Footballing "what ifs?"

December 2009.

Standard Liege vs AZ Alkmaar.

Champions league match day 6.

Standard Liege losing 1-0 in 95th minute.

Their keeper goes up for a corner and scores to make it 1-1 to give them a consolation Europa league place.

The minuscule amount of coefficient points that result gives the Belgian league means that the winners of the 2010-11 Scottish premiership have to play qualifiers for the 2011-12 CL, having just missed out on the last automatic place to the Belgian league thanks to that result.

We won the league in 2011 but didn’t get the CL money after losing to Malmö.

The rest is history.
 
If Edmundo had played instead of R9 in 98.

If Forrest and Dandy were kept, if Willoughby played against Bayern.

If Jig had got out of Novo’s way in Manchester.

If we had lost to Celtic in 15/16, would it have gave us more chance of challenging them in 16/17 as they might not have appointed Rodgers.

McCulloch was in no way to blame for Novo skying it, IMO of course.
 
McCulloch was in no way to blame for Novo skying it, IMO of course.
Wasn't necessarily blaming him, as he was just trying to react to a bouncing ball but I'm almost certain if he isn't there and doesn't put Novo off then it is a goal. I suppose it is one of those you could debate until the end of time :))
 
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Think about those games quite a lot tbh and always wonder if it would have saved us from admin or delayed it.

I don’t as much now but did for a long time. Trying to find one thing that could’ve avoided us going through admin and demotion.

55 and stopping the ten meant all the pain from that episode at least meant something. It’s weird, I feel like we’re on a far superior level of support to Celtic fans having been through all that.
 
Another one for me is what if Rangers had been a little more savvy and streetwise v Levski Sofia in Bulgaria in 1993. Injury time, an we have a corner. Next thing they score from long range. What the f#ck... :oops: Another go at the group stages in 93/94 might've changed our European destiny. Ah well, if ifs and ands were pots and pans.... :rolleyes:
I was there, I've never heard a roar like that ever since. :(
 
What if 4 lads didn’t have a dream.

Would I have followed an other team?
Would I have liked football?
Who would my friends be given that most of my mates are bluenoses?
What would I do with my time if there was no Follow Follow?

Lots of deep philosophical questions that don’t bear considering, especially after 2012.
That's a question that even Deep Thought couldn't begin to compute, whether in this universe, or any of the other trillion, zillion, billion, million others that are claimed to exist.
I'm glad we Brothers in Blue just share this one.
 
Thinking about the knock on effect the smallest action can have is truly mental, the butterfly effect.

Everything major can be traced back to one tiny tiny event or very very small decision.
 
John Greig doesn't play for a draw against the 10 man filth at the piggery in May 79
Back to back trebles managerial career off to a flier
Sadly it went downhill after that night
 
That last one is something that I thought a lot about throughout 16/17

I believe that Delia would've still left, but I don't think they would've went for Rodgers.

That win absolutely rattled them.
It did rattle them and might have gave them a big boot up the arse, but what a day. Wouldn't change that for anything.

What if Brooks Mileson never died or had an heir that was happy to bankroll Gretna. Would they have challenged at the top end eventually? Taken over as a third/fourth force for a sustained period?
 
What if...

Laudrup had stayed to play under Advocaat? Imagine (a couple of years later) de Boer, Mols and Laudrup in the same team

We didn't sell Gazza at Xmas during that last season? He'd had a bad season but could he have been the difference and got us a couple more points?
 
What if Gerrard started Helander over Balogun vs Malmö

We arguably don’t concede those stupid goals

Would Gerrard still be here?
 
We had signed the boy on the left looking at it.

sdqXj8OwPAd0etZTZELlDQ99687
 
What if...

Laudrup had stayed to play under Advocaat? Imagine (a couple of years later) de Boer, Mols and Laudrup in the same team

We didn't sell Gazza at Xmas during that last season? He'd had a bad season but could he have been the difference and got us a couple more points?

We sold Gazza with 7 games left and picked up more points than Celtic - 15 to their 12.
 
What if MCcoist was never appointed manager and we got someone in who knew how to bring the youngsters through ? which is what I think we should have done !
What youngsters did he not try that were a) ready & b) any good?

Which of those youngsters has gone on to show us what we missed by not playing them?

A lot of things can be levelled at McCoist as Manager. Refusing to play good quality youngsters is not one of them.
 
What youngster did he not try that were a) ready & b) any good?

Which of those youngsters has gone on to show us what we missed by not playing them?

A lot of things can be levelled at McCoist as Manager. Refusing to play good quality youngsters is not one of them.

