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Personal
Fullname: Maurice John Giblin Johnston
aka: Maurice Johnston, Mo Johnston, Mo Jo, Le Petit Merde, Judas
Born: 13 April 1963
Birthplace: Glasgow, Scotland
Signed: 11 October 1984
Left: 1 June 1987
Position: Striker
Internationals: Scotland
International Caps: 38
International Goals: 14
Biog
There is not a name in the history of Celtic Football Club which provokes the same strength of negative feeling as that created by the utterance of ‘Maurice Johnston’.
No player who has ever worn the Hoops has been so universally despised by the Celtic support as the man who went from being hailed ‘Super Mo’ to becoming known simply as ‘Judas’.
Johnston’s act of betrayal to the club he professed to love still rankles deeply even today – decades since he jilted Celtic to sign for rivals Rangers.
So much so that the man who scored 52 goals in 100 appearances for the Bhoys will never be welcomed back to Celtic Park by the general support again. And yet it could have been so very, very, different for a player who had a real chance to fulfil his boyhood dream of becoming a Celtic great.
Pre-Celtic Career
Born in Glasgow, Hoops fan Maurice ‘Mo’ Johnston caught the eye of scouts as a teenager with some impressive performances for the Glasgow Catholic Schools select side and he was invited for a trial by Partick Thistle where he again impressed and subsequently signed a full-time professional contract.
He spent two full seasons with the Jags where he quickly established himself as one of the most promising young talents in the Scottish game. His goalscoring feats were notable and it was quickly obvious that Thistle would struggle to retain the services of a player with such a keen eye for goal.
Johnston netted 41 times in 85 games for the Firhill side and that record was enough to tempt Watford’s future England manager Graham Taylor to pay £200,000 to take the player south of the border in November 1983.
Johnston’s time with the unfashionable Hertfordshire club was a significant success and he helped the Vicarage Road side reach the 1984 FA Cup final where he was unlucky to have a goal chalked off in a 2-0 Wembley defeat.
While with the Hornets the youngster nicknamed ‘Mo Jo’ also picked up his first Scotland cap and he got his international career off to the best possible start with a goal in a 2-1 Hampden victory over Wales.
Having scored 23 goals in just 38 games Mo was an undoubted hit in the English game, but the red haired striker harboured dreams of a move back to Glasgow and his seemingly beloved Celtic. On an interview with a Glasgow radio station just prior to that FA Cup final Johnston declared to listeners he would ’…walk over broken glass’ to play for the Hoops.
Such a statement seemed much more than lip service as Johnston had been a regular at Celtic Park throughout the early 1970s when as a boy he would join pals in jumping over the turnstile to see their heroes.
Even as an exciting prospect making a name for himself in England Johnston still found time to follow the Hoops. On the same day of his FA Cup final appearance in 1984 Celtic suffered an extra time defeat to Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup. Johnston later said that when he found out about that Hampden defeat in the Wembley dressing room it hurt every bit as much as his and Watford’s loss.
Celtic Career
Following his Cup final appearance Johnston set his sight on coming back to Scotland. He made it clear to anyone who would listen that Parkhead was where he wanted to be and to the delight of the Celtic support the dream finally became a reality, when the Bhoys coughed up a Scottish record £400,000 in October 84 to take the striker home to Glasgow.
The move was greeted with universal acclaim among a Celtic support desperate for an idol to replace Charlie Nicholas who had departed for Arsenal just over a year previously for £625,000. With his flashy sports car and love of nightclubs Johnston certainly shared Nicholas’ flamboyant playboy lifestyle. But the fans were confident that the former Watford man would also share Nicholas’ gift of netting goals for the Hoops.
In truth the two players were very different kinds of strikers. Nicholas was much the more elegant and skilful of the pair while Johnston was tireless and energetic – so much so that defenders knew that the slightest loss of concentration would mean they would be punished. What the players did share was great awareness and timing and both had become supreme masters in the art of finishing.
The £400,000 fee splashed out by the club delighted and surprised the support in equal measure, accustomed as they were to the boards past reluctance to replace big money departures with big money arrivals. Certainly the money spent on Johnston was in a different league to the fees manager Davie Hay had spent on his previous six signings since becoming becoming manager in the summer of 1983. Those arrivals – which included the £80,000 buy of Brian McClair from Motherwell – cost a combined total of £25,000 less than fee splashed out for Johnston.
It has to be said though the money did not appear to be Johnston’s motivation. Indeed his keenness to join Celtic meant he would actually be earning a lower basic wage than what he picked up in England.
Johnston settled down well to life in the Hoops. Aberdeen and Dundee United were Celtic’s main challengers for the top honours in Scotland at this time and in Johnston’s first season (1984/85) the Bhoys were pipped to the title by the Dons.
Johnston had impressed though and his 19 goals and all round performance had cemented his place in the affection of the support.
That debut season also ended on a high note as Johnston helped his team-mates to a memorable 2-1 Scottish Cup final victory over Dundee United at a rain-soaked Hampden, where the Hoops came from behind to snatch a late winner.
If the Bhoys support thought that cup final victory was dramatic then they hadn’t seen anything yet.
The following season (1985/86) Celtic suffered a stuttering and unconvincing start to their league campaign and a resurgent Hearts side looked set to claim their first championship in years. However – with Johnston and McClair in lethal goal scoring form – Davie Hay’s men rallied and put together a stunning unbeaten run to take the championship race to the last game of the season.
Celtic made the short trip to Paisley to take on St Mirren knowing they had to win by at least four clear goals and hope that Dundee could defeat Hearts at Dens Park.
What happened next is of course well documented in Celtic history as the Bhoys stormed to a stunning 5-0 victory while Hearts crashed to a 2-0 defeat. It was another rain-sodden but glorious day for the Hoops and as he had done all season Johnston had played his part by netting twice.
His second goal in that 5-0 demolition of the Buddies ranks up there with the greatest Celtic goals of all time. His part – rolling the ball into the net from three yards – in a sensational sweeping move from one end of the pitch to the other was minimal but vital and like all great strikers he was in the right place at the right time.
