Jamie Walker

I’ve supported Rangers for as long as I can remember with my dad getting me hooked sometime in the mid 1970s. 

The bug was fully in my system from around 1980 onwards but it was a bleak time to support The Gers. Fergie’s Aberdeen seemed to conquer all before them and watching back-to-back cup final defeats at the old Hampden was difficult to take (the 4-1 drubbing of 1982 a particularly sore one). 

It wasn`t all bad as we had Ally’s hat-trick final of 1983-84, the beating of Inter Milan at Ibrox with John McLelland playing bizzarely up front, a fantastic 3-0 win over Celtic and one of the most thrilling Old Firm games of all in the 4-4 draw in what was to become Jock Wallace’s last Old Firm game, but on the whole it was dreary until Graeme Souness changed all that. 

How we marvelled as he signed West, Woods, Butcher and Roberts who alongside the revitalised McCoist, Fleck, Ferguson, Cooper, Munro and even McMinn gave us back what we craved. 

Towards the tail end of 1986-87, I remember feeling that it was finally going to be our title when, on the third last game of the season against Hearts, at a beautifully sunny Ibrox, Super Ally swept away all before him in a 3-0 win. 

So, the following week it was off to Pittodrie, where we hadn`t had the greatest of times. The football special from Queen Street was jammed with an air of expectancy and a high percentage of us without tickets. A large number (myself included) didn’t get in and had to make do with a restricted view from a hill between stands. Grampian’s finest did let us in for the last 20 minutes or so of the 1-1 draw, which came courtesy of a cracking Butcher header from a pinpoint cross by Davie Cooper. 

When the final whistle came we poured on and celebrated in a way that hadn’t been seen since Easter Road in 1975. The journey back was incredible with most tables on the train being graced with Pittodrie Turf. The Rangers were back. I wonder what ever became of that little corner of Aberdeen I planted in my back garden.