By Alistair Aird
When Braga come to town on Thursday for the second leg of this season’s Europa League quarter-final, we will contest the 179th European match at Ibrox Stadium. The first was played on 24 October 1956 against OGC Nice and since that 2-1 victory, Rangers have established an impressive record on their home ground:
Played
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Won
Drawn
Lost
For
Against
178
106
42
30
329
163
Broken down by competition, the record reads:
Played
Won
Drawn
Lost
For
Against
European Cup
26
16
4
6
54
34
Champions League
53
22
17
14
79
59
European Cup Winners Cup
26
21
1
4
65
21
Inter Cities Fairs Cup
9
6
3
0
20
5
UEFA Cup
34
22
10
2
56
17
Europa League
29
19
7
3
54
24
European Super Cup
1
0
0
1
1
3
If we keep the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia separate from the likes of Russia, the Czech Republic and Serbia then we have faced teams from 41 different nations thus far. The most popular in terms of different teams faced is West Germany/Germany, Rangers having faced 10 different sides. Braga are the sixth Portuguese team we have faced at Ibrox.
Interestingly, we have been drawn to play at home against two teams from East Germany but have only played one match at Ibrox. That was against Dinamo Dresden in October 1967, but when we drew Vorwaerts Berlin in the European Cup some six years earlier, the ‘home’ leg was played in Malmo. The Cold War meant that countries from Eastern Europe couldn’t get visas to travel to NATO nations. The first match was abandoned after 45 minutes due to dense fog, but when the sides faced each other again the following day, Rangers won 4-1 to complete a 6-2 aggregate win.
Thursday’s tie will be the twelfth time Rangers have contested a European competition quarter final match at Ibrox. The first was in the European Champions Cup against Sparta Rotterdam on 16 March 1960. Scot Symon’s side led 3-2 from the first leg in Holland but lost 1-0 at home. With ‘away’ goals not accounted for, the sides met at Highbury in a replay two weeks later, a match Rangers won 3-2.
Of the 11 quarter final matches we’ve played at Ibrox thus far, that reverse against Sparta is our only defeat. The other ten matches have yielded seven wins and three draws. Among the opponents faced in the last eight are Borussia Monchengladbach, Leeds United and Inter Milan.
Runs and Sequences
Rangers have enjoyed a couple of long unbeaten runs at home in European competition. There have been two occasions where we went 16 matches unbeaten – 2 September 1964 until 9 April 1968 and 30 September 1981 to 13 September 1989 – but the longest run was, in fact, more recently. After drawing 1-1 with NK Maribor under Ally McCoist in the early weeks of season 2011/12, we didn’t taste defeat until Bayer Leverkusen came to Ibrox and won 3-1 a matter of days before the first COVID lockdown was imposed. That 17-match unbeaten run comprised 12 wins and five draws.
Our best winning run at Ibrox in Europe is 10 matches. After defeating Dukla Prague 2-1 on 30 September 1981, the patrons that attended a night under the lights at the stadium for a European tie didn’t witness anything other than a victory until Rangers drew 1-1 against Borussia Monchengladbach on 26 November 1986.
In terms of games without a win, Rangers went six without success from March 2008 to December 2009. A 2-0 win over Werder Bremen was followed by draws against Sporting Lisbon, Fiorentina and Zalgiris Kaunas then three successive defeats against Sevilla, Unirea Urziceni and VfB Stuttgart. There has been a more recent occurrence of three defeats on the spin too. Defeat against Slavia Prague in season 2020/21 was followed by reverses this season against Malmo and Lyon.
Goals and Goalscorers
Trailing 1-0, the simple fact of the matter is that Rangers must score at least once on Thursday to stay in the competition. But history is on our side. In the 178 European matches played at Ibrox, Rangers have only failed to score in 30 of them (16.854%).
When it comes to who gets the goals, the 329 scored at Ibrox at this level have been shared among 135 different players while six have been own goals. The top man is a man we will miss on Thursday evening, the talismanic Alfredo Morelos. He has claimed 17 goals at Ibrox on the electric European evenings, all but one of them coming in the Europa League.
The man El Buffalo supplanted as our top European goalscorer, Ally McCoist, netted 12 of his 21 European goals at Ibrox. Other notable names on the scoresheet over the years are Alex Ferguson, who scored five times at Ibrox in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, John Greig, who netted six of his 100+ Rangers goals in European ties at Ibrox, while the goalscoring heroes in Barcelona in 1972, Colin Stein and Willie Johnston, have claimed five and three goals respectively.
