RANGERS IN LONDON 1960 - 1971
Matches, Memories & Talking Points

From The Reds, Whites and Blues

ETO VISIT A MATCH CLICK ON THE YEAR

é HOMEPAGE é GALLERY 62 é FEEDBACK/CONTACT é LINKS

RANGERS V RED STAR BELGRADE

Given their dominance in their respective Leagues, Rangers and Red Star had become regular participants in the European Cup but this tie was the first time they had been paired together. In the first leg at Ibrox Rangers triumphed 3-1 but Red Star took the Second Leg 4-2. There was still no away goals rule in European competition and a play off was required.

Following a poor start to the season, Rangers had just hit top form. A League Cup win over Celtic was followed by a 7 goal rampage against St Mirren, last weekend Clyde were put to the sword 6-1 at Ibrox. Curiously 14 of Rangers last 15 goals had come in the second half.

Rangers trained as usual on Monday morning. Afterwards the dapper 16 man squad wearing identical roll neck sweaters flew to London Airport from Renfrew. Unfortunately Willie Henderson was not in the party. He was booked to go into hospital after the team left Ibrox for treatment to a bunion on his big toe. He hobbled to Ibrox to wish his teammates ‘all the best’, before hobbling on to Hospital. Both teams had been booked to stay at the Mount Royal hotel in London.

Who Are The Opponents?

(A) Red Star Belgrade

(B) The Yugoslav Olympic Team,

(C) The Yugoslav Army Team,

(D) The Yugoslav International Team

(E) The Workers of Belgrade

All 5 actually and not particularly helpful for Red Star’s cause. Dr Alex Obradovic bemoaned to Hugh Taylor of the Daily Record that, “With the Olympic Games and other international commitments, I haven’t seen my players for 30 days.” Five of their players had played in the Tokyo Olympics where they were only narrowly beaten 6-5 by eventual gold medallists Hungary.

At 8 o’clock on Monday, the Rangers party assembled in the hotel reception area and headed to a reception hosted by the Yugoslav Ambassador at the Embassy. Bill Brown of the Evening Times was most impressed with the good atmosphere between both sets of players at the hotel. “Sometimes East European teams were as retiring as Scot Symon when it came to mixing with foreign newsmen!” But the Yugoslavs came across as a friendly, happy bunch. They even asked Bill Brown to pass on their best wishes to Willie Henderson in hospital. Seemingly both camps agreed that the last thing either wanted was a toss of the coin to decide who proceeded into the next stage should the match be drawn. Brown suggested the best of 10 spot kicks. This format is surely a better solution than 5 kicks then sudden death and reduces the pressure on individual players.

Red Star announced their team and it seems that unless you had a –vic – tic or –jic in your name, you needed a very good surname to get selected! It read as : Dujkovic, Durkovic, Jeftic, Skrbic, Kop (great name for a footballer!), Popovic, Cebinac, Melic, Prlincevic, Kostic and Dzajic.

The big news regarding this selection was that regular ‘Keeper Stojanovic had been ruled out by injury and replaced with the acrobatic but less reliable Dujkovic.

That lovely breed the Glaswegian bookmaker, decided to make the most of this game and offered a string of bets.

Any of the following to score. 2-1 Forrest, 7-2 Baxter, 4-1 Millar, 5-1 Johnston, 6-1 Brand. (Others available upon request.)

Bill Brown was mingling in the Rangers camp and spoke with a Rangers Director who wished to remain anonymous. The Director was delighted with the recent rediscovery of form and highly confident of progress to the next round. The Director felt that the marked improvement was down to ; the improvement in Jim Baxter’s all round play since his appointment as Captain, the return to form of Forrest and Millar, Caldow’s steadying influence and the ever improving young Willie Johnston.

Dr Alex was less optimistic regarding his team’s chances. He lamented that Red Star had been unable to play a competitive game for so long. He had lost touch with their Olympic contingent until their recent return (and not been able to treat the injured!). Finally he was aware that Rangers had experienced playing at Highbury and would have the bulk of the crowd on their side.

Roy Peskett of the Daily Mail reported that Arsenal had already sold roughly 6,000 reserved seats for the game almost entirely to Scottish fans. The Highbury spokesman told him, “nearly every personal and telephone inquiry has come from a Scottish accent.” Box Office Manager Fred Jeeves (Jeeves – how very Arsenal!) stated “By mid afternoon (Monday) we had sold nearly £5,000 worth of reserve seats. Rangers have always been a tremendous draw at Highbury, but this has eclipsed anything we have had for a neutral match other than in the cup.”

