RICHARD COUGH RANGERS & ME
DAY 1 OF OLD FIRM LEGEND'S LIFE STORY
The fixture is more than 90 mins. It’s the very lifeblood of a city. My mum would say to me: ‘You’re lucky you’ve got a bit of Swedish calmness inside you. Your father could never have played against Celtic.. he’d have been sent off because of his emotions
RICHARD GOUGH is 58 now. He lives by the Pacific Ocean, almost 100 miles south of Los Angeles.
He takes his dogs for a walk on the beach at 7am every morning but it’s the sands of time he feels beneath the feet that carried him to fame and fortune on football fields from Dundee to San Jose, via London, Glasgow, Kansas and Liverpool.
This cosmopolitan world traveller is now settled and living a life far removed from that of the average footballer. Which is no great surprise as he never was one of those.
He excelled at Dundee United and Spurs but was defined by his 11-year career at Rangers, where he captained the club to nine league titles in a row.
Those are the days for which Gough is best remembered. And those are the days he remembers most fondly as he watches the sun come up on another glorious morning on America’s west coast.
He is drawn back to Govan, mentally – and physically at times in his role as a Rangers ambassador – like a moth to a flame and admits he just can’t help himself. After all, he was forged in the fire of the Old Firm – branded the ultimate warrior by many who believe him to be the best centre-back ever to have worn a Rangers jersey.
It’s 22 years since he last wore one competitively but time has eroded neither his pride nor his passion for the club.
And the memory of the 41 times he played against Celtic are embedded in him like the chip under the skin of the dogs he walks on those golden sands.
“Great games,” he said. “You might say it’s easy for me to say that because we won most of them but it was more than that. That fixture is more than 90 minutes of football. It’s like the very lifeblood of a city. There’s nothing like it.”
Yet Gough’s immersion into it would come as a surprise to those who haven’t looked beyond the fact he was born in Stockholm and brought up in South Africa where his Scottish father
Charlie played football for one of the biggest clubs, Highlands Park. He said: “My mum is Swedish and dad’s Scottish and the whole family are big Rangers supporters. “My mum used to say to me, ‘ you’re lucky you’ve got a bit of Swedish calmness in you. Your father could never have played against Celtic – he’d have been sent off in most of them because he’d have let his emotions take over’. “I was always surrounded by Scottish expats. The former Rangers player Bobby Hume, who played in the 1961 European Cup Winners Cup final against Fiorentina, played with my dad at Highlands Park. Craig Watson was another, he played with Rangers and won the League Cup in 1963. “So there was a strong connection with Rangers, even from a distance. “I came over at 15 to see my granny, who lived in Hillington. I went to Ibrox for an Old Firm game.
“It was September 1977 and Rangers were 2-0 down at half-time after two goals from Celtic’s big Icelandic boy Johannes Edvaldsson, before coming back to win 3-2 in the second half. Gordon Smith got two and big Derek Johnstone scored.
“That was my first introduction and little did I know that I’d end up playing in more than 40 of them.”
Gough’s first home game for Rangers after Graeme Souness signed him for £1million in 1987 was against Celtic, a match infamous for seeing Terry Butcher, Chris Woods, Graham Roberts and Frank McAvennie end up in court on breach of the peace charges.
Nine-man Rangers recovered from two down to draw 2-2 with Gough scoring the equaliser in the final minute. It was, he agrees, quite an introduction to the fixture. Gough said: “I knew that the year before, when Souness had arrived, there had been a couple of tasty derbies.
“So I knew what to expect in my first game at Ibrox – a very hard, very physical game against Celtic. It turned out to be that and a little bit more.
“When you look back on it now, the referee could have done a bit better. He could have just separated the boys instead of throwing them off the field.
“We were 2-0 down and had nine men. Souness told me to go and play in midfield and I set up Coisty for our first goal. Celtic had a man advantage over us and missed loads of chances – Billy Stark hit the bar.
“Peter Grant tells a great story about running down the right wing in the 92nd minute with Celtic 2-1 up. He knows he should have taken the ball into the corner and ran down the clock
or cut inside and had a shot because Roberts was in goal at that time.
“But he ran the ball towards the Rangers end and tried to smash it as hard as he could into the crowd. All he did was fire it behind the goal for a goal-kick.
“Roberts got the ball back quickly, Ian Durrant got away down the right and their keeper missed the cross and I managed to jab it home. It was pandemonium and, of course, the aftermath ended up with four players in court, which was nonsensical.
“They were very difficult games to play in emotionally. All week, you’re getting it in the street, ‘come on Goughie, you’ve got to win this’.
“Your mates are on to you. There’s no let-up and no matter the positions in the league, it was a game that had to be won every single time.”
Gough admits he managed to keep a lid on his emotions most of the time – perhaps the Swedish half of his DNA did help. But he watched on as some of the biggest names in British football became as immersed in the Old Firm culture as the battle-hardened boys brought up on the streets of the city.
And he said: “I don’t know how guys like Bomber Brown or Ian Ferguson kept a lid on it because they were diehard Rangers men.
“Bomber used to hyperventilate into a brown paper bag in the dressing room before these games.
“The local boys lived and breathed it but it was amazing how many of the others, with massive experience, bought into it. Big Butcher immersed himself in it completely. He loved it.
“He was a very passionate player. And a great captain. But he wasn’t the only one. It affected them all, Gary Stevens, Trevor Steven, Wilkins. Ray had played in Milan derbies but I remember him coming off after his first Celtic game and saying, ‘I’ve never seen anything like that!’
“I told him, ‘it’s great Ray but we have to win these games’.
“I didn’t lose too many but I remember a couple of 3-0s at Parkhead and they really hurt. You probably remember the defeats more than the victories, oddly enough.
“It didn’t matter if you were miles clear at the top of the league. Lose that fixture and your fans aren’t happy. That’s what makes that fixture so unique.”
Richard Gough may have made his home near Sunset Boulevard but it sounds like he’s left his heart near Mosspark Boulevard.
PRIDE AND THE PASSION Nine-in-a-row Rangers captain Gough faced rivals Celtic 41 times