Dundee 3
Rangers 2
League (Premier Division)

Match Report

Newspaper extract from The Courier.

I would genuinely love to record every incident in the Dundee- Rangers confrontation at Dens Park on Saturday-but they don't make pages with elastic sides! So it will have to be a resume of 72 minutes which were, without doubt, as tense as any I have experienced at a football match.

Why only 72 minutes? Because, until Tosh McKinlay was sent off in the 18th minute, I hadn't made a single note. From then on, writer's cramp was the danger!

So let's start with the sending off. I am on record as a supporter of referees, the men with the most difficult job on the park, but here I feel Edinburgh official George Smith definitely over-reacted. McKinlay's boot was up, he caught Ted McMinn in

the ribs as the Rangers player was falling. But it was his first foul and the "dying swan" act McMinn put on was belied within minute of the incident when he made a 30-yard dash in attack, and a minute later, a 30-yard race back to help his defence.

From then on, the game grew in intensity until it had nerves stretched to breaking point-and it positively exploded between the 29th and 33rd minutes.

In 29 minutes John Brown capped a 50-yard run with a right-foot shot which beat Walker. Almost before the Dundee fans who went up in the air for that one had hit the ground again, Ally McCoist had flicked. home the equaliser.

In 31 minutes, Rangers manager Jock Wallace hustled down to the dug-out and his first sight was of Dougie Bell being cautioned, presumably because he made a gesture to the crowd.

In 32 minutes Ray Stephen and Dave McKinnon were given a "cool it" warning. In 33 minutes, McKinnon conceded a foul 30 yards out-and that really was a blunder. Up stepped Brown to hit the ball with that deadly left foot. Walker got both hands to it. but couldn't stop it rocketing in.

At least we then got four minutes in which to draw breath-before McKinnon's name went in the book for a foul on Harvey!

The pace of the game was tremendous and didn't lessen any into the second half, when an unusual feature was the ordering back to the dug-outs of substitutes Albert Kidd and Hugh Burns for delivering messages from the same source.

Bobby Russell went on in 60 minutes to applause for his belated appearance and roars of anger that it was Iain Durrant who went off. Three minutes later real Light Blue terracing fury erupted when Doug Bell downed Brown in the box and the big red-head blasted home the penalty himself to make it 3-1.

Choruses of "What a load of rubbish" (directed at the Rangers players and at the visitors dug-out) were replaced by roars of approval only three minutes. later, however, when McCoist pulled back the score to 3-2.

But that was it. Rangers kept charging forward but a Dundee defence superbly built on outstanding performances by Geddes, Glennie and Duffy showed no signs of cracking.

Afterwards, Jock Wallace said, curtly, "Disappointment again. We scored two goals, but gave two bad ones away." I doubt if that will satisfy the Ibrox legions after the fourth defeat in six league games!

Not unnaturally, Dundee manager Archie Knox was more forthcoming. "A brilliant result," he said. "To win 3-2 with ten men and to do it quite comfortably is terrific."

It was "no comment" on the McKinlay incident, but an admission that he'd had one worry. "We chased the game too much at times instead of sitting back and letting them do the worrying. At half-time I told them, don't go after another goal, you will get it if you just keep going."

Of hat-trick hero John Brown, he said, "He has five goals without playing a stroke-except at Motherwell and here today."

John himself told me, "I have been picking up stupid injuries and nothing has been going for me.

"But all this week I have been feeling good and sharp in training. The manager took me aside yesterday and asked how I felt. I said, 'I've been working all week for this game. I always do well against them. And it happened again, didn't it? It's a great 'lift' for us because we've been playing well without getting the results."

And so it was all over. As I drove away, I had one regret. This will, understandably, be remembered as John Brown's game. So let's get it on record now that the others in the team were superb battlers, skipper Jim Duffy, keeper Bobby Geddes and defender Bobby Glennie in particular.

Kidd and Forsyth went on for Rafferty and Harvey for Dundee; Russell and Burns for Bell and Durrant for Rangers. McKinlay was sent off, Smith and, Rafferty cautioned for Dundee; McKinnon, Bell, Cooper and Burns cautioned for Rangers.