Johnston and McClair had forged a impressively productive partnership and their goals were the significant factor in that title triumph. Off the field though the pair were not exactly best friends. Certainly the quiet but studious McClair cut a very different figure from Johnston whose womanising and nightclubbing were now keen subjects of Scotland’s tabloid media.
Indeed just as Johnston had become the substitute for Charlie Nicholas in the affection of the Celtic support he had also replaced the Arsenal man as the Scottish tabloids favourite Champagne-sipping footballer.
Certainly Johnston was no stranger to making front page stories as well as back page. During his time at Celtic Park he had been in court on two separate occasions and there were also unfounded rumours of a drug habit which concerned Celtic so much that the club checked the player into hospital for tests to discover if he had any illegal substances in his system. The tests proved negative.
In Glasgow – a city where even the vaguest link to Celtic or Rangers can give you an undeserved and often unwanted public profile – Johnston was unquestionably a prime target for every hack, photographer and lunatic.
In fairness such media attention seldom seemed to affect his on-field performances. The next season (86/87) McClair and Johnston began where they left off the previous campaign by banging in the goals and Celtic soon established a comfortable lead in the league.
But this time though Hay and his men were facing the challenge of a rejuvenated Rangers side determined to emerge from the doldrums to become the major football power in Scotland.
New owner David Murray had given the go-ahead for a new era of big spending at Ibrox and with newly appointed player-manager Graeme Souness at the helm the club embarked on a significant buying spree which brought established English internationals Terry Butcher, Graham Roberts and Chris Woods to Glasgow.
Celtic – who had lost an earlier league clash at Ibrox 1-0 – again went head to head with the new look Rangers in the final of the Skol (League) Cup on a dark and dour October afternoon at Hampden. Celtic were unfortunate to lose a close and controversial encounter in which refereeing decision certainly seemed to favour the Ibrox side who won 2-1 thanks to a late penalty.
Celtic’s cause was not helped by Johnston though who was ordered off in the dying minutes by ref David Syme. But it was not the sending off but what happened next that would go on to take greater significance in the context of Johnston’s career.
As the player headed towards the tunnel he blessed himself. It was unquestionably an ostentatious gesture of defiance towards the Rangers support, which to a man were screaming abuse towards the red-carded Celt. It was also an act of provocation.
A footballer blessing himself is of course a common act across the world. The suggestion that such a universal expression of faith could provoke a reaction from any right-minded person is of course usually laughable but in this instance it can be described in no other way. Indeed the fact this action was provocative says more about the entrenched bigotry of the Rangers support than anything else.
Unlike many footballers Johnston had never been one to express his faith or seek divine support while on the pitch. Indeed his lifestyle would suggest that the faith in which he was raised had little significance in his life. That was illustrated when on the very morning of the Skol Cup final all but one of the Catholic players in the Celtic squad attended mass together. The missing player – Maurice Johnston.
There was of course no reason why Johnston should have attended mass that morning but his absence certainly brings into question the motives of his now infamous action.
As Christmas approached Celtic’s form began to dip and they were rapidly surpassed in the league by their revived rivals from across the city. Johnston and his goals remained a vital asset to the side but Celtic were to end the season trophyless as Rangers added the league championship to their Skol Cup.
Worse was to follow for Celtic. Johnston along with Murdo MacLeod and top scorer Brian McClair were now all out of contract and all three – key men in Hay’s side – seemed destined to head elsewhere.
MacLeod after almost a decade in the Hoops headed to Germany and Borussia Dortmund for a new challenge and Brian McClair was tempted south of the border by Manchester United.
Davie Hay was sacked as manager and replaced by former Parkhead boss and Celtic legend Billy McNeill. That gave some fans hope that McNeill would be able to persuade Johnston to stay but the new boss made it clear that he would not stand in the player’s way should he choose to move on.
Johnston eventually departed Parkhead in the summer to 87 for French side Nantes, citing press intrusion and sectarian abuse from Rangers fans as the prime reasons why he had to get away from Glasgow. Celtic claim the issue was more simple – money.
Post-Celtic
While there is an undoubted truth that Johnston did suffer at the ends of both the press and the bigots, if it was the quiet life he was after then he did little to help himself. Certainly at no time while in Glasgow did he tone down his colourful off-field lifestyle.
His acrimonious departure was met with regret but in truth little malice from the support who saw these recent departures as further evidence that the Parkhead board lacked the ambition to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Rangers.
It seemed certain in time that the fans would get over their initial disappointment at Johnston’s exit to remember him fondly as an excellent and gutsy striker.
But the Maurice Johnston Story did not end there. In fact what lay ahead was a tale with more twists and turns than a corkscrew.
Johnston was quickly replaced as the darling of the support by Frank McAvennie, another striker with an eye for the women and a love of the high-life. Like Johnston he had quit a successful career in England – with West Ham – to play for his boyhood idols at Celtic Park.
In his first season he helped Celtic to the league and cup double in the club’s centenary season. But the next term (1988/89) saw McAvennie getting itchy feet for London and citing similar reasons to Johnson 18 months earlier he returned to the Hammers in early 89.
Rangers were on the verge of regaining the league championship and were a derby Scottish Cup final triumph away from trumping Celtic’s ‘double’ of the previous season with a treble. With McAvennie now back in London the Hoops were in desperate need of a lift.
Signing for Rangers and not Celtic
Despite being a success on the pitch Johnston had not really settled in France and while on international duty had made it known to ex-Celtic team-mate Roy Aitken that he would welcome a return to Parkhead. Aitken passed this information on to Billy McNeill and the wheels were put in motion to bring Johnston back to Celtic.
McNeill spoke to the player and made it clear he was in no mood to be messed about. He informed Johnston he would deal with him but didn’t want anything to do with his agent Bill McMurdo.
McMurdo was a staunch Rangers fan and member of the Orange Order. A passionate Unionist, the man’s loathing of Celtic probably surpassed his love of Rangers.
