Rangers were accused of being 'completely un-British' when they last played against Dynamo Kyiv in Europe after a Graeme Souness masterstroke.

The Ibrox side face the Ukrainian giants in the Champions League tonight with the first leg in Poland before a return next week at Hampden Park in Glasgow.

It's their first meeting since a famous European Cup first round tie in September 1987 where Rangers trailed 1-0 from the first leg in what was then the Soviet Union against a side who had reached the semi-finals the previous year before losing to eventual winners Porto.

Rangers were unhappy at being ordered to fly state airline Aeroflot to Kyiv instead of their usual charter airline because of Soviet red tape and were detained in the customs section of the airport for over two hours when they landed and subjected to strenuous questioning by Russian officials.

But Ibrox boss Souness got his revenge in the return leg by narrowing the pitch significantly by eight yards in total - on the day of the game and after Dynamo had already trained on it the previous night - reputedly in a bid to limit the effectiveness of top winger Vasyl Rats.


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It worked after goals from Mark Falco and Ally McCoist saw Rangers run out 2-0 winners on the night and qualify.

But Dynamo were so outraged at the picch being narrowed they complained to UEFA and manager Valeriy Lobanovskyi refused to attend the post-match press conference.

Dynamo chairman Mikhail Oshenkov said: "There used to be gentlemen in British football, but there are no gentlemen at Glasgow Rangers.

"We trained on one pitch, but played on a different one. The changes came only after we had been allowed to prepare there.

"Their act of narrowing the pitch was a completely un-British thing to do."

However, an unrepentant Souness defended his actions in a TV interview after the game.

He pointed out: "This is the widest pitch in Scotland. The pitch was too big and we decided to bring it in, not for this game specifically.

"We brought it in a couple of yards. No big deal in that."

And after being informed about Dynamo's 'un-British' comments, Souness replied: "Is that right? No comment."