Neil McCann recalls Old Firm ‘shame game’

[ian1964 10,613]

After Dundee McCann moved on to Hearts and the oxy-acetylene reprimands of Jefferies – “with Billy Brown whispering in his ear, egging him on.” With the Jambos he won his first Scottish Cup but that athletic, urgent side of David Weir, Dave McPherson, Colin Cameron, Steve Fulton, Stephane Adam and the rest could have achieved more. “That was a cracking Hearts team and we could have won the league that season [1997-98].

 

A key game was at Ibrox in the snow with an orange ball. From an Andy Goram kick-out I belted one from 20 yards into the top corner and we were leading 2-1 with a couple of minutes left when [Jorg] Albertz hit a free-kick which skiffed off Mickey’s [Cameron’s] studs into the roof of the net. In the dressing room afterwards, devastated.“But, from being a swashbuckling team who would often blow the opposition away, Jim was canny enough to switch us to counter-attack for the final and we broke our hoodoo.” McCann by then had done more than enough to impress Rangers’ new manager-in-waiting Advocaat who signed him midway through the following campaign. As a Catholic.

 

When McCann was unveiled to the media, religion was pretty much the first question. “I expected that and I had to learn to defend myself and deal with the shrapnel. Was I worried how the Rangers fans would react? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. But while I wasn’t a Rangers supporter when I signed I became one as soon as I did and I’d like to think the punters recognised that in my performances, even the stinkers and there were a few of them! I can honestly say I never got any grief from Rangers fans although there was plenty from the other side.“Religion had no relevance to me.

 

I’d loved playing for Hearts, as I’d loved my time at Dundee, and here was a chance to progress my career with an exciting team – Gio [Van Bronckhorst], Claudio [Reyna], [Arthur] Numan, Andrei [Kanchelskis], the big Italian love-god Amo [Lorenzo Amoruso] and all those guys.

 

And religion didn’t matter to my parents who were thrilled for me and have always given me such fantastic backing, right from as a kid when they’d heat up a flask of orange juice for me on cold, horrible days and buy me football boots they probably couldn’t afford.”It did matter to some in May ’99 in an Old Firm encounter at Celtic Park notorious even by the fixture’s rigorous standards and one which – after three red cards issued by referee Hugh Dallas, felled by a missile from the crowd then re-emerging with a bloody head – was immediately dubbed the “Shame Game”.

 

McCann scored two goals to help Rangers clinch the title on the way to the Treble but in the midst of the mayhem wondered how he was going to get out alive. “I thought to myself: ‘This is kicking off big-time and I’m Public Enemy No 1’. Guys trying to run on to the pitch were being rugby-tackled left, right and centre and you knew things were bad when the yellow stewards were stepping aside and the ones in red were moving in. My family were all in the away end and I was worried for them.

 

Me, I fancied my pace as I always did but if things got any worse I was going to get swamped.”Aggro continued through the night. “My car was trashed – I wasn’t at home – and there was trouble in Port Glasgow.” The next day when he should have been re-living his goals the papers seemed to barely touch on the match, his big day ruined by “poisonous hatred”.

 

This has to be recalled, still, and McCann just about understands why. But he’d much rather be discussing Advocaat’s canniness – playing our man through the middle that day, the occasions he reduced the Ibrox width – and Strachan’s passion for the game and how everything McCann has gleaned from his mentors can hopefully revive Dundee, without too much need for the Jefferies flame-thrower.

 

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/dundee/interview-neil-mccann-on-why-dundee-must-leave-dens-park-1-4555171

[chilledbear 16]

No shame on our side, only one team and their support, also the media for not pointing this out.