Johnston agreed to McNeill’s request and soon signed an agreement to join Celtic on July 1st 1989 in a club record £1.2m deal. Celtic chairman Jack McGinn and director Chris White flew to France to pay Nantes a £400,000 deposit on the deal.
The club then checked with officials at FIFA to ensure that the all the paperwork was correct and legally binding. FIFA assured Celtic that everything was in order. Although Johnston had not signed a contract his letter of intent was akin to the pre-contract agreements signed by players today.
When asked why he had come back to Celtic the striker declared: “I don’t want to play anywhere else.”
Johnston then travelled with the team to Love Street for their final league game of the season and throughout the game the visiting support sang Johnston’s name as they welcomed home their hero – or so they thought.
The following week at a sunny Hampden a Joe Miller strike gave Celtic the cup and denied Rangers the treble. After a disappointing season the joyous Hoops support were now reveling in an unexpected feelgood factor.
As tens of thousands of celebrating Celtic fans streamed from Hampden’s traditional Celtic End, street sellers were doing a roaring trade in Mo Johnston t-shirts, scarves, hats and flags. The good times were seemingly on their way back. And then it all went horribly wrong.
What Johnston had failed to mention at the press conference just over a week earlier was that he had with him correspondence from Bill McMurdo informing Celtic that his company and not Nantes owned Johnston’s contract. McMurdo’s letter made it clear that unless Celtic spoke to him then no deal would be completed.
The club first picked up on the problem the Monday after the cup final when Johnston failed to turn up for a meeting. It then quickly became obvious that McMurdo was now starting to pull Johnston’s strings.
While Celtic tried to track down Johnston and attempt to resolve their outstanding issues McMurdo was enjoying lunch with Graeme Souness. The Rangers manager was an admirer of Johnston as a player and he quizzed his friend as to why he had let the striker rejoin Celtic.
McMurdo made it clear that the move to Parkhead was far from done and dusted and that given a little persuasion Johnston could well be tempted south of the Clyde. Souness did not need to be asked twice. He was astute enough to know that by stealing a former Parkhead hero from under the noses of a desperate Celtic would be a bitter blow to his rivals. Should he strengthen his own club in the process then all the better.
Ibrox chairman David Murray needed no persuasion to agree the move. Murray, a man with a near unrivalled ego, couldn’t resist any opportunity which would create the hysterical levels of press coverage that his move would generate.
The one stumbling block to the move would be the reaction of the Rangers support who viewed the club’s disgraceful sectarian signing policy as integral to their warped sense of tradition and identity.
The public signing of a Catholic would be bad enough. But to sign a Catholic who was an ex-Celtic player and who once blessed himself after being sent off in a derby game would seem unthinkable.
But Murray and Souness knew that in terms of the bigger picture the club’s sectarian signing policy was a hindrance and that if they seriously wanted to challenge the best on the continent then this particular facet of their deplorable tradition had to be dumped.
And what better way to do it than by striking a major blow against your fiercest rivals? At McMurdo’s recommendation Johnston agreed to meet Souness at the Rangers manager’s Edinburgh home. Unable to resist the persuasive nature of Souness and his agent Johnston agreed to move to Ibrox.
By now Celtic and the player had publicly acknowledged there was a ‘problem’ with the deal but outwardly both at least expressed the expectation that these matters would be ironed out.
Behind the scenes concern was growing with every passing minute at Parkhead. Celtic had confirmed once more with FIFA that the agreement signed by the player was legally binding. Safe in the knowledge that it was Billy McNeill was satisfied that there was little to worry about the growing rumours sweeping the Glasgow grapevine than Rangers had made a move for Johnston.
At the very least he thought Celtic could pay the remaining £800,000 to Nantes which would give them Johnston’s registration. Even if the player didn’t agree to play they would at least control his football destiny and prevent Rangers from completing a sensational signing coup.
However the Celtic board had other ideas and despite having Johnston’s signature on a legally binding agreement they announced – while McNeill was on holiday in Florida – that they were withdrawing from the deal.
That short-sighted decision left the door wide open for Murray and Souness to close the deal on the most controversial signing in Scottish football history. After weeks of whispers Johnston was unveiled to the world as a Rangers player at Ibrox on July 10th 1989.
The move met with the predicted reaction. Press and media coverage was frenzied.
Hacks and pundits fell over themselves to praise Rangers – and in particular Murray and Souness – for bringing to an end the club’s bigoted signing policy. Ironically it was a bigoted policy which until this point Rangers had denied ever existed. It was also a policy which many of the hacks and pundits now praising its demise had failed to criticise once while in existence.
The reaction from the Rangers support was one of anger. Season tickets were cancelled, scarves burnt and many supporters vowed never to return. They did of course, as Rangers went from strength to strength on the pitch and began a near decade long dominance of the domestic game.
But at the time David Miller, general secretary of the Rangers Supporters Association, told the Glasgow Herald: “It’s a sad day for Rangers. I don’t want to see a Roman Catholic at Ibrox.”
Such bigotry was not confined to the stands though and some of Johnston’s new team mates were less than happy at having to share a dressing room with a Catholic – even one as clearly lapsed in faith and morals as Johnston.
His welcome at Ibrox was frosty as both players and backroom staff initially kept their distance from their new colleague.
The reaction from the Celtic support was ferocious. But unlike the Rangers support this ill feeling was not born from bigotry but out of a deep sense of betrayal. Here was a player who had enticed the club to take him back into its fold but when Celtic needed him most he jilted them for their most bitter rivals in the cruelest of fashions.
In the eyes of the Celtic support his actions were beyond redemption. He had committed the ultimate sin – and what made matters worse he did so knowing exactly how much hurt he was causing his supposed fellow Celtic supporters and how much damage he was doing to the club.
At that Ibrox press conference he spoke of his excitement and ‘great admiration’ for Rangers. His words were another kick in the teeth to the Celtic fans.
In many ways Johnston was used as a pawn by Murray, Souness and McMurdo but he entered into the whole deal with his eyes wide open. Even given the fact that the player’s greed and stupidity meant he was easily manipulated it was ultimately Johnston’s decision to sign on the dotted line.
