Just seen a chap on the website talking about a history book about our own ‘wee blue devil’ himself: Alan Morton. One slight hitch seems to be the book hasn’t been published yet, that’s if it has even been written?
So it has led me to thinking, how many Rangers players would be in an all-time Scotland XI? Well, I think for a start you need to set aside petty jealousies and look at the ideology, logically.
For a start: who would be Scotland’s goalkeeper? Logic dictates - any sentient brain activity dictates - that Andy Goram is the best Scottish goalkeeper (with a fooking accent) this side of Hitler.
So who came before him with a claim to the jersey? Well, John Thomson of Celtic and our own Jerry Dawson would have claims to fame. Jimmy Cowan (of Morton) had a Wembley performance in 1949 named after him. But then again so did Fred Martin and Frank Haffey of Celtic a few years thereafter. Not to mention Stewart Kennedy in 1975.
Timbo in that fashion of his has jokingly tried to compare a 21st century Polish clown to Goram, but I ask you, what goalkeeper who is supposed to be top notch has made the consistent amount of sins and gaffes that Boruc has committed?
Any rivals for Andy? Well, only a Rangers-hating bigot would mention Leighton in the same breath as Goram. So, without peer, it is Andy Goram in goals for me.
Who to play at full back may well be a contentious issue for some. However, I don’t see why. Unless there is a candidate pre-Adolf then Eric Caldow skates in at left back. As for the position on the other berth, Jardine must come before McGrain. We live in times when we are constantly told that the full back is also there to help the attack. Check Jardine’s goal account compared to the slobbery one. Nuff said. Anyway, would any of this pair have the commanding presence of George Young?
What about the half back line? I’ll try and formulate my Scotland team on the 1-2-3-5 formation.
Without peer, at right half David Meiklejohn does it for this bear. It’s not just about his medals. It’s about his class and durability over nearly twenty years of top-flight football. As for courage? Hell, I won’t mention the 1928 cup final if you won’t.
Centre half? This selection might be the biggest shoe-in next to the left half selection. William Woodburn. I want to do the time warp, I want to see this guy in his pomp. I want to see Rangers under pressure and big Ben standing there puckering out his jersey waiting on the next wave of attacks coming in.
An old guy I used to work with always re-told the tale of Willie Woodburn up against England’s Nat Lofthouse at Hampden and off the ball WW laid him out flat. It might not be nice, and I suppose not pretty, but that is how the game was played in those days. Willie Woodburn was a footballer, but could resort to the muscle if required.
Left half.? I’ve got three words to say on the subject; James Curran Baxter. As was written of the slim one; "Scot Symon knew he had signed a great player but he was not to know the torment that player would cause him later as he strode across football arrogantly, overawed by nobody, laughing when others were tense, listening but ignoring, knowing that his way was the right way.
Some saw him standing in a spotlight of changing colours but when he had the ball at his feet in midfield he was a man standing in a field with the dawn behind him. Then he would draw that golf club left foot of his and the instep would strike the leather, and the leg would twist in a distortion of art. The ball would travel with that strange velocity , not fast, not slow, weightless and with a kind of gentleness.
That was a Jim Baxter pass, something that did to the emotions of those who appreciated football as an art form what music and poetry would normally do.’"
The question is dear reader, was Jim Baxter without peer? I do think we can make a case for saying he was. Unless you are Tony Roper or a slum landlord.
The right wing berth is a puzzler. Sixties children will fight often and long about Willie Henderson and wee stinky. However, twenty years previously there was something of a ‘Dynamic Duel’ going on between a Dynamic Duo of our own Willie Waddell and Gordon Smith of the Hibs’ Famous Five’ fame.
Not that I am biased you understand, but my old granda summed it up thus. He told me that you would never, ever in your lifetime see a more elegant, majestic footballer in your life than Gordon Smith. On and on he enthused about the man. ‘Nijinsky in fitba boots; he said. But he always saved the best for last, ‘Willie Waddell was better for Scotland though’ he said, he could come back from injury and do the biz for Scotland, Gordon Smith never seemed to do so.’
I have no ideas who might be Scotland’s all time right winger. No thoughts either on inside right, but I would like to have seen John White back in the day. I wouldn’t have wanted to play golf with him, mind you.
Centre forward is a hard one but it is difficult to see past Jimmy McGrory. His record is damn good, I have to say. Inside left? Well I think ‘greetin Boab McPhail’ would have been in with a shout, as would a certain John ‘Kitey’ McPherson of the Rangers of days gone by. How good was John McPherson? Well he was only described as the greatest football player in the first 50 years of our history.
I think I would have to put Hugh Kilpatrick Gallagher, son of an Ulsterman, at inside left.
Now to the left flank. What a hard choice this is. Well, given the choices, I’ll plump for Alan Lauder Morton. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. Alan Lauder Morton is without doubt, the greatest winger ever produced in the British Isles.
What can you say about Alan Morton? He played a record eleven times against England. Now you can say Tommy Walker of the Hearts ties that record, but Tommy Walker didn’t play in the officially, unofficial Victories over England in Aprill and May 1919. Alan Morton did.
Where do we stop when thinking of Alan Morton? ‘The wee blue devil’? The wee society man?
He played against England (officially) eleven times between 1920 and 1932. In the year he did not play (1926) it became known as the year Morton did not play. Once again the yahoos, as is their mentally unhinged want, claimed they had a better left winger than Morton in one Adam McLean. But here’s the thing in 1926, the year Morton did not play against England, it wasn’t McLean who took his place, it was an Alex Troup of Everton. Obviously, the Scottish team selectors knew sod all about football.
‘Alan Morton scorned anything that was even slightly ungentlemanly AND HE WAS SO FAR AFIELD THE OTHERS OF HIS ERA, in skill and field manners and in bearing off the field, that when The Scottish Football Association held their Jubilee Dinner in 1933 he was the only player to be invited as a guest.’
So, when it comes to Scottish football, I reckon we have five absolutes.
Goram, Meiklejohn, Woodburn, Baxter and Morton.
The rest I could fill with ease. And to think I haven't even included Scotland's greatest ever captain; George Young!
Yours in Rangers,
t-g-g