Rangers 2
Dundee 0
League (Premier Division)

Match Report

Newspaper extract from Doug Baillie - The Sunday Post.

Once upon a time, when I was gracing the soccer fields of Scot land, I had a team boss whose instructions for away games never varied.

"We are not here to entertain anybody. We are here to get results," was the brief and rather uninspired theme of his pre-match talk-in.

I didn't have a bug in the Dundee dressing-room before this one, but from the way his lads performed Tam Gemmell's instructions couldn't have been that much different.

They left no one in Ibrox in the slightest doubt as to what they were after from the start-a draw.

They aimed to get it by leaving Eric Sinclair to his own devices up front, with the rest packing the middle of the park and the defence. Not a pretty sight. Dreich in fact. But it nearly worked and there might have been the added bonus victory.

For early on, Ian Redford, a smashing player wasted in this kind of dour rear guard stuff, brought out a couple of stoating saves from big Peter McCloy.

Sadly after that, it was case of a taking half a leaf out of the book of Robert The Bruce -"If at first you don't succeed, chuck it!"

In the end the Tayside lads became victims of their own pack the goalmouth tackles. They conceded two o.g.'s.

There could rave been few folks in Ibrox who didn't grudge Rangers their win.

It was they who wanted to play, and they deserved what they got, although Derek John stone and Co. must have been rather surprised to have the initiative handed to them on a silver platter.

As so often happens when a team does so much pressing, the goal they finally got wasn't all that much to write home about.

Davie Cooper's corner from the right looked too short and was made for McGeachie at the near post.

Unfortunately for all connected with Dens Park, young George was up and down again before the ball skited off the back of his head and into the net. Believe it or not, number two also came courtesy of Dundee. This time Bobby Glennie was thenunlucky fall guy, but it must come as a blessed relief for Alec Miller, Taking a penalty after MacLaren had bowled Smith to the ground, Alec saw his rather weak kick shoved back out by Donaldson.

In attempting a clear-up operation, Glennie slid in and battered the ball off the inside of the post and into the onion bag.

At that point the scoring ended and shortly afterwards so (thankfully) did the game. It was not the most entertaining match I've ever seen.

I presume Dundee will play it completely differently at home. They'll have to or their Premier League stay could be of minimum length.

Big Tam, however, did get some not-too-bad performances from his rank and file. I'm thin ing firstly of Ally Donaldson, who was great, and secondly of Les Barr, who made one or two good gallops up the wing only to discover his forward line (Eric Sinclair) was covered by four Rangers defenders.

Rangers? They did the right thing. They didn't panic. They kept their rhythm and didn't all that often send speculative high blooters up the middle.

Best of the Greig Grenadiers were McCloy, Miller Jackson, McLean and Gordon Smith, who might have had a hat-trick, Gregor Stevens will play 'till he's 50 in matches like this. There were three bookings Les Barr, for dumping Johnstone; Peter Millar for shoving MacDonald to the ground; and Ally Dawson, when he broke up an attack by deliberately handling.