The reaction from both sets of the divide was fierce but no more so than would have been predicted. Johnston wasn’t that stupid to expect any other response. He had made his bed so sympathy for the hatred that followed was hard to find.
The Celtic support were not just angry at the player but also at the board for the bumbling incompetence that they showed throughout the whole fiasco and the manner in which they all but gifted Rangers the opportunity to complete their coup.
Together Johnston and the board had left the fans feeling let down and humiliated. The switch obviously meant that Johnston burnt his bridges with the Hoops fans for good. For the White/Kelly axis which ran the board it was in many ways the beginning of the end as they were to never again regain the confidence of the support.
Rangers Career
Johnston went on to enjoy a successful if brief Rangers career, although he never quite hit the scintillating scoring form he showed during his spell at Parkhead.
In an incident caught on camera he did however show that he would stoop to any depth to try and ingratiate himself with his new paymasters, as he joined his team-mates in a sectarian singsong.
Indeed while the signing of Johnston – which was made by Murray on business rather than moral grounds – may have broken one taboo it has far from eradicated the sectarian ethos within the Ibrox club and its support.
Johnston was of course Catholic in name only and was not exactly a devout follower of his faith. In more recent times Rangers have of course signed numerous Roman Catholic players from the continent who were considerably more religious than Johnston. These players were made well aware that while wearing the red, white and blue of their employer they would have to keep their Catholicism well under wraps.
In that respect the signing of Johnston did Celtic more short term damage than Rangers long term good.
Post-Rangers
After 31 goal in 76 appearances Johnston eventually returned to England in the summer of 1991 when he joined Everton. He stayed on Merseyside for two seasons before coming back to Scotland for brief spells with Hearts and Falkirk. He finally retired at the age 38 after a successful spell in America’s MSL with Kansas City Wizards. He remained in the States where he coached New Jersey-based side MetroStars. He was sacked from that post in June 2006 but in August was appointed head coach of fellow MLS side Toronto FC. After moving upstairs to a director of football role in 2008, he was again fired in September 2010.
Johnston states that the most memorable day of his career was helping Celtic snatch the league title away from Hearts on the last day of the season at Love Street. He even claims he is still a Celtic fan.
Unfortunately for the man now better known as Judas, his actions on July 10th 1989 speak a hell of a lot louder than his subsequent words.
Playing Career
| Club | From | To | Fee | League | Scottish/FA Cup | League cup | Other | ||||
| Falkirk | 01/03/1995 | 31/05/1996 | Signed | 41 (0) | 6 | 1 (0) | 0 | 2 (0) | 2 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Hearts | 01/10/1993 | 01/03/1995 | Signed | 35 (0) | 5 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Everton | 20/11/1991 | 01/10/1993 | £1,500,000 | 33 (1) | 10 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Rangers | 01/07/1989 | 20/11/1991 | £1,500,000 | 76 (0) | 31 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Nantes | 01/06/1987 | 01/07/1989 | £1,000,000 | 66 (0) | 22 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Celtic | 11/10/1984 | 01/06/1987 | £400,000 | 99 (0) | 52 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Watford | 01/11/1983 | 11/10/1984 | £200,000 | 38 (0) | 23 | 1 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Partick | 01/08/1980 | 01/11/1983 | Signed | 85 (0) | 41 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Milton Battlefield | 01/08/1979 | 01/08/1980 | No appearance data available | ||||||||
| Totals | £4,600,000 | 473 (1) | 190 | 2 (0) | 0 | 2 (0) | 2 | 0 (0) | 0 | ||
| goals / game | 0.4 | 0 | 1 | n/a | |||||||
| Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||||
Honours with Celtic
Scottish Premier League
Scottish Cup
Pictures
Articles
- Billy McNeil – “We had signed Maurice Johnston” (Stabbing Caesar in the back)
- Celtic View on MoJo Return (May 1989)
Quotes
“I might even agree to become Rangers’ first Catholic if they paid me £1m and bought me Stirling Castle. Let me spell out where I stand. I am a Celtic man through and through and so I dislike Rangers because they are a force in Scottish football and therefore a threat to the club I love. But more than that, I hate the religious policy they maintain.”
Mo Johnstone in his biography before signing for them!
“I miss everything about Celtic. And I always will. I am very grateful for every second I spent at the club. I would say leaving Celtic was the hardest decision I’d ever had to make and I knew I would always miss Celtic no matter what happens in life.”
Mo Johnstone
‘Unsporting conduct.’
FIFA’s verdict on fining Le Petite Merde £3,500 for going back on his announcement to sign for Celtic, 1989.
‘I’ll finish my career here. I don’t want to play for any other club.’
Le Petite Merde at a press conference confirming his return to Celtic from Nantes.
“It’s disappointing to leave on a low note and I feel sorry for the rest of the guys left who are going down. But you’ve got to look after yourself and I’m looking forward to a fresh start.”
Mo legs it from relegated Falkirk after snagging a £500,000 contract from the MLS, 1996.
MoJo Rising: Maurice Johnston 30 Years On
MOJO RISIN’: 30 years on, Rangers’ signing of Maurice Johnston proved a missed opportunity in the fight against sectarianism in Scottish football.
It was July 1989, exactly thirty years ago this week, when Graeme Souness’s Rangers stunned the world of Scottish football by signing the striker Maurice Johnston from under the noses of the Glasgow club’s perennial rivals Celtic. Johnston had previously spent three seasons on the green side of the city, scoring fifty goals in a hundred appearances for the team he had grown up supporting, but he had passed the last two years in relative anonymity with the French club Nantes, where he had fled in 1987 to escape the press intrusion and sectarian abuse which he had been subjected to after a number of high profile incidents during his playing days at Parkhead. On 10 July 1989 however, the Scottish game collectively fell off its chair in astonishment, as a sheepish looking Johnston, flanked by his new manager, was ushered into the Blue Room at Ibrox Park and presented to the media as free-spending Rangers’ latest acquisition.
