Colin missed out on turkey, but got a Christmas cracker
With a full card scheduled for Boxing Day, footballers around the country will have to curtail their celebrations this Saturday.
Fifty years ago, Colin Stein didn’t have to worry about staring longingly at family and friends getting stuck into turkey and all the trimmings on Christmas Day.
He was too busy winning the points for Rangers at Easter Road.
For the final time in the 20th Century – and it hasn’t happened since – the Scottish League decided to clash with Santa Claus and arrange for the country’s players to be trying to unlock defences rather than unwrapping presents.
The Light Blues were booked to travel to play Hibs on December 25, and it was to prove a Merry Christmas for their star striker.
“I’d played for the Hibees for three years before Rangers signed me for £100,000 in 1968, at the time a Scottish record,” says Stein, now 74.
“Having grown up a fan, that was brilliant for me. But I’d rarely been to Ibrox as a kid as my parents wouldn’t let me travel through to Glasgow.
“So I spent more time at Easter Road, watching the likes of the great Joe Baker in action.
“After signing for them from Armadale Thistle, there were a lot of good times, with our Fairs Cup win over Napoli in 1967 probably the highlight.
“We lost the first leg in Italy 4-1– I got our goal – and they must have thought the tie was done and dusted because they left half their team at home when they came to Edinburgh for the return.
“They were made to pay for that as we hammered them 5-0, with me getting the fifth – and past World Cup legend, Dino Zoff at that.
“I don’t know if that played any part in Rangers’ decision to sign me, but I like to think the move worked out well for both parties.”
Ninety-seven goals in 206 games in a light blue jersey would suggest that, and it was certainly the case in the festive fixture in 1971.
Colin continues: “It was unusual for us to be playing on Christmas Day, but you were a professional footballer, and just did what the club told you to.
“Eddie Turnbull had taken over as Hibs manager. He was building a great team and they battered us that afternoon, with our keeper, big Peter Mccloy the star man. The game was still locked at 0-0, when we won a corner with about 30 seconds left.
“Tommy Mclean swung it over, and I got my head to it for what proved to be the winning goal.
“After a poor start to that season when we lost four of our first five league games, we went on a good run and that win at Easter Road was our 11th in 12 games.”
That form wasn’t to last, however, and Rangers finished third in the table, 16 points behind champions, Celtic, and six behind Aberdeen.
Willie Waddell’s team, however, did have other fish to fry.
They were in the midst of a campaign that would end in winning the European Cupwinners’ Cup, and Stein conceded that may have been a factor in their poor domestic form.
“When you’re playing midweek, and having to travel to France, Portugal, Italy and West Germany for high-pressure ties, that can lead to inconsistency,” says Stein.
“But we were a great team on our day, and winning in Barcelona was the proof.
“The teams we knocked out – Rennes, Sporting Lisbon, Torino and Bayern Munich – may have been technically superior, but Willie Waddell’s tactics, and the fitness we got from Jock Wallace’s training, proved more than a match for them.
“And it was the same in the Final against Moscow Dynamo where – as the song says – ‘Colin Stein scored one, Willie Johnston two’.”
Not long after the Ibrox club’s finest hourand-a-half, Stein was heading south to Coventry City.
But three years later he was back to score the goal that ended Celtic’s run of nine-in-a-row.
At Easter Road, of course.