 wins and a draw at Parkhead guaranteed us the Title.
 
MO_TxTruBlu said:
We hadn't really dominated them all season.
Celtic won the first league encounter 3-1 at the Piggery in Sept.
After only 4 league games played, we were 6 points behind Celtic!
We drew 1-1 with them at Hampden(our home league game) in Nov.
At this point in the season (13 games played), only 3 points separated the top 9 of the 10 teams in the League. Dundee Utd were top on 15 points, Hearts were second bottom on 12 points!
Celtic were 4th on 14 points, 1 point ahead of Rangers in 6th place!
We beat them 3-2 in the League Cup Semi Final courtesy of an own goal in extra time, in December.
At the beginning of May, Celtic were still 1 point ahead of us in the League, with both teams having 5 games to play (2 against each other).
We beat them 1-0 at Hampden (our home League game) with a sclaffed Alex MacDonald strike, just over two weeks before the Parkhead debacle.
That win put us 1 point ahead of them with 4 games to play, which meant both teams had the title in their own hands.
4 wins for them guaranteed them the Title,
and for us, 4 wins, or 3 wins and a draw at Parkhead guaranteed us the Title.
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Dominated is probably the wrong description mate.

My old man thought we were a far better football team than them that season and dropped too many needless points.
 
We lost a game 2-0 at Motherwell on Easter Saturday. They finished bottom and were absolutely hopeless. I believe they had been on a long run without a win prior to that game including an 8-0 tanking at Aberdeen
 
Sancus said:
Two memories stick out - both involving bottles, one tragic.

The Juventus game at Ibrox and the menacing Romeo Benetti is warming up in front of the enclosure. A half bottle of El D is launched and arcs towards him. He sees it coming and when it reaches him he either traps it with his thigh or foot. He then gives a wee smile and a wink to the crowd. A bottle was definitely thrown and I’m sure it happened that way but it may have been embellished over the 40 years since!

The game at the piggery and a guy from school who stayed in Langside is hit on the head with a bottle thrown from the back of the Rangers end. He is obviously badly Injured at the time but is never the same person. Used to see his name writing in to the Evening Times but he died about 2 years later, never having fully recovered.
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Regarding the bottle at the piggery incident, I am almost sure that was a midweek game back in 1980 which we lost 1-0 when McGarvey scored in the last seconds for them. I remember hearing the bottle was thrown after the referee refused to award us a stonewall penalty for a foul on Gordon Smith. I did not know that the lad had passed away two years later.
 
MearnsUnionist said:
History shows that we won 2 domestic trophies and defeated both Juventus and PSV.

However, I know that 4-2 game at the piggery is still the worst game in my old man's 60 years on this earth and he's not missed many games since then either.

He still can't believe that a defence that shut out Juventus and PSV, conceded 4 goals in 45 minutes against a 10 man Celtic team we'd dominated all season.
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The tims were like men possessed. They had a chance to win it on their own midden. Even if we had won we were not champions.
Aye it was a sore one but I'm still here.:)
 
jimbear said:
Regarding the bottle at the piggery incident, I am almost sure that was a midweek game back in 1980 which we lost 1-0 when McGarvey scored in the last seconds for them. I remember hearing the bottle was thrown after the referee refused to award us a stonewall penalty for a foul on Gordon Smith. I did not know that the lad had passed away two years later.
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You are correct, it was the game on 2nd April 1980. I found the Evening Times report on the incident on 4th April. Tragic.
 
I wouldn't deny the factors JG couldn't do much about - such as the ageing team he inherited - neither will I try to minimise the 'unlucky' parts of his tenure - & I fully appreciate the heights he helped us climb to in Europe

However I can't ignore the poor tactics, formations, selection issues & stubborn approach he brought to some of our domestic games in particular.

I admit that he had to 'learn' in the job & that won't have been easy - but I'm not sure how much he did learn

He didn't take the plusses from European games into domestic matches - domestically our defence at the time often leaked goals to lesser teams with un-impressive strikers - yet we were still making the same mistakes at the end of the season as we were at the beginning -

I'm probably being over - critical & maybe I'm wrong - but for all his experience - he still had an 'I'm right' attitude to most things

When you regularly drop points to inferior (at least on paper) opponents it makes you wonder if it's a confidence or motivation issue & again despite his experience - it would appear he couldn't instigate enough of these qualities into his teams

I don't like being this negative - but I can't help thinking he was just not cut out to be a manager - unfortunately the damage was done by the time it took us to admit this
 
Who could've envisaged that such a great and inspiring captain would turn out to be an utterly hopeless man-manager?

Not me, that's for sure.
 
academical said:
Didn’t Rangers nearly do back-to-back trebles until (in a slogan that lasted for years) ten men won 4-2?
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Threw it away at the piggery. 1 0 up against 10 men and couldn't see the match out. The beasts scored all of their goals when down to 10. The night still haunts me.
 