The signing was remarkable because Johnston was from a Roman Catholic background and, ever since the days of the Edwardian era at the turn of the 20th century, Rangers had been operating an exclusionary employment policy which prevented them from signing players from that section of the community. For most of the next sixty years, Rangers’ policy went largely uncommented upon in polite society. The religious divide in Glasgow, between Catholic Celtic and Protestant Rangers, was allowed to fester and deepen over decades of increasingly bitter and trenchant rivalry, with the matter effectively becoming a taboo subject and criticism of the Ibrox club’s stance in the press or in the wider society was almost unheard of. One or two individuals did manage to slip through the net however; in the 1950s the South African striker Don Kichenbrand had a short, largely unproductive spell at Ibrox. Known as ‘the Rhino’ and lambasted for a series of outrageous misses in front of goal, Kichenbrand went to extraordinary lengths to disguise his Catholic upbringing and fit in with his new team, even confirming his induction into the Ibrox faction by joining a Lanarkshire Masonic lodge. His secret remained safe until the day after Johnston’s transfer to Rangers more than thirty years later, when the Daily Record, having missed out on the scoop of the century after Souness confirmed the story of the signing to his favourite newspaper The Sun, carried an interview with Kichenbrand. In the article, the former striker admitted: “My teammates and bosses at the club just assumed that I had been vetted before I was signed. Every player was.” In fact Rangers’ South African scout, Charlie Watkins, had forgotten to look into the player’s background and only remembered to ask the pertinent question as the pair were waiting at the airport before boarding the flight from Johannesburg, as Kichenbrand remembered: “Charlie Watkins, the man who had convinced Glasgow Rangers that they should sign me, suddenly said, ‘By the way, you’re not Catholic, are you?’ When I told him ‘Yes’ he nearly collapsed. Then he growled, ‘Do not mention that again – to anyone!’ I never did.”
Other than the odd aberration, Rangers blazed a trail as the unblemished bastion of Protestant superiority in Scotland. Revelling in their role as the establishment club and the foremost Protestant sporting institution in the land, Rangers ruled the roost in Scottish football for decades, dominating the domestic game under managers William Wilton (1899 – 1920), Bill Struth (1920 – 1954) and Scot Symon (1954 – 1967). By the late 1960s however, isolated murmurings of disapproval and occasionally even outright criticism of Rangers’ stance had begun to appear in the popular press and elsewhere, usually in association with rioting fans in Birmingham, Manchester, Barcelona and various other locations. After the club’s defeat to Newcastle United in the semi-final of the Inter Cities Fairs Cup in 1969, former player Willie Waddell, then working as a journalist with the Scottish Daily Express, condemned the scenes of violence at St James’ Park after Rangers fans invaded the field when the Tynesiders scored a second, decisive goal in the tie. “I felt like crawling stealthily back over the border under cover of darkness, stunned and shocked that I had been connected with this club and its fans for more than thirty years,” Waddell lamented. Curiously, however, once he was installed as Rangers manager later in the year, and subsequently as general manager in 1972, Waddell instead took the view that the club’s internal affairs were its own business and nobody else’s, and he refused to correlate the twin issues which were blighting Rangers at the time, namely hooliganism and bigotry, as being in any way linked.
Eventually, however, in response to a UK- wide wave of indignation in the 1970s over hooliganism and Rangers’ no-Catholics stance, general manager Waddell announced in 1976, ‘We are determined to end Rangers’ image as a sectarian club… no religious barriers will be put up by this club regarding the signing of players.’ It was one of the first public references to a ‘sectarian’ agenda at Ibrox and there was widespread jubilation and hope amongst the wider community that Rangers might eventually, in the not too distant future, sign a Catholic football player. But as the years went by and no Catholic player appeared in the light blue, perhaps as a result of the lack of leadership and continued in-fighting in the club’s boardroom, these hopes were dashed. In his book Glasgow’s Giants, historian Bill Murray seemed to hit the nail on the head when he observed of Rangers’ habitually empty promises, ‘To the media and the public at large these statements were taken with large spoonfuls of scepticism. They had heard it all before: they were a necessary disclaimer to keep any investigators from FIFA at bay. A sop to the media and a wink to their fans who knew that everything would continue to be as it should be at Ibrox.’
During the 1980s, tales continued to abound about players at Ibrox even being ushered towards the exit door if they happened to fall in love with and marry Catholic girls. One such player was forward Graham Fyfe, who claimed that, despite his wife effectively renouncing her faith and their marriage taking place in the Church of Scotland, he nevertheless felt the need to leave Ibrox in 1980, after being questioned by the club’s management about his wedding arrangements and his private life in general. Fyfe’s allegation was contested by other players at the time who had also married Catholic women, such as Bobby Russell and Derek Johnstone, both of whom remained at the club into the new decade, and by 1982, striker Gordon Dalziel felt comfortable enough to announce publicly his engagement to a Catholic girl, telling the press, ‘I have already had the all-clear at Ibrox. It will not make any difference. I’m not going to get married in the chapel or anything like that.’ Manager John Greig added to the general tone of reassurance, informing the media, ‘It doesn’t matter who he is marrying. It doesn’t matter to me and it doesn’t matter to Rangers. Bobby Russell’s been married to a Catholic for years. Gordon Dalziel has a right to marry who he wants.’
Despite such worthy assurances however, the Church of Scotland decided to intervene in the situation at Ibrox in 1980, after the violent scenes witnessed around the world following Celtic’s 1 – 0 victory over Rangers in the Scottish Cup Final. The Kirk’s General Assembly proposed a motion calling on Rangers to end their exclusionary employment practices and publicly distance themselves from such discrimination, which was passed by a majority of 200. But of the 1250 commissioners, 400 had abstained, so the result was seen as ambiguous and the expected impact failed to materialise. Nevertheless the Church’s General Assembly report of the same year noted, ‘Tensions would be eased if all clubs, and Rangers FC in particular, would publicly disclaim sectarian bias in management and team structure, and through integrated team selection, publicly prove that sectarianism has no place in Scottish sport.’