Is That All You Take Away? : Red Star had requested a slightly smaller allocation of 200 tickets!

· MEDIA INTEREST AND VIEWER #1 For those fans unable to travel south for the tie, there was the consolation of being able to listen to the match on the Radio. Better still, the final 20 minutes of the game were to be broadcast live on a 25 minute television programme on BBC.

Viewer #1 : Willie Henderson writing for the Daily Record had a Radio and Television installed in his hospital room.

A picture appeared of Jim Baxter preparing at a deserted Highbury sporting a pair of Adidas trainers. The first time I’ve spotted a Ranger in London wearing branded sportswear. (Typical Baxter, always setting the trend!)

· THE PROS' Dr Alex “I never felt Rangers could play as well as that. They were brilliant.”

Viewer #1 : The Daily Record had a picture of a bespectacled Willie Henderson earnestly watching the game. Like everyone else he was mesmerised by the performance of Jim Baxter. Although the Television coverage only lasted for 20 minutes, he commented, “But I did see enough to know that Jim Baxter had the kind of game every player dreams about.” Willie was not too surprised as he felt that the great showman loved to play in front of a London crowd.

On the Television coverage, “The only thing that was wrong was that we didn’t see enough. I saw 1 live Rangers goal and a flashback to Jim Forrest’s first. But what a pity we didn’t see the second.”

Politika stated, “the defeat came because the defence line of Red Star could not hold the pressure of Rangers from the 10th to 25th minute of the first half. Rangers deserved their victory. They were the better team.”

Borba (what a brilliant name for a newspaper) commented, “Rangers deservedly won the match because our champions gave a poor display in the first half when the Scots held all the initiative. Red Star used a wrong kind of defensive play, leaving its slow and complicated forward line to do something.”

London’s Evening Standard were thrilled by Baxter’s performance. Although they felt that his past inconsistency had deterred London clubs from trying to buy him.

FOOTBALL FANS COMPARED TO SOCIETY Contrary to the image of the 1960’s as a peaceful, law abiding era. As reported in newspapers from that era society was more violent and brutal than today. Murders, violent robberies, knife and axe attacks plus assorted and random acts of delinquancy filled the papers everyday. The young adults were products of war time and post war austerity and society was much tougher. Young people had far fewer leisure activities and often joined gangs and fought each other as something to do. The ‘Clip Round The Ear’ was an acceptable punishment by school teachers, parents and police officers. Youngsters were brought up to be tough, not to complain and to sort out problems themselves. An oversensitive youngster was derided as a ‘softy’. Be it in London or Glasgow, football fans were nothing more than good natured if occasionally over excited enthusiasts.

The events in London on 5th November for various Guy Fawkes celebrations are a case in point. On this night 145 people were arrested for incidents at Trafalgar Square and Hampstead Heath. At Trafalgar Square 98 youths were arrested as they battled with the police and threw fireworks at them. At Hampstead Heath, 40 were arrested as mods and rockers clashed violently.

· THAT WAS 1964

· Harold Wilson elected PM after the Conservatives had been in power for 13 years.

· On Whit Sunday there are 51 arrests in Margate and 76 in Brighton following brawls between mods and rockers.

· 6 women murdered in West London in what became known as the nude murders. The case was never solved.

· Britain’s first black policeman takes the oath of allegiance in Gloucester.

· Mary Whitehouse forms the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association. Her gripes were sex, violence and left leaning intellectuals. (I agree with 1 out of 3 and they’ve still not got rid of them!).

· Tokyo Olympic games broadcast live via satellite and an underwater cable.(but the cable played up and there was no sound, so Norris McWhirter broadcast commentary from London and Frank Bough reported from Japan). The greatest British triumphs are Mary Rand in the Long Jump and Ann Packer’s 800m gold.

· Songs included Glad All Over (Dave Clark 5) and the House of the Rising Sun (The Animals) and Louis Louie (The Kingsmen).

· Films included, A Fistful of Dollars, Mary Poppins (Dick Van Dyke’s accent still sounds as bad 40 years later!) and Zorba the Greek. (or for the politically correct - Zorba of a Mediterannean background)

ETO VISIT A MATCH CLICK ON THE YEAR

é HOMEPAGE é GALLERY 62 é FEEDBACK/CONTACT é LINKS

RANGERS V RED STAR BELGRADE

Who Are The Opponents?

(A) Red Star Belgrade

(B) The Yugoslav Olympic Team,

(C) The Yugoslav Army Team,

(D) The Yugoslav International Team

(E) The Workers of Belgrade

· THAT WAS 1964

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