Stevie Crawford - what was the story there

lwl

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Yes, it's a thread that could only be started in lockdown.

Stevie Crawford burst onto the scene in the famous Jimmy Nic, 'Could ye go a Coca-Cola', 1-1 in the Olympiastadion, dancing in the streets of Raith, Rovers side of the early 90s. I recall seemingly never ending transfer speculation involving us and Crawford, from the moment the full time whistle blew in that 1994 League Cup final right through into 1995. Was it just paper talk, were we genuinely interested, if so why did it not happen and who did we sign instead?

He went on to carve out a decent career including plenty of Scotland caps. But his pinnacle would probably be his Raith days.
 
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Met him in Glasgow Airport the day he was travelling south to sign for someone and a group of us were Ibiza bound.

June 2005 from memory(actually 2004).


Seems it was a cracking decision, plenty of exposure to different people, their methods and scored for fun. Great time.

Fùck knows what happened on Stevies travels.
 
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Can't ever remember us being linked with him. He went to Millwall from Raith and given our strength at the time in the mid 90's, a player like that I'd doubt would be on our radar
 
Just like other players of that era like Eoin Jess, Colin Cameron, Scott Booth and Craig Levein

I don’t think we were ever seriously in for any of them though.

They wouldn’t have improved us either.
 
Met him in Glasgow Airport the day he was travelling south to sign for someone and a group of us were Ibiza bound. June 2005 from memory.

Seems it was a cracking decision, plenty of exposure to different people and their methods and scored for fun. Great time.

Fùck knows what happened on Stevies travels.


Played for Milwall I think.
 
Just like other players of that era like Eoin Jess, Colin Cameron, Scott Booth and Craig Levein

I don’t think we were ever seriously in for any of them though.

They wouldn’t have improved us either.
We didn't have 200 scouts then.
The same person would have watched them all 5 or 6 times. The papers would get wind of it and it would look like a signing saga.

The fact is though, they wouldn't have impressed enough the first time and probably didn't improve enough to change that.
 
Number One Fanzine had us signing him for definite for about 18 months solid.

He was never good enough

Can remember him about to sign in 1995, 1997, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Remember the talk in summer 1995 was he was absolutely on his way to Ibrox for £1m and remember reading in FF that Jimmy Nic was essentially being talked of as a replacement long term for Walter.

Being fair to Crawford that summer he was hot property. Scored a goal to help beat the Filth in a cup final and then scored on his Scotland debut at the age of 21. Not going to lie, I thought he was a no brainer for us back then given the three foreigner rule and our two Scottish strikers were in their 30's.

Going to Millwall wrecked his and Jimmy Nic's careers.
 
Some papers had us linked with him.He even bleached his hair like Gazza so maybe some truth
 
I remember him being linked under Mcleish. There was a 12 month spell were he was banging them in for Dunfermline and believe it or not was the main striker for Scotland under Vogts. Decent player but we always had better.
 
Always a case of what might have been for Stevie.

An excellent player on his day. Good technically and had a great partnership with Craig Brewster. I think he could have comfortably made the step-up. Alongside better players he’d have thrived.
 
My only memory of him is when Dunfermline installed their plastic pitch when he was with them.
 
I remember him being linked. Guy I sat next to at Ibrox was from Fife and he seemed to think he wasnt far off signing at one point but it never happened.
 
Just like other players of that era like Eoin Jess, Colin Cameron, Scott Booth and Craig Levein

I don’t think we were ever seriously in for any of them though.

They wouldn’t have improved us either.

May not have improved us but would have been a better option than say Oleg Salenko in the summer of 1995.
 
Just like other players of that era like Eoin Jess, Colin Cameron, Scott Booth and Craig Levein

I don’t think we were ever seriously in for any of them though.

They wouldn’t have improved us either.
i'm sure jess was with us as a teenager, however at 16 you might not look like the finished article but at 18 you do, and vice versa.
 
He was interviewed on stage by Jim White at the 1995 Scottish Player of the Year Awards and was asked about signing for Rangers. Think he and White thought it was a done deal. The camera cut to an unamused Walter Smith in the audience.
 
I remember him on the front of a Fanzine I bought outside Ibrox about 25 years ago, might even have been FF!
There was rumours at the time but no idea how serious they were.
History tells us he wasn’t good enough for us but he definitely had ability as a younger player, just another Eoin Jess really.
 
