The best all round striker to play for Rangers?

Jim Forrest, a superb finisher who had great pace and played off of the last defender. Knew when to make his run for Baxter to push a pass through to him. For a complete all round player who could finish brilliantly though and was comfortable in midfield or defence Derek Johnstone
All Day Long as Bradley would say and the 1970 Cup Winner will NBF. LOL

PS; Big Derek's DVD, is Superb".
 
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For me Mark Hateley was best I’ve ever seen leas the line for us Ally the greatest but big Hateley had the lot power pace finishing link up the lot. My Da says Colin Stein and DJ where better but I’m 80s boy so never seen them who for you is the best striker?
Ally McCoist.
Top scorer 9 seasons at Ibrox.
Won European Golden Boot twice.
Old Firm hattricks in 2 Cup Finals.
Overhead kick winners in Cup Final.
15 years a Rangers
Super Ally by a mile
 
Derek Johnstone by a short distance from Hateley. Both superb all round forwards who could lead the line individually or with a partner. DJ shades it with his defensive skills. Honourable mentions to Stein, Forrest and Parlane.
 
Hateley for me. Too young for the likes of Forrest, DJ or Colin Stein.

What i will say is that just to compare goals scored isnt really a great indicator. Football has evolved so much that its an unrecognisable game from the one played in the 70s. Technically and athletically players are vastly superior now. Thats natural given the advances in training methods and sports science. You can only really directly compare players of the same era. Thats not me trying to take away the fun of debate, just a reminder that some of the opinions offered arent as daft as some have made out.
 
Hateley for me. Too young for the likes of Forrest, DJ or Colin Stein.

What i will say is that just to compare goals scored isnt really a great indicator. Football has evolved so much that its an unrecognisable game from the one played in the 70s. Technically and athletically players are vastly superior now. Thats natural given the advances in training methods and sports science. You can only really directly compare players of the same era. Thats not me trying to take away the fun of debate, just a reminder that some of the opinions offered arent as daft as some have made out.
Tell me one Rangers player in today's squad that is technically superior than Jim Baxter, Davie Cooper or Bobby Russell from the 1960s or 1970s teams.
 
Tell me one Rangers player in today's squad that is technically superior than Jim Baxter, Davie Cooper or Bobby Russell from the 1960s or 1970s teams.

Come on thats nonsense and you know it. The point i am making is players in general. Picking 3 of the greatest players ever to wear the jersey is ridiculous. Baxter was world class, so a fairer comparison technically would be a world class player today and we dont have one. Im not trying to run anyone down at all, but its absurd to argue that the game in general isnt a far better standard today than it was back then.
 
Big DJ was a great all rounder for rangers as centre half and striker for me.
Hateley led the line superbly and made a huge contribution to the 90s success,as did wee mojo, but for me mc coist leaves them both in the shadows as our greatest ever striker.
 
Come on thats nonsense and you know it. The point i am making is players in general. Picking 3 of the greatest players ever to wear the jersey is ridiculous. Baxter was world class, so a fairer comparison technically would be a world class player today and we dont have one. Im not trying to run anyone down at all, but its absurd to argue that the game in general isnt a far better standard today than it was back then.
It's not nonsense, you made an assertion that players today are technically better than players of the 1970s, I'm saying your wrong in the respect that good players of that era were every bit as good technically as those of today. Are any of today's squad better technically than Gordon Smith or Alex MacDonald from the treble winning team of 1978/79, not in my opinion.
 
Hateley won us a league title practically single handed in 93/94. That's the level we're talking about and I'm not sure anyone else since comes close.
 
It's not nonsense, you made an assertion that players today are technically better than players of the 1970s, I'm saying your wrong in the respect that good players of that era were every bit as good technically as those of today. Are any of today's squad better technically than Gordon Smith or Alex MacDonald from the treble winning team of 1978/79, not in my opinion.

Players today are technically better in general though. Players are fitter, faster, stronger and more athletic. In order to do that technical ability must increase in tandem. The average height of a player in the 70s is 5cm smaller than today. The body shapes are unrecognisable. Technical ability therefore will also improve on average. Thats logically true. The pace of the game today is on a different planet to the 70s. Speed at which players therefore need to get a ball under control and shifted need to be better than they used to or you simply couldnt play.

Versus their peers, id agree you would have a point and a very valid one. If however, you lifted Smith and MacDonald from that era and put them in todays, they wouldnt get near the squad nevermind first team.
 
Players today are technically better in general though. Players are fitter, faster, stronger and more athletic. In order to do that technical ability must increase in tandem. The average height of a player in the 70s is 5cm smaller than today. The body shapes are unrecognisable. Technical ability therefore will also improve on average. Thats logically true. The pace of the game today is on a different planet to the 70s. Speed at which players therefore need to get a ball under control and shifted need to be better than they used to or you simply couldnt play.