Sancus said:
You are correct, it was the game on 2nd April 1980. I found the Evening Times report on the incident on 4th April. Tragic.
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Ì was at that game and remember hearing a couple of days later about the lad being hit by the bottle and severely injured. The actions of one idiot ruined the guy's life.
 
Sounds like shades of 2007/08 season (minus the SFA shafting and exploitation of a footballers death)
 
League season was to end on 28th April due to the harsh winter it meant a backlog of games it was extended

Our original schedule was for the outstanding games around the Cup Final (original date of the game)

Celtic (Home - Hampden) 5th May (24th March)
Aberdeen (Home) 7th May (13th January)
Hibs (Hampden) 12th May - Scottish Cup Final as planned original date
Hibs (Away) 14th May - (30th December)
Celtic (Away 16th May - (6th January)
Partick (Home) 18th May (1st January)

When we drew with Hibs they the Scottish League binned 14th-18th schedule as it allowing clubs a free run at the Cup Final replay

Discussions took place and they hope the Celtic game would take place on the 19th May but in the end 21st May was decided

Partick was 23rd May while Hibs originally was to be 25th May but Hibs reject it based they had plans for London, it was the night before England v Scotland then it agreed for 31st May

All this while not clashing with any of the Home Internationals
 
4-2 loss at pig park was 1st time i cried over a match. Knew we wouldnt win much with Martin Henderson as striker for many games. Cologne was my 1st away european trip.Great memories still.
 
Like a lot of great players, John Greig failed to transfer all that he brought onto the park when he was wearing his boots to his days of wearing a suit in the dugout.

I don’t profess to be able to recite that season chapter and verse. However, I do remember Derek Johnstone moving to centre half and being made captain. We did not replace him as a goal scoring forward of the previous year and he was not captain material. I felt, at the time, either Sandy Jardine or Tom Forsyth should have been made captain.

A poor League start was similar to 1972-1973 and equally as damaging. In between, stunning results against Juventus and PSV. Celtic in my memory were poor that season and that defeat at the end of their season, but not ours, was one of my low points as a Rangers supporter. I agree we did not really recover from this one result until Graeme Souness and Walter Smith arrived at Ibrox.

The Hibs Cup Final was, by the third game, one that everyone was wanting to be over. I would not go as far as we did not care who won but one of just get this done. Please!!

On reflection, the season was probably the last gasp of our great team of the middle to late 70’s. Tom Forsyth, Sandy Jardine, Alex MacDonald, Colin Jackson to name four were not to be as effective after this season as in previous years. Derek Johnstone’s fitness levels were not great either and his weight increased. We missed him at centre forward.

The last game of a long season was Hibs at Easter Road with Billy Urquhuart scoring in a 2-1 defeat. The only season that TMC was at every game. That ever present run will never happen again for me. I don’t know how the players felt at the end of the 1978-79 season but I was absolutely knackered.
 
The Meik's Crombie said:
Like a lot of great players, John Greig failed to transfer all that he brought onto the park when he was wearing his boots to his days of wearing a suit in the dugout.

I don’t profess to be able to recite that season chapter and verse. However, I do remember Derek Johnstone moving to centre half and being made captain. We did not replace him as a goal scoring forward of the previous year and he was not captain material. I felt, at the time, either Sandy Jardine or Tom Forsyth should have been made captain.

A poor League start was similar to 1972-1973 and equally as damaging. In between, stunning results against Juventus and PSV. Celtic in my memory were poor that season and that defeat at the end of their season, but not ours, was one of my low points as a Rangers supporter. I agree we did not really recover from this one result until Graeme Souness and Walter Smith arrived at Ibrox.

The Hibs Cup Final was, by the third game, one that everyone was wanting to be over. I would not go as far as we did not care who won but one of just get this done. Please!!

On reflection, the season was probably the last gasp of our great team of the middle to late 70’s. Tom Forsyth, Sandy Jardine, Alex MacDonald, Colin Jackson to name four were not to be as effective after this season as in previous years. Derek Johnstone’s fitness levels were not great either and his weight increased. We missed him at centre forward.

The last game of a long season was Hibs at Easter Road with Billy Urquhuart scoring in a 2-1 defeat. The only season that TMC was at every game. That ever present run will never happen again for me. I don’t know how the players felt at the end of the 1978-79 season but I was absolutely knackered.
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Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing, but we now know the decision to appoint DJ as captain was the first sign of Greig's inability to make a decision. He himself alluded to this after he'd left. He really wanted Sandy Jardine as skipper but Johnstone had been groomed for the role,most likely at the insistence of Willie Waddell.
Greig should've went with his gut instinct, but lacked that ability to to make the decision. Alex Ferguson states that particular ability to be, in his opinion,the most important in football management.
 
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