On This Day: 31 May

[ian1964 10,596]

 

WE look at some of the memorable moments that have happened on this day in the remarkable history of Rangers Football Club.

 

1967 – It took extra time, but on this day in 1967, Rangers were defeated by Bayern Munich in the European Cup Winners’ Cup Final with Franz Roth scoring the winning goal in the 117th minute of time.

 

Rangers had progressed to Nuremburg by beating Glentoran 5-1 on aggregate in the first round, and then knocked out holders Borussia Dortmund.

 

In the quarter-final against the tournament favourites Real Zaragoza, Rangers went through on the toss of a coin when extra-time could not produce a winner. In the semi-final, Rangers won 1-0 in each leg of the tie against Slavia Sofia.

 

There was a crowd of 69,480 inside the Stadtisches Stadion in Nuremberg to watch as the Bavarian giants won their first European silverware in their history. The match was six days after Celtic had won the European Cup and was the first time in European football that two teams from the same city had contested the two main European finals.

 

Gers striker Alex Willoughby was left out of the team in favour of defender Roger Hynd who had been promoted to the first team following his exploits for the swifts side. Since coming into the Light Blues side following the infamous defeat to Berwich Rangers, Willoughby had scored 17 goals in three months.

 

Hynd had the ball in the back of the net within the ninety minutes of the match, however it was disallowed by referee Concetto Lo Bello from Italy and he also missed a guilt edged chance after being set up by Dave Smith.

 

It was no shame to lose to the German giants as their side contained some of the finest German players of a generation, including Sepp Maier, Franz Beckenbaur and Gerd Muller. Speaking after the match, Gers boss Scot Symon said: “Our players all fought hard. We had our chances but we were just not quite sharp enough to take them.”

 

It was a fantastic time for Scottish football with Celtic winning the European Cup, Rangers contesting the Cup Winners’ Cup, Kilmarnock reaching the semi-final of the Fairs Cup (losing to Leeds United), Dundee United beating the Fairs Cup holders Barcelona home and away and the Scottish national side defeating World Champions England 3-2 at Wembley.

 

RANGERS: Martin, Johansen, Provan, Jardine, McKinnon, Greig, Henderson, Smith, Hynd, Smith, Johnston

BAYERN: Maier, Nowak, Olk, Roth, Beckenbauer, Kupferschmidt, Nafziger, Ohlhauser, Muller, Koulmann, Brenninger

 

2003 – It was the sort of storyline that even the cheesiest of Hollywood directors would have turned their nose up at. In what was his last ever game for Rangers, Italian defender Lorenzo Amoruso scored the goal that brought both the Scottish Cup and the treble back to Ibrox.

 

The Italian rose highest to power a header past Julian Speroni for the game’s only goal after 65 minutes before celebrating in his traditional wildly enthusiastic manner.

 

Steven Thompson was awarded a free kick on the left of the Dundee penalty box and when Neil McCann swung the cross in, Amoruso was in the right place to plant a header past the sprawling Speroni.

 

It was perhaps harsh luck on Dundee but it mattered little to the huge Rangers support who celebrated with much gusto.

 

RANGERS: Klos; Ricksen, Moore, Amoruso, Numan (Muscat 68); Arveladze (Thompson 56), Malcolm, Ferguson, McCann; de Boer, Mols (Ross 46)

DUNDEE: Speroni; Mackay (Milne 77), Khizanishvili, Mair, Hernandez; Smith, Rae (Brady 84), Nemsadze; Caballero, Burchill (Novo 70), Lovell

 

Read a match report from the Cup Final on the club website HERE

 

http://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/day-31-may/