| Match Pictures | Matches: 1996 – 1997 | 1996-1997 Pictures |
Trivia
- The Pierre Van Hooijdonk issue blew right up. He was dropped from the squad for the game, allegedly for telling Tommy Burns to eff off. Contract negotiations had broken down and the infamous quote would soon be made.
- McStay, O’Donnell and Cadete were both out injured. Tosh McKinlay and Andreas Thom were both nursing injuries but played.
- Rangers were two points ahead in the league going into this game.
Review
No wins in seven games against Rangers. Tosh McKinlay sent off for two yellows in the first half hour. Willy Young scattering cards and Albertz escaping with nothing despite stamping on Brian O’Neil
Teams
Rangers: Goram, Moore (Ferguson, 62), Albertz, Gough, Petric, Bjorklund, Cleland, Gascoigne, Van Vossen, McCall, Laudrup
Non-Used Subs: McInnes, Snelders
Scorers: Gough (51), Gascoigne (89)
Celtic: Marshall, Boyd, McKinlay, McNamara, Hughes, Grant, Di Canio, Stubbs, O’Neil (McLaughlin, ?), Thom (Wieghorst, 76), Donnelly
Unused Sub: MacKay
Referee: W Young
Attendance: 50,124
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Articles
Rangers twist the knife
Scotland on Sunday 29/09/1996
Rangers 2 Celtic 0
"PLEASE take care while leaving," was the instruction flashed up on the Ibrox scoreboards at the end of another piece of Old Firm theatre. Presumably it wasn't a goodwill message from Rangers to Pierre van Hooijdonk.
It would be understandable though. The Celtic striker, whose future is now in doubt, has proved a nasty thorn in their side since coming from the Netherlands 20 months ago. Without their talisman, the Parkhead team slid to their first league defeat in 38 games.
The last one was inflicted exactly a year ago by, surprise, surprise, Rangers, and it effectively proved the impregnable barrier which separated the sides at the end of the season.
If Tommy Burns is to stop his adversary Walter Smith going on to the fabled nine-in-a-row, he will have to quickly repair the self-inflicted damage that has cut in to Celtic's championship ambitions.
With Jorge Cadete in Portugal recuperating, and Pierre in the doghouse contemplating, Celtic could hardly fail to be impaired by missing the source of 17 goals this season.
Rangers had no such problem. Richard Gough and Paul Gascoigne, who rarely fail to deliver the goods, stuck the knife into Burns and twisted it with invaluable goals yesterday.
Burns remained defiant afterwards, vowing: "You can write us off at your peril." Lunchtime news on the radio from London had informed us that the Scottish Premier Division Championship could be all over by this morning. Maybe they know us better than we know ourselves.
Celtic have suddenly gone out of tune, as the majority of the 50,124 crowd at Ibrox raucously reminded them. Harmony needs to be restored instantly among Burns, Fergus McCann and Van Hooijdonk if the five-point gap to Rangers is to be closed.
Such a quality was in short supply yesterday as referee Willie Young scattered yellow cards around like confetti. Eight cautions were issued, two to Tosh McKinlay, who became Celtic's seventh sending-off in a short and turbulent season.
He should have been joined by Jrg Albertz after the German midfielder astonishingly escaped punishment for a most cynical piece of violent play, stamping on Brian O'Neil under the gaze of linesman Joe Kelly, who failed to notify the unsighted Young.
That Albertz then stuck around to set up Gascoigne's headed goal in the dying seconds merely rubbed salt into Celtic's wounds.
Earlier he made the 51st-minute opener for Gough, a lead Rangers never fully built on against 10 men. Walter Smith expressed his disappointment on that score but can't have been disappointed by the final one.
Celtic twice struck the woodwork but, though they can certainly curse their luck, Rangers had chances in abundance in the second half to finish them off.
Regardless of the humbling experiences dished out by Auxerre and Hamburg in midweek, it failed to curb the appetites of the Old Firm's supporters for this game, with throngs of fans thrusting banknotes into the air outside Ibrox in the vain search for a spare ticket.
Television sage Desmond Lynam once said, after his first exposure to the fixture, that they had made every other match seem like a silent movie, so great was the noise.
But there are times when you just wish you could reach out and turn down the volume. When McKinlay departed the field in the 43rd minute for the second of two bookings, a foul on Stuart McCall, someone from the dear seats bellowed: "You're a scumbag, McKinlay."
Such a lack of decency to a man who still carries the pain of the death of his infant son two years ago, makes you believe Europe must be glad it doesn't have to put up with our presence for too long each season.
Celtic threatened to upset the odds in the opening stages with winger Paolo di Canio particularly dangerous, in tandem with his German attacking partner Andreas Thom.
The Italian looked to have made the breakthrough after 10 minutes. Showing Gordan Petric a clean pair of those white heels of his, and with the cuteness of a matador, he ushered in Gough's lunging tackle, leaving himself just Andy Goram to beat.
The Rangers keeper superbly stuck up one hand to force out the fierce shot and the follow-up from Simon Donnelly was cleared off the line by Petric.
Gascoigne, unsurprisingly, became the game's first booking in the 19th minute for kicking O'Neil as the Celt lay on the ground. He was later to be followed by his team mate Gough and Peter van Vossen while Celtic had Di Canio, Tom Boyd and John Hughes joining McKinlay in the crime count.
The England star showed us the savoury side of his game, his penetrating run ended with Gordon Marshall diverting his shot for a corner.
However, Celtic's afternoon really began to crumble when Thom limped off to be replaced by Morten Wieghorst, who could not match the pace the German had brought to their thrusting counter-attacks.
Rangers finally went ahead six minutes into the second half when Gough rose to deliver a header high into the roof of the net from Albertz's corner.
Seven minutes later Peter Grant thought he had equalised, fastening on to a superb lay-off from Di Canio and watching his shot beat Goram but then strike the left-hand post before it tantalisingly ran along the line.
Hughes met a worse fate: his 89th-minute header hit the bar and Rangers went downfield to deliver Gascoigne's fatal blow.
- Manager Interview
He said: "You can write us off at your peril. We'll see who is top of the table at the end of the season. There are still 29 games to play.
"My players gave me super-human effort and kept fighting till the end, making three or four good chances, and youngsters, Simon Donnelly and Jackie McNamara, were magnificent."
Burns, though, clearly believes his side were once more discriminated against in an Old Firm game. McKinlay's dismissal was Celtic's eighth ordering off in an already fraught season, a total that includes the red card shown to McKinlay after the final whistle of the opening day's 2-2 draw at Aberdeen. You have to go back to season 1994/95 for Rangers' last domestic dismissal.
There was also controversy surrounding Burns' decision to field Andreas Thom from the start. The German was clearly suffering a rib injury and lasted only 23 minutes.