Agree, while clearly kicking a ball at McCoist's arse wasn't the best training environment, the brutal reality is they were pretty much all, a bit sh*te.
 
What if Whittaker was dropped for the Malmö games in 2011.

He doesn’t give away a stupid goal in the first leg. Then doesn’t get sent off for throwing the ball at one of their players when we’re on the ascendancy.

Guaranteed Europa League football at least and in the Champions League play offs. Are we able to then avoid admin?
Whyte's sole intention was administration so nothing would have prevented that.
 
What youngsters did he not try that were a) ready & b) any good?

Which of those youngsters has gone on to show us what we missed by not playing them?

A lot of things can be levelled at McCoist as Manager. Refusing to play good quality youngsters is not one of them.
We should have brought in a manager who would get get the most out of the youngsters and tried to sign the best young talent we could attract,MCcoist made some of the worst signings in Rangers history and set us back a couple of years,
 
If Heysel hadn't happened and English clubs hadn't been banned from European competition for half a decade:
- How would it have affected Rangers? (and Scottish football more generally, if anyone's got thoughts on that)
- How would it have affected European football in late 80s/early 90s?
- Would Everton have enjoyed a period of dominance, perhaps including a European Cup win, that would have set them up better to compete into the early 90s and the Premier League era?
I was born right at the start of the Souness revolution and Heysel was the year before, so I was obviously far too young to understand it all at the time.

Looking back at it, I think that we were very fortunate with the English ban from Europe and being in a position to sign top English players. Of course we were able to match or even better the wages of their top sides. However using the carrot of guaranteed European football would have surely been the clincher.

The Everton question is interesting and it was an incredible rise from where they were in the early 80s. Yes, I think they could have made an impact in the old European Cup format.

By the same token, we should have made a bigger impact in Europe in the absence of England's clubs. The majority of our 9IAR squad arguably peaked in 1992/93, but should we (or could we) have chanced our arm at getting into the EPL right at the start. Personally I've always thought that we were in the wrong place at the right time.
 
December 2009.

Standard Liege vs AZ Alkmaar.

Champions league match day 6.

Standard Liege losing 1-0 in 95th minute.

Their keeper goes up for a corner and scores to make it 1-1 to give them a consolation Europa league place.

The minuscule amount of coefficient points that result gives the Belgian league means that the winners of the 2010-11 Scottish premiership have to play qualifiers for the 2011-12 CL, having just missed out on the last automatic place to the Belgian league thanks to that result.

We won the league in 2011 but didn’t get the CL money after losing to Malmö.

The rest is history.
I think even with the CL money CW would have put us into admin it was his plan all along. I think the CL money would have just delayed that scumbag a few months

His plan was to scre HMRC and ticketus and emerge debt free with him as owner after a short admin.

Absolute scum either way
 
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I think even with the CL money CW would have put us into admin it was his plan all along. I think the CL money would have just delayed that scumbag a few months

His plan was to scre HMRC and ticketus and emerge debt free with him as owner after a short admin.

Absolute scum either way

Yeah he would have done it regardless. Just a daft wee hypothetical that has played on my mind. Deep down I know wouldn’t have made a difference but maybe just maybe another party would’ve been interested if we were guaranteed the cl money.

Highly unlikely but hey ho.
 
December 2009.

Standard Liege vs AZ Alkmaar.

Champions league match day 6.

Standard Liege losing 1-0 in 95th minute.

Their keeper goes up for a corner and scores to make it 1-1 to give them a consolation Europa league place.

The minuscule amount of coefficient points that result gives the Belgian league means that the winners of the 2010-11 Scottish premiership have to play qualifiers for the 2011-12 CL, having just missed out on the last automatic place to the Belgian league thanks to that result.

We won the league in 2011 but didn’t get the CL money after losing to Malmö.

The rest is history.


For anyone interested
 
I think even with the CL money CW would have put us into admin it was his plan all along. I think the CL money would have just delayed that scumbag a few months

His plan was to scre HMRC and ticketus and emerge debt free with him as owner after a short admin.

Absolute scum either way

I’ve just checked.

The Belgian league winners had to win a playoff to get in the CL in 2011-12.

I am talking out my arse
 
What youngsters did he not try that were a) ready & b) any good?

Which of those youngsters has gone on to show us what we missed by not playing them?

A lot of things can be levelled at McCoist as Manager. Refusing to play good quality youngsters is not one of them.
I agree to an extent, we did play quite a few youngsters. The bigger what if around that though is that I think we can all agree McCoist was a poor manager and coach. So what if we had a good one with the same youngsters? Would their development have improved under better coaching? For all we know McCoist might have held a few of the more promising players back.

