A little bit about Willie Reid who kept him out the team. One of the top half dozen goalscorers in our near 150 year history.
Since the great RC Hamilton left the club, Rangers struggled to replace him at centre forward. In April 1909, they signed Willie Reid from Portsmouth to try to finally fill that gap. Reid made his debut in one of the most infamous matches in Scottish football history, the 1909 Scottish Cup Final replay against Celtic which ended in a major riot when fans expected the drawn game to go to extra time but the players left the field. The trophy was withheld, and Reid played in 2 more matches before the end of the season, failing to score in any or be in a winning team. Little did the Rangers fans suspect such an unimpressive start would lead to fantastic success.
The 1909/10 campaign saw Reid stake his claim as the club's first choice centre forward with 13 goals in 22 appearances, but this was just the prelude to a period of incredible goalscoring. In 1910/11 he rattled in 41 goals in 36 games, the key man in Rangers finally bringing the title back to Ibrox after a 9 year wait. He was equally prolific in the following 2 seasons, both years retaining the championship crown. His marvellous form earned him 9 caps for Scotland, scoring 4 times for his country. This included the clinching goal in a famous 3-1 victory over England at Hampden in 1914, a match watched by an estimated 130,000 people.
From 1916 to 1918 Willie Reid served his country in the battlefield of the Great War, returning to Rangers for one final season when he typically scored 8 goals in only 9 appearances in season 1919/20 when the league was again won. He left Ibrox in May 1920 for Albion Rovers, a club he went on to manage. Willie Reid died in 1966 at the age of 80, and is not yet inducted in the Rangers Hall of Fame, an accolade his achievements surely deserve.
Appearances 230
Goals 195
4 League Championship medals.
www.scotsman.com
