Editing the fanzine and then a website sometimes gives you an alert to things – and so it was with the 2000 Scottish Cup Final.
The manager was Dick Advocaat and many of the players were also Dutch and slowly people started to talk about a tribute. It gained momentum.
Before it hit the headlines I phoned Iain King who at that time was Rangers’ Editor In Chief of the then three club publications – the Rangers News, the programme and the monthly magazine.
I said it’s definitely going to happen and with the press in Scotland being what it is it can happen in one of two ways – the nice way or the nasty way. What would really set the tone would be for the club to lead and make sure the emphasis was on Dick and the players.
Kingy was bright enough to know what was coming and was able to construct a positive narrative which the club duly promoted.
On the day it worked even more wonderfully than I expected – thousands upon thousands of Bears resplendent in Orange.
The game itself was a bit of a 4-0 thumping of Aberdeen – their keeper Leighton was injured in a clash with Rod Wallace in the first few minutes and had to be carried off an replaced in goal by striker Robbie Winters.
In those days Scottish Cup Finals you could only name three subs for the Final – our subs were Porrini, Tugay and McCann – if memory serves me correctly Walter Smith had always included a goalie but Advocaat broke with that convention.
Our scorers that day were Van Bronkhorst, Vidmar, Dodds and Albertz and by 51 minutes gone it was 4-0 and the refs too the game played out fairly dismally despite the bight sunshine.