By now it seemed clear that the growing controversy surrounding Rangers’ exclusionary employment policy was not going to go away. Despite these calls from the Church and elsewhere however, when Jock Wallace was reappointed Rangers manager in November 1983, he seemed less than taken with the ambivalent promises to end the club’s arcane practices. On the day of his appointment, Wallace emerged from the stadium onto Copland Road and told the waiting media, ‘I have been told by the board that I have complete control over who I select, and I will sign players on ability. Religion will not come into it.’ He then turned on his heels and departed without taking further questions.
Wallace, it seemed, having returned to his ‘dream job’, was living out his schoolboy fantasy as manager of his favourite team, ‘I’ve always been a Rangers fan,’ he announced after the first game of his second spell in charge at Ibrox, a 3 – 0 defeat to Aberdeen at Pittodrie, ‘Ever since I was a lad of nine and they came through to play near my home on the east coast. The team that made me a Rangers fan for life still trips off the tongue: Brown, Young, Shaw, McColl, Woodburn, Cox, Waddell, Gillick, Thornton, Duncanson and Caskie,” he rattled off Bill Struth’s team from the immediate post-war period. On that first trip up to Pittodrie, Wallace invited his agent Bill McMurdo, whom he had dubbed ‘Agent Orange’ because of his Rangers allegiances and his political views, onto the team bus. A founder member of the Scottish Unionist Party and an acknowledged Orangeman and Freemason, McMurdo had turned his Uddingston home into a Rangers shrine, naming it ‘Ibrox’ and decking it out in the club’s colours of red, white and blue.
On the journey north, McMurdo provided Wallace with a cassette so that he could play Rangers songs over the speaker system and the manager encouraged his players to join in the singing of ‘No Surrender’. McMurdo later confided, ‘Jock acted as compere and… those who didn’t know the words were urged to learn them for the next away game. [Ulsterman] Jimmy Nicholl knew the words inside out and Jock said to him, “Brilliant Jimmy, you know all the words, you’re the captain today!”’ It’s an apocryphal story; Nicholl had only just arrived at the club, having been signed by John Greig in his final days in charge at Ibrox, and the Irishman didn’t in fact captain the side that day. But nevertheless, it’s easy to see how a Catholic player might have struggled to flourish in such an environment and, needless to say, by the time Wallace was sacked in April 1986, there was still scant sign of a Catholic football player at Rangers, with only youngster John Spencer having made a handful of first team appearances for the club.
Wallace’s replacement as team manager, in the wake of a boardroom coup at Ibrox which had cleared out a cabal of old guard custodian-directors, was the former Liverpool and Scotland midfielder Graeme Souness. Immediately on his appointment, Souness was quizzed about the signing policy, ‘I was asked the question the very first day I went to Rangers, would you sign a Catholic?’ He later recalled. ‘And my answer then was quite simple. I said, look, my wife is a Catholic, I’ve got two kids who’ve been christened Catholic, so you’re saying to me I can’t come to work with a Catholic, but I can go home to a Catholic? I said of course I would sign a Catholic.’ Once again, hope sprang eternal that this more genuine sounding claim would lead to the longed for breakthrough.
Souness seemed determined to end the policy and privately, behind the scenes, he was making enquiries about the potential impact of such a signing, almost from the moment he arrived. The sheer iconoclasm of the idea appealed to Souness’s maverick personality and, as well as the backing of the new Rangers board, Souness also found that there was tentative support from the wider community for the potentially seminal change, with one young Rangers supporting journalist telling the new manager that he thought such a signing would be accepted, ‘as long as it wasn’t Peter Grant or Maurice Johnston’! Publicly however, as time went on, the old issue kept reappearing, with the situation not helped by the fact that Souness was a provocatively confrontational figure, who seemed to be always looking for an enemy, and who now found himself at the centre of one of the most heated and intense rivalries anywhere in world football.
Almost inevitably, there were high-profile incidents; as early as November 1986, Johnston, then playing for Celtic, was involved in a particularly notorious incident at the end of the Skol (League) Cup Final against Rangers at Hampden, which would turn out to be Souness’ first trophy as Ibrox manager. After being sent off late in the game, in the face of gleeful abuse from the Rangers supporters, Johnston blessed himself as he left the field. This was considered provocative firstly because, although he was brought up in the faith, Johnston was not, unlike some of his Celtic teammates, a practising Catholic and it was later pointed out by an indignant press that the striker was the only member of Celtic’s large Catholic contingent who had not attended Mass on the morning of the game.
At the time, Johnston’s actions sparked outrage. The idea that he might one day sign for Rangers seemed utterly unthinkable. Yet a little over two and a half years later that’s exactly what happened. The striker had apparently grown restless with the slow pace of life and the relatively low profile of football in France during the period of his sabbatical from the Scottish game. After initially vowing that he would never return to Scotland as a result of the scrutiny and abuse which he was subjected to following the Skol Cup final incident, Johnston announced publicly, in May 1989, that he was indeed on the verge of returning to his boyhood heroes Celtic. The Parkhead side were then managed by club legend Billy McNeill, who had been made aware of the player’s willingness to return home by his captain Roy Aitken, whom Johnston had been entreating while the pair were together on international duty with Scotland. Johnston was subsequently paraded at a press conference wearing a Celtic shirt, where he professed, amidst a lengthy roll call of footballing platitudes and truisms, his undying love for the club. ‘When I joined Celtic in 1984 it was like an answer to prayers, and I don’t say that lightly,’ the striker assured readers of the Celtic View. ‘At that time I fully intended to see out my career at Celtic, if the club would have me,’ he continued. ‘I never fell out of love with Celtic… when I joined Nantes it had always been my intention to return to Celtic one day. No one can accuse me of being two-faced… I didn’t intend to leave Celtic then and I don’t intend to now,’ Johnston maintained, while rumours of a desire to join Manchester United were fabricated, chiefly because, ‘There is no other British club I could play for apart from Celtic.’