Other than Morelos, 11 members of the current squad have scored at Ibrox in a European tie. The group includes Joe Aribo, Borna Barisic, Connor Goldson, Ryan Kent, Kemar Roofe, Leon Balogun, Steven Davis, Scott Arfield, Cedric Itten, and Ianis Hagi, but it’s our captain, James Tavernier, that has netted the most, claiming eight. Those, of course, include his brace against Borussia Dortmund and his penalty kick opener against Red Star Belgrade.
Will one of the above add to their tally on Thursday, or will we see another open their Ibrox account and help shoot Rangers into the semi-final?
Max Murray
The man who claimed the first-ever goal in a European competition fixture at Ibrox was a Frenchman by the name of Jacques Faivre in that inaugural match against OGC Nice in 1956. The honour of becoming Rangers’ first marksman at this level was bestowed upon one Maxwell ‘Max’ Murray who equalised the opener from Faivre before Billy Simpson grabbed a winning goal in the second half.
Murray’s goal arrived five minutes before half time. While some players were distracted by an altercation between Simpson and Bonvin – writing in the Evening Times the following day, Gair Henderson wrote that the pair were ‘rolling together on the ground and certainly not discussing the latest political situation in France’ – Sammy Baird chipped the ball into the path of Murray, and he is said to have rifled a shot into the roof of the net.
Murray had arrived at Ibrox the previous May. Signed from Queen’s Park, he scored on his debut against Falkirk in the League Cup at Brockville on 13 August 1955. He scored again when the sides served up a seven-goal thriller four days later at Ibrox and was also among the goals when Celtic were beaten 4-0 at Parkhead. Murray eventually claimed six goals in eight league appearances, although the main man for the number nine jersey in that title-winning season was the South African, Don ‘The Rhino’ Kichenbrand.
But that jersey would be on Murray’s back for all but eight of the 51 first-team matches played in season 1956/57. He scored 29 goals in 30 league appearances, two in three Scottish Cup ties and four in Rangers’ unsuccessful bid to qualify from the six-game League Cup sectional stages. There would be no further goals in Europe – although Murray had a goal ruled out on the stroke of half time, Nice won the second leg 2-1 and then edged a play-off in Paris by three goals to one – but Murray did score three times in the Glasgow Cup, one of which was in the 2-0 win over Clyde in the Final.
Nineteen goals in 28 league appearances represented an impressive return in season 1957/58 too, but Max also had the misfortune of playing at centre forward in the chastening 7-1 thrashing at the hands of Celtic in the League Cup Final. He scored in Europe too – opening the scoring in a 4-1 hammering at home by AC Milan in the second round of the European Cup – and also led the line as Rangers retained the Glasgow Cup, playing in three of the five matches including the replayed Final against Third Lanark.
But the Scottish Cup eluded Rangers again although their exit came in controversial circumstances. Max scored in every match ahead of the semi-final replay against Hibernian, with a hat trick against Forfar Athletic and doubles against Queen of the South and Cowdenbeath among his haul of nine goals. And he also found the net in that replay only for his goal to be ruled out.
Rangers trailed 2-1 in the dying embers of the match when Ian McColl lofted a cross into the box. Ralph Brand and Lawrie Leslie rose to challenge for the ball, and when the Hibernian goalkeeper dropped it, Murray pounced to score. The referee, R. H. Davidson, indicated that the goal should stand, but seconds later changed his mind after consulting one of his linesmen. No one knew for certain why the goal was chalked off, although some contemporary reports suggest that the Hibernian players told Mr Davidson that Brand had punched the ball out of Leslie’s grasp.
Murray was among the goals when the Division One title returned to Ibrox in season 1958/59, scoring 17 times in 22 league appearances. That haul included a hat-trick against the reigning champions, Hearts, and a double on the day Rangers and Falkirk shared ten goals at Brockville. Max also netted three times against Third Lanark in the League Cup.
