Which players you consider Rangers legends faced a domestic team or squad better than ours?

S

strider

Well-Known Member
I imagine this could be read in the wrong sense, like a comment on modern time - this is just something I've been thinking about and wondered what the thoughts of others were.

We know players like John Greig, Sandy Jardine and many other legends of that era faced a Celtic team that was definitely stronger than our team was at that time. What other players would you say that could be applied to?

Did our 9 in a row squad ever face a team domestically you would argue was just as good or better? Were Aberdeen at the start of that run at that level?
 
I suppose there are different definitions of legend, but there's not been all that many Rangers players who had a lengthy Rangers career and won the league every season. So you could say most of our legends came up against better teams than us domestically at some point.

Possibly the best example of a team full of legendary players up against another domestic team who were also regarded as equally brilliant was the great Rangers v Hibs rivalry in the post war years.

Brown, Shaw, Young, Woodburn, Waddell, Thornton, Gillick, etc in our team up against the best Hibs team ever with their Famous Five.

Rangers won 4 and Hibs won 3 of the 7 titles after WW2. More than once the title went to the last day.
 
Early to mid 80s (under Greig and Wallace) we were 4th best team in Scotland for a while - Aberdeen, Celtic and Dundee Utd were all better for a number of years.

If we'd succeeded in luring Ferguson or McLean after Greig left, it might have been different.
 
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Jaws2 said:
Early to mid 80s (under Greig and Wallace) we were 4th best team in Scotland for a while - Aberdeen, Celtic and Dundee Utd were all better for a number of years.

If we'd succeeded in luring Ferguson or McLean after Greig left, it might have been different.
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I'm still not really sure why Ferguson refused the job. I remember at the time being convinced he would take it and rubbing it in to the filth. I'm also convinced McLean bottled it.
 
There is any other period in our history when our direct opponent had such an advantage over us and the rest of the league the way that mob currently do, due to finances.

There may have been times when the other teams we were up against were better than the recent celtic teams, but the Rangers teams of the time were probably better as well.

Direct result of 2012.
 
ClassicCaldow said:
Both cases down to religion, who they could sign
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What evidence do you have for that?

I'm sure I remember Rangers saying there would be no restrictions on signing players.

McLean accepted then bottled it.
Ferguson decided he'd rather stick with a winning team as that gave him a better chance of a big job down south.
 
Bigbluebear said:
There is any other period in our history when our direct opponent had such an advantage over us and the rest of the league the way that mob currently do, due to finances.

There may have been times when the other teams we were up against were better than the recent celtic teams, but the Rangers teams of the time were probably better as well.

Direct result of 2012.
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Agree with this. There's been some big mistakes, on and off the park, and we should have won more, but we are still playing catchup for the crimes of Murray, Whyte etc....
 
Wordy_Rappinghood said:
Celtic were on decline on 04/5 but finishing above them despite that was arguably Big Eck's best moment.

Players like Namouchi and Bob Malcolm made 20 appearances in the league and we lost Klos to injury and Boumsong to Newcastle.

Yes, you could argue Celtic blew it but we didn't fail to take advantage.

The return of a legend was key to that.
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Celtic 04/05 is essentially us after winning 55 distilled into 12 months.

A core group who were there for 4/5 years who were allowed to grow old beyond their sell by date on the say so of a powerful manager and who eventually ran out of legs and were caught by an inferior opponent.
 
In terms of the rest of the league, it's been mostly the same sh*te since the late 80's, with the only improvement being the early 2000's until the Setanta deal went t*ts up.

As for that lot, I've seen overall stronger sides, but they've figured out the formula for consistent success, again they will go over 90 points this season.

Before 2012, we only went above 90 on 3 occasions. Last season, we were a couple of points off beating Walter's best points total in a 38-game season (93). It's hard to compare modern players, with players from the past, but this current tim side is unfortunately one of their best when it comes to the league grind.
 
dh1963 said:
As an aside, the likes of O'Reilly, Carter Vickers, Furuhashi and Hart are about to equal the number of league titles won by Sandy Jardine, Derek Johnstone and Davie Cooper.

3.
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Willy flasher Forrest is one title away from equalling Davie Meiklejohn.
 
dh1963 said:
I suppose there are different definitions of legend, but there's not been all that many Rangers players who had a lengthy Rangers career and won the league every season. So you could say most of our legends came up against better teams than us domestically at some point.

Possibly the best example of a team full of legendary players up against another domestic team who were also regarded as equally brilliant was the great Rangers v Hibs rivalry in the post war years.

Brown, Shaw, Young, Woodburn, Waddell, Thornton, Gillick, etc in our team up against the best Hibs team ever with their Famous Five.

Rangers won 4 and Hibs won 3 of the 7 titles after WW2. More than once the title went to the last day.
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Cracking example - thank you!

On your first paragraph though - I'd argue that the players who were here for 9 in a row then stayed for that final season never faced a Celtic team that were better than them overall, they just somehow lost a league to them once. Others may disagree, but it was that sort of example I'd been thinking about recently.
 
