SIX years ago today, Rangers were celebrating when they clinched the double by beating Airdrie 2-1 in the Scottish Cup final at Hampden.
May 9, 1992, saw the Lanarkshire town dress up in its red and white best. The streets became deserted as kick-off time approached and those who made the journey to Hampden travelled in hope rather than expectation.
Rangers, after all, had scored 13 times against the Broomfield club in their four league matches and Airdrie had battled all the way to avoid relegation.
However, there was some justice in the fact that Airdrie were to form such a big part of Scotland's footballing showpiece. Earlier that season, they had been robbed of a place in the League Cup final by a dreadful piece of refereeing in the semi-final against Dunfermline.
This time they had made it to Hampden, but few gave them any chance of putting up much of a show. Rangers took the lead in the first half when a low cross from David Robertson was turned in at the near post by Mark Hateley and Airdrie suffered a hammer blow seconds from half time when Ally McCoist broke clear and beat John Martin with an angled shot.
Everyone sat back expecting a goal rush in the second half, but Airdrie were a team of battlers. They turned back every Rangers attack and when they sent on substitute Andy Smith, the big fellow scored the best goal of the match near the end with a 20 yard drive.
Rangers had to hang on in the closing stages and everyone connected with the Broomfield club were proud of the way their players performed. And, with Rangers having won the championship, the Lanarkshire club qualified for Europe for the first time in their history.
On the same day, Graeme Souness watched his Liverpool side beat second division Sunderland 2-0 in the English Cup final with the goals coming from Michael Thomas and Ian Rush.
1927: Joe Davis beat Tom Dennis 20-11 in Birmingham to win the first world professional snooker championship. Ten players entered the tournament and Davis recieved prize-money of 10 shillings and sixpence (52.5p).
1928: American tennis legend Pancho Gonzales was born. He made Wimbledon history in 1969 when he beat Charlie Pasarell in the longest ever singles match (22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9).
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article