But a post-season match in Denmark would prove to be a defining moment in Max Murray’s Rangers career. Murray started the match against Staevnet at Idreats Park in Copenhagen on 12 May, but a leg strain meant he didn’t come out for the second half. Jimmy Millar, who had come on for Harold Davis in the first half, moved from right half to centre forward while Murray’s replacement, Ian McColl, dropped into the half-back line. By the end of the match, Millar had found the net four times and from then on, he was the man in possession of the coveted number nine jersey.
Murray reverted to the role of reserve, but still contributed to the start of the swashbuckling side of the early 1960’s. This was borne out when he was called upon in January 1961 when Millar was sidelined with a back injury. His first league appearance came against Third Lanark on 21 January, and he scored Rangers’ fourth goal in an enthralling 4-3 win. That was the first of eight goals he would score in the next six games Rangers played as the went toe-to-toe with Kilmarnock for the Division One title and kicked off their quest for the Scottish Cup.
Rangers were also heading for the Final of the inaugural European Cup Winners Cup, but Murray missed out on the three games in that run that Millar missed. Four days before the first leg of the semi-final against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Ibrox, Murray was hailed the hero as Rangers drew 2-2 against Motherwell at Ibrox. Despite stubbing his toe and having to hobble out to the right wing, he created Rangers’ first goal for Alex Scott and scored the second himself. Unfortunately, he didn’t recover from the injury in time to face Wolves and the number nine shirt was handed to Doug Baillie. Murray wasn’t fit enough for selection for the second leg of the semi or the first leg of the Final either.
Max next played a first team game on 25 November 1961 when he was drafted in to replace the injured Millar for a trip to Tannadice. There was a certain irony about the opponent as Dundee United had reportedly had a bid for Murray rejected earlier in the week. In the game itself, Rangers won 3-2 and Murray grabbed the vital third goal.
Murray was in and out the team thereafter, but in the latter part of the season he made a vital contribution in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup against Motherwell. Murray’s two first-half goals set the Light Blues on the way to a 3-1 win.
Although he made two substitute appearances on the post-season tour of Russia, Murray only played twice for the Rangers first team in the early weeks and months of season 1962/63. In August, he stepped into the breach when Millar was ruled out of a League Cup match against St Mirren with a back strain – Murray scored what would be his last goal in a Rangers jersey in a match Rangers lost 2-1 – and he came on as sub in a 2-1 defeat at home in friendly match against Torpedo Moscow on 29 November.
Murray was eventually transferred to West Bromwich Albion for a reported fee of £15,000. But after just three league appearances for WBA, Murray came back to Scotland to join Third Lanark. He had a short spell at Clyde too and a couple of years with Distillery in Northern Ireland. Max passed away at the age of 80 in September 2016.
Although he only played in eight European ties, Max Murray’s goal against OGC Nice means he will always have a place in Rangers’ distinguished history in continental competition.
His overall Rangers record reads:
Max Murray therefore got the ball rolling, but who are the scorers of the other milestone European goals at Ibrox? Our 100th goal in European competition at Ibrox was scored by Alex MacDonald in a European Cup tie against St Etienne on Fireworks Night in 1975, while Finnish forward Jonathan ‘JJ’ Johansen made it 200 against a team from his own country, FC Haka, in August 1999. And Alfredo Morelos claimed the 300th goal at this level at Ibrox when we beat Porto 2-0 in November 2019.
The Managers
Since we first competed at European level in 1956, only one permanent manager, Mark Warburton, hasn’t taken charge of a European tie at Ibrox Stadium.
The individual records of each manager that has is as follows:
Played
Won
Drawn
Lost
For
Against
Win %
Scot Symon
24
18
0
6
59
31
75.00%
David White
9
6
2
1
20
6
66.67%
Willie Waddell
5
4
1
0
8
3
80.00%
Jock Wallace
11
7
2
2
21
10
63.64%
John Greig
11
8
2
1
25
8
72.73%
Graeme Souness
11
7
3
1
24
9
63.64%
Walter Smith
37
15
12
10
47
40
40.54%
Dick Advocaat
21
13
7
1
44
13
61.90%
Alex McLeish
15
6
6
3
21
16
40.00%
Paul Le Guen
3
3
0
0
5
0
100.00%
Ally McCoist
2
0
1
1
1
2
0.00%
Pedro Caixinha
1
1
0
0
1
0
100.00%
Steven Gerrard
25
16
5
4
46
23
64.00%
Gio van Bronckhorst
3
2
1
0
7
2
66.67%
Great Nights – Past and Present
As a support we’ve been extremely fortunate to have experienced many spine-tingling nights watching our beloved club at home in the major European competitions in their various guises. It’s hard to pick out the best of the experiences, but the following must rank highly:
Rangers 8 Borussia Monchengladbach 0 European Cup Winners Cup 30/11/60
After winning the first leg in West Germany by three goals to nil the tie was essentially over, but that didn’t stop Scot Symon’s side blitzing their opponents in front of a surprisingly low crowd of 38,174. Ralph Brand claimed the honour of being the first Rangers player to net a hat trick in European competition. Jimmy Millar (2), Jim Baxter, Alex Scott and Harold Davis were the other scorers.