Greigwasthebest said:
I'm still not really sure why Ferguson refused the job. I remember at the time being convinced he would take it and rubbing it in to the filth. I'm also convinced McLean bottled it.
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Well, if you believe Bobby Russell's autobiography (which you should ;) ) Fergie felt he didn't have the support of Willie Waddell who, although he wasn't Chairman at that point, still held a lot of sway at Ibrox. If he'd had that, he'd probably have accepted. McLean was very interested and was going to take the job but u-turned for reasons best known to him. He over achieved at Dundee Utd and probably felt he'd have too much expectation at Rangers.
 
rez1872 said:
Barry Ferguson won titles against a superior Celtic team.
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What superior team did he win titles against?

McLeish’s team with Ferguson won 5/5 trophies against Wibble and the old firm record for that period was

Rangers 4 wins
Them 2
Draws 3
 
SDF said:
Celtic 04/05 is essentially us after winning 55 distilled into 12 months.

A core group who were there for 4/5 years who were allowed to grow old beyond their sell by date on the say so of a powerful manager and who eventually ran out of legs and were caught by an inferior opponent.
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Never let them forget that in the trophies they could have won head to head (the 01/2 league was over at the end of September), Big Eck came out on top.
 
Jaws2 said:
Well, if you believe Bobby Russell's autobiography (which you should ;) ) Fergie felt he didn't have the support of Willie Waddell who, although he wasn't Chairman at that point, still held a lot of sway at Ibrox. If he'd had that, he'd probably have accepted. McLean was very interested and was going to take the job but u-turned for reasons best known to him. He over achieved at Dundee Utd and probably felt he'd have too much expectation at Rangers.
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McLean never took the job as his family were settled in Dundee and did not want his kids growing up in the west of Scotland with all that entails if their dad was Rangers manager.

He had a free reign at Tannadice with all he had done and I am not sure how much control he would have had at Ibrox.
 
Said in the pub on Saturday that the thing that gets me down the most and highlights the state we are in is the fact that The Celtic team we lost to is piss poor. The fact that we've not managed to beat them this season is soul destroying to be honest. Maybe we're saving it for the final.
 
strider said:
Cracking example - thank you!

On your first paragraph though - I'd argue that the players who were here for 9 in a row then stayed for that final season never faced a Celtic team that were better than them overall, they just somehow lost a league to them once. Others may disagree, but it was that sort of example I'd been thinking about recently.
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I've always subscribed to the theory that the best team in the country wins the league. In 1997/98, Celtic won it because they were the least rotten that season, but that means we were even worse than them.
The only exception I would make to that rule would be 2007/08, when we were genuinely cheated out if it by the fixture pile up and the refusal to help us. Although, even then, we didn't help ourselves with too many cup replays and not using our squad enough.
 
Jaws2 said:
Early to mid 80s (under Greig and Wallace) we were 4th best team in Scotland for a while - Aberdeen, Celtic and Dundee Utd were all better for a number of years.

If we'd succeeded in luring Ferguson or McLean after Greig left, it might have been different.
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Hearts as well for a couple of years
 
Jaws2 said:
Early to mid 80s (under Greig and Wallace) we were 4th best team in Scotland for a while - Aberdeen, Celtic and Dundee Utd were all better for a number of years.

If we'd succeeded in luring Ferguson or McLean after Greig left, it might have been different.
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We put building the stadium before players as could not do both think it was worth it but now the thing this Celtic team aren’t great
 
Mcleishs team did imo

Martin O’Neil was the best manager Celtic had had in many a year with some good players .
 
dh1963 said:
I suppose there are different definitions of legend, but there's not been all that many Rangers players who had a lengthy Rangers career and won the league every season. So you could say most of our legends came up against better teams than us domestically at some point.

Possibly the best example of a team full of legendary players up against another domestic team who were also regarded as equally brilliant was the great Rangers v Hibs rivalry in the post war years.

Brown, Shaw, Young, Woodburn, Waddell, Thornton, Gillick, etc in our team up against the best Hibs team ever with their Famous Five.

Rangers won 4 and Hibs won 3 of the 7 titles after WW2. More than once the title went to the last day.
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I didn't know this about hibs tbh, well the 3 titles anyway, although i dið know about the great team hibs had at the time, mainly through my old man.That would be the iron curtain defence then, my old fella always raved about the team, especially the defence.
 
bluewonder said:
McLean never took the job as his family were settled in Dundee and did not want his kids growing up in the west of Scotland with all that entails if their dad was Rangers manager.

He had a free reign at Tannadice with all he had done and I am not sure how much control he would have had at Ibrox.
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Yeah that seems to have been the deciding factor but he apparently did seriously consider it, whereas Fergie never got the call he was needing from Deedle to back him as manager so it was a non-starter as far as he was concerned.

I know we had Jock Wallace and his management style was tough, but not sure McLean's idea of "management" would have gone down well at Ibrox.
 
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