The son of a Protestant father and Catholic mother, Johnston attended St. Roch’s secondary school in the Royston area of Glasgow and supported Celtic as a boy. He played for Partick Thistle, then Watford, before Parkhead manager Davie Hay signed him as an intended replacement for Charlie Nicholas, who had left Celtic for Arsenal the previous year, and he went on to form a prolific partnership with Brian McClair, scoring 52 goals in 100 appearances for the Parkhead side. After his infamous Celtic press conference in May 1989, Johnston travelled with his proposed new colleagues on the team bus to the club’s final league fixture of the season against St Mirren in Paisley, where winger Joe Miller scored the only goal of the match to give Celtic a 1 – 0 win. The following week, Miller repeated the feat, lighting up the showpiece Scottish Cup Final with the game’s solitary strike against Rangers, leaving Souness furious at being denied a potential Treble. The Rangers manager is reported to have told his players in the dressing room after the defeat that he had something up his sleeve which would rock Celtic, and that the Parkhead club had a shock coming. Something had evidently changed during the week between Miller’s two winning goals and over the summer rumours continued to circulate that the proposed deal on Johnston’s return to Celtic might not be as cut and dried as everyone assumed. The fly in the ointment seemed to be the player’s agent Bill McMurdo, Agent Orange himself, the same man who had represented Jock Wallace and whose Rangers allegiances and political views were a matter of public record. McNeill had informed Johnston that he would not deal with McMurdo and the striker appeared to accept this condition when he signed a ‘letter of agreement’ to join Celtic, which, although not a contract, was later ratified by FIFA as being legally binding, the equivalent of a modern-day precontract agreement. It was on this basis that Celtic decided to go ahead with the May press briefing and photo shoot, but the jilted McMurdo sent a letter to the club informing them that it was his company, rather than Nantes, who owned the player’s registration and that the agent could not therefore be bypassed in any transaction. While Celtic were pondering the implications of all this, McMurdo was offering the player to Souness on the other side of the city.
The Rangers manager soon became aware of the contractual difficulties over Johnston’s proposed move to Celtic, and he immediately expressed an interest in the striker. Souness admired the player and he persuaded the club’s new owner, David Murray, that with one swoop they could secure the services of a talented forward who had apparently been destined for Celtic and at the same time end the exclusionary signing policy, which with every passing year was becoming more of a black mark on the club’s reputation. At the time FIFA were investigating racist and religious prejudice in the game and Rangers’ unspoken policy was sure to come under the microscope at some point, with the world governing body holding the power to impose the ultimate sanction of withdrawing licences and shutting errant football clubs down. Johnston and McMurdo subsequently met Souness at the manager’s Edinburgh home, where a deal to bring the player to Rangers was agreed in principle.
Meanwhile Celtic, who had been unable to contact Johnston over the close season, were becoming increasingly aware that their putative deal for the striker was unlikely ever to be completed. Souness and McMurdo had turned the player and it wasn’t long before Johnston was privately threatening to quit football altogether if he was compelled to honour the recent agreement with his former team. Despite the FIFA endorsed letter, and with Nantes waiting expectantly for receipt of the £800,000 balance which would conclude the transfer, the Parkhead club, faced with the prospect of having an unhappy player on their hands, announced publicly that they were pulling out of the deal. At the time McNeill was still on holiday in Florida and he received his employers’ statement down the telephone, read out to him by a journalist. Had Celtic dug their heels in, they could have controlled Johnston’s future – even if he would never go on to play for the Parkhead club, they could have had a hand in his ultimate destination.
As late as July 2, McMurdo was still describing the rumours of a link with Rangers to the Sunday Mail as, ‘a complete fabrication – you can run that story for ten years and it still wouldn’t be true.’ When the paper’s chief sports writer Don Morrison called Ibrox to try and get to the bottom of the matter, he was told by assistant manager Walter Smith, ‘Remember the traditions of this club and, if we were going to break them, it wouldn’t be for that ****.’
But with Celtic now officially out of the way, things moved forward quickly and the deal to bring Johnston to Rangers was finally concluded in a Paris café. It seemed inevitable that news would leak, despite all the mendacity and espionage, and by July 9 the Scottish edition of The Sun appeared to have the story, thanks to a 16 year old trainee reporter who had noticed that Johnston’s name had mysteriously appeared on Rangers’ insurance documents, which were being handled by his girlfriend’s father. The young lad, having apparently unearthed the biggest story in the history of Scottish football, presumably with the help of his intended father-in-law, dutifully conveyed his information to the paper’s editor, Jack Irvine, who had just stepped off a plane after holidaying with Souness in Majorca. ‘Print it,’ the Rangers manager eventually confirmed the story to Irvine, who went ahead and devoted sixteen pages of Monday’s paper to their scoop. Still nobody could quite believe it, with the other papers, clearly paralysed with incredulity, refusing to run the story, even after early editions of The Sun hit the stands. It wasn’t until Johnston was unveiled at the press conference on the morning of Monday, July 10 that the rumours were finally confirmed. The striker was ushered into the Blue Room alongside Souness and McMurdo, where he spoke, in more guarded terms this time, to his astonished audience of his ‘huge admiration’ for the Ibrox club, something which, in amongst all the Celtic-loving hyperbole, he’d clearly managed to keep to himself up to that point.
After Johnston’s signing some Rangers fans burned scarves, cancelled season tickets, and even laid wreathes at the gates of Ibrox, while others who had perhaps seen a move of this nature coming for some time were heard to observe, ‘It’s not that I object to us signing Catholics, I just didn’t want us signing that Catholic.’ Fans spokesman David Miller summed up the general mood when he told The Herald, ‘It’s a sad day for Rangers. There will be a lot of people handing in their season tickets. I don’t want to see a Roman Catholic at Ibrox. It really sticks in my throat.’ Miller then went on to claim that signing a Catholic from the continent would have been easier to stomach. Within the club itself, opinion on Johnston’s arrival appeared to be divided; the English contingent at Ibrox, including Terry Butcher, Chris Woods and Ray Wilkins seemed largely bewildered by all the fuss and agreed to attend a press conference, welcoming the new player to the club, but their Scottish counterparts declined the same request, and refused to be photographed with Johnston, while Ibrox kitman and bus driver, Jimmy Bell, snubbed the club’s new acquisition, preferring not to provide him with his playing gear and withholding chocolate bars from the striker.
