Feuding rivals on collision course
• Bitter rivals Rangers and United set to clash for first time in six years • Bad blood can be traced back to Levein’s infamous ref rant at Ibrox in 2008
SOME six-and-a-half years have come and gone since Dundee United last played Rangers but the subsequent tumult at both clubs seems to date that meeting to somewhere around the Middle Ages.
Including caretakers, seven men have taken charge of both sides since Ally McCoist and Jackie McNamara led their teams out for that Scottish Cup semi-final in April 2014.
Not a single player remains on the books in either camp. Both institutions are now under new ownership, with their respective dark days in the lower leagues now consigned to history.
But although Saturday’s clash at a near empty Ibrox involves none of the original cast members from what proved to be a comfortable 3-1 win for United, no one with a reasonable grasp of recent events in Scottish football will view it as just another coming together.
Put simply, too much happened between the clubs back in the day. As one ill-tempered episode bled into the next, mutual antipathy rose and common respect evaporated. It remains to be seen if time has been the great healer.
In 2016, when Rangers finally won back their Premiership status, United lost theirs. It was almost as if the footballing Gods had decreed that it would be better to keep them apart for a while longer like a pair of squabbling teenagers.
All that’s happened in the world in the subsequent four years has maybe taken the temperature down a degree or two but memories on both sides are long. This will never be just another game on the calendar.
Although sparks occasionally flew between the clubs down the decades, the genesis of the modern-day feud began in 2008.
Then under the tutelage of Craig Levein, United came to Ibrox for the penultimate league match of the season with Europe still achievable and seeking a degree of revenge for losing the League Cup final to Rangers on penalties.
The Ibrox side ran out 3-1 winners that afternoon but events on the field were quickly overtaken by an eight-minute rant from Levein at full-time which was akin to a volcanic eruption.
Seething at the display of referee Mike McCurry, which saw a Danny Swanson goal disallowed and David Weir escape punishment for felling Noel Hunt in the box, the future Scotland manager accused the official of pre-meditated favouritism.
‘Mike could have phoned me this morning and said: “Look, Rangers are going to get the three points today — just tell your lads to stay in the house”,’ fumed Levein.
‘It’s impossible to win here in important games. The referee has bottled it at the penalty. He knew, if he had given the penalty, he would have had to send Davie Weir off.
‘That guy today knew it was a penalty-kick but knew the game was so important to Rangers that he couldn’t give it. It’s Rangers, at Ibrox, so you can’t win.
‘If it’s not a level playing field and if we don’t get the decisions — blatant, important decisions — then what is the point of turning up?’
McCurry’s later admission that he had got two big calls wrong did not pour oil on choppy waters. Indeed, that day proved to be just the opening jab in the joust.
Round Two came the following year when a Tannadice fixture between the sides was abandoned at half-time due to a waterlogged pitch by referee Mike Tumilty.
Walter Smith agreed with the decision — despite a Steven Davis strike putting his side ahead at the break.
But there was less understanding from the Glasgow side when it emerged that United intended on charging visiting supporters full price for the privilege of watching the rescheduled game.
After an initial outcry, United reduced the prices by 50 per cent but Rangers fans still objected to effectively paying twice to watch the same match. One supporters’ club even took the matter to court but lost.
Yet that dispute proved to be a petty quarrel compared with the seismic events of 2012.
With Rangers liquidated, the issue of where the team should
play the following season threatened to blow the doors off the game.
With fans of other clubs adamant that they had to take the medicine of working their way up from the fourth tier, ten of the top-flight’s chairmen bowed to the wishes of their customers (Kilmarnock abstained) and voted against directly readmitting the Ibrox club.
Where United’s stance differed in the eyes of Rangers supporters was not what they did but the way they did it. They felt Tannadice chairman Stephen Thompson’s bullish public pronouncements on the matter were the equivalent of kicking them when they were down — perhaps even persuading fellow chairmen to follow suit. It’s a claim Thompson strongly rejected.
‘I didn’t put Rangers in that position,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t even the first person from another club to speak out about what should happen when the newco asked to be allowed to stay in what was then the SPL.’
Nonetheless, with Rangers still feeling raw about their perceived treatment as they acquainted themselves with the likes of Peterhead and Montrose, the Scottish Cup draw of the following February was a chance to get even.
With the exception of a few stowaways, Rangers supporters agreed to boycott Tannadice for the fifth-round tie in protest at United’s lack of empathy the previous summer.
A banner unfurled at a preceding game against Montrose implored the Ibrox players to ‘Give them Hell’. Even Smith, who had cut his teeth as assistant manager to Jim McLean at United, jumped on the bandwagon — even though it meant McCoist’s side would have next to nobody to cheer them on.
‘Rangers are right to boycott — and that comes from a man who was 20 years at Tannadice,’ he said at the time.
‘I don’t think anybody at Rangers will ever forget what happened during that period.’
Against a backdrop of bitterness, the match proved to be a nocontest. United strode to a 3-0 win, the late dismissals of Kal Naismith and Ian Black for the visitors mirroring their black mood.
If diplomatic relations between the clubs by this point were hanging by a thread, United’s pursuit of Ibrox academy player Charlie Telfer took a lighted match to what remained of them.
Despite being a lifelong Rangers’ fan, Telfer was tempted by the prospect of playing beside Stuart Armstrong and Ryan Gauld in McNamara’s enterprising young side.
An initial £50,000 bid was rejected but the midfielder moved to Tannadice under freedom of contract. It took until January 2015 for a tribunal to rule that a fee of £200,000 should be paid.
There were conflicting reports over whether United had submitted that compensation should only be due for the ‘post-liquidation’ years Telfer had spent with Rangers. What was beyond debate was how little the episode did to restore bonhomie.
By then, it was probably beyond the powers of Henry Kissinger. On the day of that semi-final the previous spring, Thompson had opted not to take his customary seat in the directors’ box, preferring instead to join his fellow supporters in the Broomloan Road end.
This time, his beef had more to do with the SFA’s handling of the ticketing arrangements for a ‘neutral venue’ but nor did it say much about his regard for his Ibrox counterparts. Certainly, no olive branch was offered.
Now no longer involved with United, his story is perhaps one for another day. If, or when, he opts to tell it, the inside track on how two Scottish sporting institutions rutted like stags for years will be fascinating.