Rangers 2 Bayern Munich 0 European Cup Winners Cup 19/04/72
Shorn of their colossal captain, John Greig, and up against a Bayern side that boasted Beckenbaur, Maier, Brietner and Hoeness, mainstays in the West Germany team that would win the 1974 World Cup, the task of reaching the Final looked like mission impossible. But two goals inside the opening 25 minutes demoralised and destroyed the West Germans. Rangers were Barcelona bound.
Rangers 2 Juventus 0 European Cup 27/09/79
Similarly to Bayern, Lo Bianconerri had in their side a number of Italian internationals who would go on to lift the World Cup in 1982. But with Ibrox in the throes of reconstruction, goals from MacDonald and Smith jolted Juventus and handed John Greig a significant scalp in the early weeks of his managerial reign.
Rangers 2 Dynamo Kiev 0 European Cup 30/09/88
The night they brought the touchlines in. In a bid to curb the threat Dynamo Kiev posed in wide areas, Graeme Souness instructed the groundstaff to narrow the pitch while keeping it within UEFA regulations. It paid of handsomely, goals from Mark Falco and Ally McCoist overturning a 1-0 deficit from the first leg.
Rangers 2 Leeds United 1 European Cup 21/10/92
Qualification for the inaugural Champions League hinged on the outcome of this tie. The players talked of hairs standing up on the back on their necks as they emerged from the tunnel. After future assistant manager, Gary McAllister, silenced Ibrox with an opening minute volley, a dreadful misjudgement by John Lukic and a typical predatory finish from Ally McCoist gave Rangers a lead to take to Elland Road for the second leg.
Rangers 2 Marseille 2 Champions League 25/11/92
Our first-ever Champions League match. We started without Ally McCoist, sidelined by a calf injury, and lost Richard Gough through injury at half time. Trailing 1-0, a mix-up between Gough’s replacement, Steven Pressley, and Andy Goram allowed Rudi Voeller to make it 2-0. A thrashing seemed on the cards, but Walter Smith shuffled his pack and goals from Gary McSwegan and Mark Hateley snatched a draw.
Rangers 2 Parma 0 Champions League Qualifier 11/08/99
Parma had defeated Rangers en-route to winning the previous season’s UEFA Cup. But when Tony Vidmar cut inside and fired a deflected shot into the net to give Rangers the lead, Ibrox rocked and rolled. A second half strike from Claudio Reyna sealed the deal.
Rangers 5 Sturm Graz 0 Champions League 12/09/2000
Ronald de Boer was a world-class footballer. Dick Advocaat brought him to Ibrox, and he was at the heart of a scintillating performance that featured five goals from five different goalscorers. One of them was our current manager, although the pick of the bunch was a delicious chip from Billy Dodds for the fifth and final goal of the evening.
Rangers 3 SC Braga 2 Europa League 20/02/20
The home side looked dead and buried when Braga went 2-0 ahead, but Ianis Hagi pulled a goal back, Joe Aribo showed balletic grace to evade numerous challenges to equalise before Hagi’s free-kick took a massive deflection to earn Rangers the win. This was the night where Hagi coined the phrase ‘Ibrox baby, it’s just different’ in his post-match interview.
The experiences this season are at the top end too. The atmospheres against Dortmund and Red Star Belgrade were both phenomenal and undoubtedly helped secure two superb successes.
We need something similar on Thursday when Braga come to visit us again. The decibel level must rise and reach a crescendo. And when it does, it is to be hoped that that pushes our players to levels they have reached in this tournament thus far.
If we reach those levels, then there is no reason why the quest for Europa League glory will not continue and take us through to the final four.