I don't think he was ever good enough or better than what we had.
From memory didn't a lot of the tabloid press speculation come from no other reason than that he was related to Jim Baxter?
I may be thinking of another young Scottish player.
 
I don't think he was ever good enough or better than what we had.
From memory didn't a lot of the tabloid press speculation come from no other reason than that he was related to Jim Baxter?
I may be thinking of another young Scottish player.

As SDF said earlier, Crawford genuinely was the hottest property in Scotland for a time, regardless of how fleetingly, so it stands to reason we were linked.
 
Odd recollection for me is he was the first player I can remember wearing under armour gear.
 
Was that not Jason Dair?

Think it was, Dair, Crawford and Davie Sinclair all went down to Millwall with Jimmy Nic, Crawford had a great partnership with Brewster at Dunfermline, he was probably linked with us but was nowhere near our level

I remember playing Sunday league games in Fife and him and Sinclair turning up at times with carry outs etc to watch the games!
 
As SDF said earlier, Crawford genuinely was the hottest property in Scotland for a time, regardless of how fleetingly, so it stands to reason we were linked.
I remember I was at the Sportswriters awards the year him and Macnamara were up for the award of young player as I was with Jackie and his dad they ended up sitting together at the same table, after the awards many went to Vickys and then back to the hotel.

whe we got back to the hotel Craw and Jackie were sitting at the front door eyes fixed to a bottle of irn bru hidden in the corner of the said door, when asked wtf are you two up too Craw replied that can’t in the suit is watching us like hawks for the last hour and all we want to do is sneak it up to their room and get to bed as they had training in the morning .

After we got a drink at the bar and went back to the foyer the bold two were still looking at their bottle of juice , we got the guy who they thought was watching them to go and get the bottle and walk by them, it was like he had taken their favourite Xmas present away, gutted wasn’t the word to explain their look on their faces until the security guy started laughing and gave them it.
The two dafties had sat for well over an hour trying to work out how to sneak it in, the security guy said to them that he thought they were sitting looking at the door thinking that their mum’s must be picking them up .
Both would have been great players for us .
 
He was scouted when at Raith but no offers, or anything to go a stage further were ever submitted to them.
How far it got after he left I`ve no idea.
 
I remember I was at the Sportswriters awards the year him and Macnamara were up for the award of young player as I was with Jackie and his dad they ended up sitting together at the same table, after the awards many went to Vickys and then back to the hotel.

whe we got back to the hotel Craw and Jackie were sitting at the front door eyes fixed to a bottle of irn bru hidden in the corner of the said door, when asked wtf are you two up too Craw replied that can’t in the suit is watching us like hawks for the last hour and all we want to do is sneak it up to their room and get to bed as they had training in the morning .

After we got a drink at the bar and went back to the foyer the bold two were still looking at their bottle of juice , we got the guy who they thought was watching them to go and get the bottle and walk by them, it was like he had taken their favourite Xmas present away, gutted wasn’t the word to explain their look on their faces until the security guy started laughing and gave them it.
The two dafties had sat for well over an hour trying to work out how to sneak it in, the security guy said to them that he thought they were sitting looking at the door thinking that their mum’s must be picking them up .
Both would have been great players for us .

That is the worst story ever lol.
 
I grew up with Stevie and went to school with him, really good guy, lost touch when he became pro, still bump into him on occasion in town though.
 
His Mum was my son's nursery teacher at Inverkeithing Nursery,used to see him there from time to time.Nice enough guy.
 
Stevies mum was the nursery teacher to both my kids. Lovely family and everything I’ve heard he was a nice guy too.
 
I remember him as a player with limited skill but a hard worker, aka he ran around like a headless chicken chasing down every ball.

Good player for a low-skill football country like Scotland.
 
I'm working off memory here and quite possibly talking sh1te - I remember the season we signed Steven Thompson, Crawford was also banging in goals and Crawford's record was slightly better. I remember thinking at the time that Thompson wasn't Rangers quality and could only have been signed on goals stats alone, and if that's the criteria then Crawford would have been a better bet.

Now going to Google it and see how much the drink has clouded my memory over the years .
 
Odd recollection for me is he was the first player I can remember wearing under armour gear.

Michael Mols was the first player I'd ever noticed wearing UA. He used to wear the turtle neck base layers under his jersey when he returned from his serious injury.
 
Goes / went to my gym. Fond of the teddy bears :cool:

Wasn't good enough for us at the time though.

Next time you see him, tell him about this thread and ask him if he ever did have talks with Walter in 1995. :)
 
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