In my humble opinion, Ronald de Boer remains one of the top players ever to have pulled a blue jersey over his head. Of the modern era, I'd rate only Lauders and Gazza above him but they arrived at our club at the peak of their careers, whereas Ronnie was signed at a time when he was battling against injury and his better days appeared to be behind him. Despite all that, he was outstanding for us during his four years at Ibrox.
Nobody in our team had a greater sense of what was going on all around him. Without even looking, he could do a quick about-turn and hit an inch-perfect pass to a team-mate fifty or sixty yards away, he was superb at shielding the ball then laying it off to a colleague and he also had a keen eye for goal when the sniff of a scoring opportunity fell his way.
In just under four years at our club he played 104 games, scoring 32 goals, but his contribution exceeded such run-of-the-mill statistics. Ronald de Boer must have been a joy to play alongside, making the right runs at the right time, releasing passes at the most telling moment and commanding the attention of two or three opponents to give his team-mates so much more space.
It was very interesting to listen to the legend that is Billy Dodds (joke!) slag Ronnie off as a 'bully' in recent Radio Scotland output. And while he was at it, Doddsy also saw fit to have a pop at Gio Van Bronckhorst who 'thought he was better than everybody else'. Take RdB out of the equation and Gio wasn't too far wrong, was he? Maybe Gio should also figure in a few more RTV Dream Teams!!!
But if Billy Dodds had anything resembling a fitba brain, he would show a bit more appreciation of a real class act who could have made him a so much better player, if only he'd had the good sense to pay attention. My information is that Billy Boy was one of the Scottish contingent who reacted badly to the increasing Dutch colony at Ibrox and, despite having been given the sort of contract he could only dream about, was one of the first to go behind Tricky Dicky's back and go running to his pals in the Press Gang with tales about unrest in the dressing room. Well, he has landed on his feet with the BBC, hasn't he?
Ronald de Boer began to make his reputation at Twente Enschede before scaling the great heights with Ajax , Barcelona and Holland but, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure about what we were getting when he joined Rangers in September 2000. But his performance in the 5-0 destruction of Strum Graz in the Champions League quelled all my fears and, although injury saw him drift in and out of the team over the next four seasons, he did more than enough for me.
When Big Eck replaced the Caat Man a year later, I wondered if RdB would also move on but he stuck around and played a major part in making McLeish's early years successful. Ra Sellick had no answer to him in the Lovenkrands final of 2002 and winning the title on goal difference on the last day of the following season was another big de Boer performance. He only scored one goal in that 6-1 win over Dunfermline but, at a time when it might have drifted away from us, he was a calming influence on all those around him.
For what its worth, I reckon we had actually taken a giant step towards clinching the flag a week earlier when Ronnie fired in a brilliant diving header for our second goal in the 2-0 defeat of Hearts at Tynecastle, a game in which many had expected us to slip up. It set things up for the Ibrox party against the Pars and there was no way the Gers could have blown that one.
The great firesale of 2003 robbed our Ronaldo of so many top men - Numan, Amoruso, McCann, Ferguson - and, by the time his twin brother Frank joined him at Rangers, both were moving into the twilight of their careers. A lucrative move to the Middle East ended their association with our club but such a highly respected name could surely have a lot to offer as something as an ambassador for the Rangers, or would Billy Dodds have advised the Minted One against it?
Ronald de Boer was not alone in arriving at Ibrox too late in his career for my liking. Souness, Wilkins, Caniggia, Prso and Weir would have made so much more impact, if only we'd got them into the team five or six years before their veteran days but I firmly believe a fully fit Ronald de Boer would have cornered the market in Player Of The Year awards if we'd signed him at his peak.
SHERBET DAB