1988/89: Aberdeen v Rangers - Ian Durrant

Life was pretty good for anyone associated with Glasgow Rangers at the start of the 1988/89 season. Seven wins out of eight in the Premier Division, including a 5-1 destruction of Celtic, had catapulted Graeme Souness’ team to the top of the league, and the club also progressed to the final of the League Cup.

Rangers did suffer their first league defeat on Saturday October 8, but that in itself was no disaster. After all, their loss to at Pittodrie to an unbeaten Aberdeen side was hardly a shock. However, the events of that afternoon would have far reaching consequences for some of the players involved, and both sets of supporters.

With the emergence of Aberdeen as a force in Scottish football under Alex Ferguson, a rivalry developed between the two clubs – emphasised by these two fiery matches in 1985 – which showed little sign of abating once Souness arrived on the scene.

The landscape of Scottish football was shifting; Ferguson departed in 1986, and Souness, backed heavily in the transfer market, started delivering success to the club once more. The great start to the 1988/89 season was the beginning of Rangers’ run to nine titles in a row.

The animosity between the fans grew, the flames flickering as the two clubs met in October 1988. Just five minutes into the league clash at Pittodrie, a huge amount of fuel was added to that fire. Neil Simpson’s horrific tackle on Ian Durrant would cement the hatred forever.

Be warned: if things like this make you feel a little squeamish then it might not be best to follow the YouTube link of Simpson’s tackle on Durrant. Challenges had already been flying in beforehand, with ex-Aberdeen man Neale Cooper laying down a few markers. Sadly, Durrant was about to be on the receiving end of one tackle too many.

With the ball loose in front of the Rangers area, Simpson and Durrant headed towards each other. The Aberdeen midfielder, completely going over the top of the ball, stamped down on Durrant’s leg, the full horror of the assault clear for all to see on the replays.

Football during this decade was a tough old business, but quite how Simpson remained on the pitch is a mystery. “Durrant’s exit after five minutes’ play should have been followed by the departure of his assailant, Simpson,” the Times reported. It was a sending off in any era.

Durrant laid on the turf in agony, in desperate need of medical attention. Astonishingly, he would have to leave the pitch on the back of physio Phil Boersma. “At the time, the medical service said the only available stretcher was outside the ground in an ambulance,” Durrant recalls in this Scottish Sun interview. And some people bemoan that health and safety has gone mad.

The incident did little to calm matters, as the tackles continued to fly in, with both Alex McLeish and Ally McCoist suffering cuts in a match that the Times described as “Blood and blunder.” Occasionally there was some football played; Aberdeen eventually running out 2-1 winners.

Cooper had given Rangers the lead – no refusing to celebrate a goal against your former club on this day – but second half goals from Jim Bett (pen) and Charlie Nicholas inflicted a first league defeat of the season on the visitors. Unsurprisingly, Rangers were furious.

Skipper Terry Butcher was later fined £500 for kicking a hole into the referee’s dressing room door, with Souness unable to contain his rage at the events of the afternoon. “We accept that every game we play is a cup final for the opposition,” Souness stated. “But it’s very difficult to restrain my players under the provocation we experience on many occasions, such as Saturday’s match at Aberdeen.”

“The whole of Scottish football should be concerned with the tackle that has threatened Ian Durrant's future as a professional footballer,” Souness continued. With his cruciate ligaments in his knee torn by the challenge, Durrant’s faced a battle to play again at the top level.

A four-hour operation followed the Monday after the match, and after another session under the surgeon’s knife, Durrant went to America for a second opinion and yet more surgery. “When I eventually went to America to get it fixed they couldn’t believe what the Scottish surgeon had done to my knee in terms of how he had rebuilt it.”

The midfielder, rated as one of the brightest prospects in Scottish football, continued to battle his way back to fitness, and would make his Rangers return in April 1991. It’s a testament to his character that he made it back at all; Durrant would go on to win major honours after his comeback, and starred in Rangers’ memorable 1992/93 European Cup run.

Robbed of almost three years of his career, Durrant did successfully claim an out of court settlement in 1993 against Simpson, reported in the Daily Express to be £350,000. It is hard not to think of what might have been, though, with regards to Durrant’s prospects.

There was one certainty surrounding the whole affair; the uneasy relationship between the two clubs was now at the point of no return. Willie Johnston's stamp on John McMaster in 1980, the rise of Aberdeen, and Rangers' resurgence under Souness, all combined to add to the growing tension involving the two clubs. The Simpson assault on Durrant is often seen as the tipping point.

With some Aberdeen fans singing about the Durrant incident, and the two clubs continuing to contest for major honours at the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, there was no chance of the bitterness evaporating. Visit message boards of either team and you will see that the rivalry is still very much alive over thirty years on from that fateful day.