Versus their peers, id agree you would have a point and a very valid one. If however, you lifted Smith and MacDonald from that era and put them in todays, they wouldnt get near the squad nevermind first team.
Do you seriously think Alex MacDonald and Gordon Smith wouldn't make today's squad, far less the team? That's some statement considering MacDonald in particular was a very successful player under Waddell,Wallace and Greig as Managers.
 
I can only go from the last 50 years or so but I would probably go for Mark Hateley, though it did help that he was in one of the best Rangers sides. An all round good player and good finisher. If Morelos was a really good finisher I might have gone for him but he misses too many chances for me. He is still our best player at the moment though, he offers such a lot to the team with his link up and creative play.
 
Do you seriously think Alex MacDonald and Gordon Smith wouldn't make today's squad, far less the team? That's some statement considering MacDonald in particular was a very successful player under Waddell,Wallace and Greig as Managers.

In the condition they were in the 78 season you mentioned? Absolutely.

Im not trying to be disrespectful mate, but lifes moved on. These guys today are all athletic machines. They have the latest science guiding their every move. They have data analysis done and reviewed on a weekly basis. Diet for maximum nutrition and performance. Strength and conditioning coaching where science is directly applied to football and the body is loaded to maximise performance. Loads of players in the 70s were borderline alcoholics and smokers with 40 a day habits. That just wouldnt wash these days.

Players today sprint 50% more per game than they did only 10yrs ago. God knows the difference back to the 70s but it will be enormous. Id compare it to a Ferrari in the 70s. Incredible against its peers, but not so great against more modern peers.

I know we clearly wont agree on this and thats fine. Lifes all about opinions mate and i really dont mean to sound disrespectful to the great players you mentioned.
 
I loved DJ.
I loved Ally.
I loved Jelavic, Novo and many many others.

However, all-round? For me, Mark Hateley was the best.
 
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Didn't know this was a tennis forum. However let me make this point, good players with great technical ability in the 1970s would be good players in any era

Yes they would but they'd be playing amateur football. It's weird the way in individual sports and athletic events with quantifiables it's totally unarguable that the athletes get better over time. So that there are people at local clubs who can throw or jump further than the world record in the 50s but people still insist football or basketball players could hop out of a time machine and play with the best in the world.
 
Yes they would but they'd be playing amateur football. It's weird the way in individual sports and athletic events with quantifiables it's totally unarguable that the athletes get better over time. So that there are people at local clubs who can throw or jump further than the world record in the 50s but people still insist football or basketball players could hop out of a time machine and play with the best in the world.
What a load of utter bullshit.
 
My old man still thinks Thornton is the greatest Rangers centre he ever saw, but with WT being his childhood hero, he might be a tad biased. He also said Willie Thornton was the greatestheader of a ba' he ever saw.

He told me growing up I'd have adored Jim Forrest, according to paw, 'He had everything. Could run like a deer, header the ball and shoot with both feet.'

He also still maintains that Derek Grierson was the best Rangers centre when it came to taking the ball one on one round the goalie.

As for me? Hateley was more fearsome a centre than Derek Johnstone ever was, but not a better all round footballer. - Talk about sitting on the fence?

As for McCoist? All he did was score goals. :)
 
It's true in football as it is in any other sport. The pros from the 70s would be amateurs today. You just can't accept it because of your own feelings of nostalgia around specific players.
The disrespect shown to truly wonderful Rangers players staggers me.

That statement saying Davie Cooper was a technically inferior player to everyone in our current squad should disqualify you from having an opinion on anything in here ever again, I can't begin to express how utterly stupid that is.

Obviously players now benefit from better lifestyles, sports science, greater professionalism, better pitches, better protection, etc which makes them faster and fitter than those of the past. But if a Cooper or Baxter or a DJ got those benefits too then they would all be the best players in the country now.
 
If you named your best all time Rangers 11, none of the current team would get into it because we are in a recovery stage in our history. This is fact. Alfredo Morelos is our best player currently IMO, but you cannot compare him with centre forwards like Mark Hateley, and it is the same for the other positions. Perhaps over the next 5 years we will have some great Rangers players to enjoy that could contend for best ever 11.
 
It's true in football as it is in any other sport. The pros from the 70s would be amateurs today. You just can't accept it because of your own feelings of nostalgia around specific players.
Aye, Graeme Souness, Davie Cooper, Jim Baxter, Denis Law, George Best would be amateurs if playing today, very good,
 
It's objectively true in every other sport. Come up with a plausible explanation why the sport you happen to have a strong emotional attachment to is the one exception.
Given those players ability, if they were playing today under the same conditions as every other player of the day they'd be well ahead of anyone in the squad
 
Yes they would but they'd be playing amateur football. It's weird the way in individual sports and athletic events with quantifiables it's totally unarguable that the athletes get better over time. So that there are people at local clubs who can throw or jump further than the world record in the 50s but people still insist football or basketball players could hop out of a time machine and play with the best in the world.