McCoist is a legend (goes without saying) but a better manager at the time with new ideas might have given them that extra push in development.
 
If PSG had never bought Neymar then Barca would never have bought Coutinho for 130m.

Liverpool then wouldn't have had the money to go out and buy Van Dijk, Alisson and Fabinho and might never have won the league and CL.
 
What if John Hartson had passed his medical at Ibrox?

The one time we actually catch someone’s long-standing injuries in a medical and he comes back to haunt us in the most damaging manner imaginable.
 
Maybe Queens Park supporters?

The Gallant Pioneers made me realise how integral QP were to the development of Scottish football.
I think it would have been Queens Park… if they went professional. A few ifs & buts there.

The shipbuilding on the doorstep of Ibrox and the people that it brought were pivotal in Rangers becoming what we are today though - not sure that would have as easily found a club that bit further out.
 
He lasts about 4-5 years at Ayr as they don’t have the glamour we had. Ayr might have got a nice stadium out of it, but he would have got bored and pulled the plug similar to his basketball team.

Rangers on the other hand
- Already had Souness
- Stadium would have been same minus club deck
- Financially on a sound footing (as far as I remember). Holmes had implemented a lot of the early strategy that Murray took over.

I don’t think we necessarily win 9 in a row without some of Murray’s “bankroll”, ego, and his ability to bullshit / sales pitches to some players and agents, but I still think we dominate the 90’s, maybe with Aberdeen and that lot winning the odd extra title.

Funnily enough, without Murray I don’t think that lot end up with Fergus McCann. They would have plodded along as they did but wouldn’t have needed someone as ambitious as McCann coming in which was the rocket fuel in their recovery in the 90’s.
Remember that Rangers were for sale at the time though… we might have ended up with Bob Maxwell because he was heavily linked at the time.

Holmes was brought in to sell Rangers. He did it by stabilising & then improving the proposition into a league winning side that was in European competition.
Someone else would have bought Rangers by 1990.
 
The Queens Park question is one I’ve often pondered. They were possibly the best team in the world at one point, and had the biggest stadium in the World too. If they had gone pro at the same time as the rest of us, I’m sure they would be the most successful club in Scotland, with one or both of us and the Bheasts being at a level not much more than Hearts or Hibs.

Sir Alex is a great one too. He would have been successful, but would he have stayed long term like he did with Man Utd? Would he have the same impact as Souness, but with Scottish players rather than English ones? Would we have attracted investment on the level of Murray and lead to the success of 90s?

One small one I wonder about is, if Mo Johnston had joined them in 1989:
1. Would they have won a title and stopped 9IAR?
2. Who would have been our ‘first’ RC and what would the impact have been?
Wasn't Jorg Albertz the second? Therefore potentially the first within your line of thinking.
 
We were howlin' that season, and far off the pace even by the time of this defeat against Aberdeen. Butcher's leg break was immaterial.
I think that season the clubs head was turned by Europe. Butcher was the main component, if you look at how we lost the tie to steaua then see the teams that were left in it....that I think was the year Rangers could have and very possibly would have won the European Cup. All focus was on that.
 
We would have passed the second CL group stages at least :)
Another one for me is what if Rangers had been a little more savvy and streetwise v Levski Sofia in Bulgaria in 1993. Injury time, an we have a corner. Next thing they score from long range. What the f#ck... :oops: Another go at the group stages in 93/94 might've changed our European destiny. Ah well, if ifs and ands were pots and pans.... :rolleyes:
Final at least :) Milan did not play well before the final :)


And my what if:

What would have happened with Rangers if Artmedia had scored in their last game in the CL group in 2005/2006 :)
 
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The talk of Queens Park in the other thread has reignited a couple of long standing thoughts of mine (and has actually being touched on in said thread).

How different would Scottish football have been if Queens Park turned professional with the rest back in the day?

Secondly, had Third Lanark survived and being given a new lease of life moving to somewhere like EK in the late 60s - would they have been a decent-sized club, potentially challenging for titles/ cups?

Any others?
If refs weren't biased against celtic, imagine their trophy haul.
 
If Negri didn't like squash and Mols hadn't got injured. Those 2 fit and firing in and Advocaat team, we'd have done something in Europe and wouldn't have spent £12m on Flo
 
I often wonder about the time Goram was transfer listed by Walter Smith. Where does he go and who replaces him?

Mols injury is an obvious one. I first saw him playing at Love Street against St Mirren and he looked unplayable.

I had a Rangers day by day almanac when I was younger, and reading that threw up a lot of interesting what if scenarios, Jim McLean and Sir Alex being that stand outs.
 
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