Over on the other side of the city, the Celtic fans’ reacted to Johnston’s perceived treachery with predictable fury. They might not have believed every word of the striker’s regurgitated platitudes, but the last thing they could have expected was that he was about to join their greatest rivals. The Celtic fanzine Not the View, perhaps reflecting Johnston’s penchant for overstatement, captured the widespread sense of revulsion when they described the player as, ‘the human incarnation of the contents of Beelzebub’s dustbin.’ Others dubbed their former idol ‘Judas’, ‘le petit merde’ and during Old Firm games sang songs aimed at the forward, such as ‘Who’s the Catholic in the Blue?’ and ‘What’s it like to sign a Tim?’ At least they did for most of the game, until in November 1989, Johnston scored an injury time winner at Ibrox against his former club, silencing the Hoops faithful and precipitating something of a turning point in his acceptance at Ibrox.
In the aftermath of the signing, the press lavished Murray and Souness with praise for finally allowing Rangers to employ a prominent Catholic footballer, often with far greater enthusiasm than they had criticised the club’s now former, unofficial policy, which, given that it had just been so spectacularly done away with, was now able to be openly acknowledged. However, in retrospect, the signing of Maurice Johnston has to be seen as something of a missed opportunity in the fight against religious bigotry in Scottish football. In the years following the signing, there appeared to ensue a period of equivocation, appeasement and ‘whataboutery’, where Rangers fans and their apologists in the press seemed more inclined to try to deflect the problem onto other clubs, rather than acknowledge or attempt to deal with the ongoing issue at Ibrox. Some even claimed that Rangers now occupied the moral high ground, and the label of sectarianism could no longer be applied to the club. What was lacking from Rangers was some sort of admission of previous wrongdoing, or even a degree of humility or contrition after the Johnston signing, but instead it was almost as if a switch had been flicked: the club weren’t employing Catholics before, but now they’ve bought one and they did it while managing to stick two fingers up at their rivals at the same time. Perhaps as a result of the insensitive way in which the Johnston signing was handled, Rangers continued to be dogged over the ensuing years by the issue of sectarianism, which has refused, even in more recent times when the club has been regularly fielding Catholic footballers, to disassociate itself from the Ibrox side.
Any notion that the signing of Maurice Johnston, and Rangers’ subsequent recruitment of other Catholic players and even coaches, might have brought about an end to the wider problems associated with the club has proved to be misguided. Rangers supporters in recent years have continued to sing sectarian songs from the stands at Ibrox, even inventing new ones, such as The Famine Song, which was first aired in 2008 and has been subsequently proscribed, and the particularly unpleasant chant ‘Big Jock Knew’, a reference to a number of cases of child abuse at Celtic Boys Club in the 1960s and 70s, which was weaponised by Rangers fans and used as a stick to beat the Parkhead club and its supporters.
As journalist Graham Spiers noted in The Times when the slogan was first heard at Ibrox, ‘I have to admit I never thought I’d ever see the day when Scottish football supporters sang a song about a child sex abuse case, yet Rangers have duly delivered. Even more amazing is Rangers FC’s ongoing silence on the matter, as this cretinous chant builds up its head of steam among supporters.’ Spiers was correct about the increasingly frequent usage of the slogan and ‘Big Jock Knew’ or ‘BJK’ later migrated from the Ibrox stands to become a ubiquitous acronym graffitied around Glasgow as well as a salutation used by Rangers fans when they greeted one another in the street.
In the end, rather than any domestic authority, it was the European governing body UEFA who took exception to Rangers’ sectarian songbook and sanctioned the club after a number of high profile cases in the 2000s, including, in May 2006, a fine accompanied by a warning over any future misconduct, after incidents of hooliganism and bigotry surrounding the club’s Champions League tie earlier in the year with Villarreal. Privately, UEFA were disturbed and appalled when they uncovered what was still going on at Ibrox in the 21st century, with one official telling Spiers, ‘Yes we have racism today in football and many other problems. But it still shocking to us that, in the year 2006, we still have supporters in Glasgow shouting ‘**** the Pope’ and such things. We thought the world had moved on from this.’
The signing of Maurice Johnston may not have been the seminal moment that many were hoping for in regards to the wider problem of anti-Catholicism at Ibrox and in the wider community, but over the ensuing years, once Rangers had officially abandoned its dogmatic, discriminatory policies, it was as if the floodgates had been opened and a raft of Catholic players eventually arrived at the club, most of them foreigners, at a time when British football was opening up its doors to the world. Rangers have now been captained by a Catholic, and managed by a Catholic, an unqualifiedly welcome development, which has rightly exposed all the old lies and excuses about outsiders supposedly not being able to fully commit to the team’s cause. The present day Ibrox club has no compunction at all about signing footballers from all backgrounds, including even players from the Republic of Ireland, something that would have been unthinkable in Souness’s day.
So, in the end, we got there with Rangers, even if at times it felt as though the old institution had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The extent of the club’s denials and equivocations down the years, however, has inevitably left many observers unconvinced about the nature of the progress within Ibrox, with the glaring lack of contrition or humility, coupled with the ongoing problems amongst the club’s fans and even directors, suggesting that the changes at the club have been largely cosmetic and have been adopted chiefly for reasons of expediency. Regardless, what can be said with some certainty about the club is that Rangers lost the battle of ideas, in the present and in the past, of what football clubs were supposed to be for and what the game had the potential to achieve in an often troubled society, and in the years since the Johnston signing, the club has subsequently faced numerous and, in the end sadly, catastrophic difficulties in facing up to its past.
This article is an edited extract from ‘Tangled up in Blue, The Rise and Fall of Rangers FC’ by Stephen O’Donnell, published by Pitch.