They have certainly got fitter, faster, taller and stronger, but technically superior?

I'm not so sure.
 
It's objectively true in every other sport. Come up with a plausible explanation why the sport you happen to have a strong emotional attachment to is the one exception.
I'm not getting into the argument that you are having with others.

I'm interested in your reasoning though.

Some people will tell you Pele is the GOAT.
Some people will say Maradona is the GOAT
A lot of people in the present day, including me, will tell you Messi is the GOAT.

By your reckoning it's only a matter of decades before these three will be overtaken. You haven't mentioned skill, it's just basically the march of time, people will be fitter and stronger etc.

I just disagree in principle. I reckon if you were a wizard of the dribble a'la Alan Morton playing with a ball that weighed a tonne, and could put pinpoint passes onto the heads of strikers, whilst playing in mining boots. Then how good would they be with today's equipment and footwear, for instance?

Going by your rationale again, why has no golfer eclipsed Jack Micklaus' Majors record yet?

I'm not really arguing with you, I just happen to think class from 100 years ago, would be class in the present day.
 
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They have certainly got fitter, faster, taller and stronger, but technically superior?

I'm not so sure.

I mean we can't know. The team element makes quantifying individual technical ability hard. That's why this argument only exists in sports like football and basketball. It's impossible to make the same argument in baseball, snooker, darts, athletics, strongman, weightlifting. And the people that make this argument implicitly accept that the players have gotten better over time. No one will argue that a player from the 1900s would be able to compete with players from the 70s. It's just time curiously stops around about the time the players they watched growing up were playing.
 
I'm not getting into the argument that you are having with others.

I'm interested in your reasoning though.

Some people will tell you Pele is the GOAT.
Some people will say Maradona is the GOAT
A lot of people in the present day, including me, will tell you Messi is the GOAT.

By your reckoning it's only a matter of decades before these three will be overtaken. You haven't mentioned skill, it's just basically the march of time, people will be fitter and stronger etc.

I just disagree in principle. I reckon if you were a wizard of the dribble a'la Alan Morton playing with a ball that weighed a tonne, and could put pinpoint passes onto the heads of strikers, whilst playing in mining boots. Then how good would they be with today's equipment and footwear, for instance?

Going by your rationale again, why has no golfer eclipsed Jack Micklaus' Majors record yet?

I'm not really arging with you, I just happen to think class from 100 years ago, would be class in the present day.
Great stuff. You won't get into the argument then destroy his position anyway :shh:
 
Born in 86. Mccoist and Hateley are the stand out 2 in that time by a mile. The pre injury Mols could have been up there.
 
I'm not getting into the argument that you are having with others.

I'm interested in your reasoning though.

Some people will tell you Pele is the GOAT.
Some people will say Maradona is the GOAT
A lot of people in the present day, including me, will tell you Messi is the GOAT.

By your reckoning it's only a matter of decades before these three will be overtaken. You haven't mentioned skill, it's just basically the march of time, people will be fitter and stronger etc.

I just disagree in principle. I reckon if you were a wizard of the dribble a'la Alan Morton playing with a ball that weighed a tonne, and could put pinpoint passes onto the heads of strikers, whilst playing in mining boots. Then how good would they be with today's equipment and footwear, for instance?

Going by your rationale again, why has no golfer eclipsed Jack Micklaus' Majors record yet?

I'm not really arging with you, I just happen to think class from 100 years ago, would be class in the present day.

I think it's fair to call someone the goat based on their achievements and ability relative to the time when they played. As for skill, in other sports that involve almost no athletic ability the players have still gotten better. The Nicklaus point doesn't change anything really. The players today are better. I don't know much about golf but I know they drive a lot further now and I think the courses have changed over time to make them more difficult.
 
They have certainly got fitter, faster, taller and stronger, but technically superior?

I'm not so sure.

Logic dictates that they have to be. In order to play in a game with players who are fitter, faster, taller and stronger you need to process the ball much faster. You need to control it quicker. You need to process whats happening quicker and you need to move the ball quicker. Its actually fundamentally the difference in what seperates the best players.

Could a top player 50yrs ago ping an accurate 30 yard pass like a modern player? Absolutely!

Could a top player 50yrs ago ping that same 30 yard pass accurately, after running a 10km with some of the best athletes on the planet, who are physically fitter, faster and stronger than them? No they couldnt. Muscle fatigue would inhibit their ability. Hence their level of technical ability cant match the modern player. Its physically not possible.
 
Today's forwards are protected by referees far more than the old days against contact, the offside rule has been loosened and they give out penalties like candy. If you are taking into account the change in conditions for example players' fitness and the increased number of games they have to play, then you have to have a balanced argument here.
 
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