Inside Graeme Souness' cut-throat Rangers axing of Dave McPherson

Now 59, his two spells at Ibrox have won him recognition in the Ibrox Hall of Fame and an assured place in the club’s folklore.

Here, in the first instalment of a two-part in-depth interview, Dave looks back on the peaks and troughs of his first seven years with his boyhood heroes.

Dave McPherson was swamped by joyous fans on the Pittodrie pitch, the Souness Revolution had sparked the rebirth of the Blues.

The end of nine barren years of torture, Rangers were champions again.

Amidst the chaotic scenes of elation after Terry Butcher’s header secured the 1-1 draw with Aberdeen that sealed the championship back on May 2, 1987 McPherson tried to soak it all in.

The boyhood Gers fan was living his dream life.

In the wake of an unforgettable triumph he jetted off for a sunshine holiday in Malaga with his team-mates Butcher and Chris Woods to celebrate.

And yet, just six weeks later he picked up his boots at a deserted Ibrox and left the club he loves for the first time as boss Souness brutally sold him to Hearts in a £325,000 deal.

McPherson recalled: “It was massive for us to win the title again after nine years without it.

“I got dropped off by the team bus at Dunblane with big Terry and Woodsy and I can’t remember much after that!

“I came off the pitch that day with one BOOT after the fans invaded the pitch, someone still has my other one somewhere.

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“I didn’t really think I would be a casualty at the end of that season, it never crossed my mind if I am honest. I went on holiday with Chris and Terry to Malaga and we had a ball.

“I was living in a flat in Paisley at the time and when I got home I got a phone call from Graeme and he just said: ‘We have had an offer from Hearts for you and I have accepted it.’

“That was it, end of conversation. I went to a meeting at Ibrox and I spoke to Walter Smith.

“I just said: ‘What’s happened? I just helped us win the league.’

“Walter was caught in an awkward situation and he couldn’t slag the manager off. I could tell by looking at him that it wasn’t his decision.

“I walked out with my boots and that was it, no goodbyes, no nothing. It was mid-summer and I was now a former Rangers player.”

Dave had a right to think his championship contribution would be enough to secure him a part in Chapter Two of the story of the Blues under the ruthless former Liverpool and Scotland midfielder.

Whether at centre-back or deployed in midfield he’d made a telling contribution and played 47 games, scoring eight valuable goals.

That season only arch marksman Ally McCoist, his strike partner Robert Fleck and the late, great Davie Cooper scored more.

Looking back now McPherson feels the manager who turned Scottish football on its head had little regard for those who had been part of the Jock Wallace era that preceded his stunning appointment.

Slim confessed: “Souness completely changed the place, he was suave, sophisticated, tanned and very arrogant.

“Graeme was super-confident, and I remember once he stood up in the dressing room and looked around and said: ‘Listen, always remember that I have INHERITED you Jocks.’

“I looked at Ally McCoist who looked at Durranty and we thought: ‘Yep, he is talking about us.’

“He had an aura about him, it didn’t matter what you did he felt you had to earn his respect, not the other way around.”

Souness, the showbiz presence and player-manager, galvanised the club after almost a decade in the doldrums and lured established English stars like Butcher and Woods across the border.

Yet that title-clinching day at Pittodrie perhaps summed up his on-field contribution as a calf injury plagued him and he careered into two ill-advised challenges that earned him a first-half red card.

The ten men of Gers responded superbly without their gaffer, though, and Butcher powered home a header from Davie Cooper’s free-kick to help secure the 1-1 draw that got them over the line.

There’s a key game on the run-in to that pivotal championship when you look back on it, a 0-1 victory at high-flying Dundee United who that season would lose the UEFA Cup Final to IFK Goteborg.

McPherson, wearing no.5 but operating in midfield alongside Souness, reacts superbly in the box to guide home a crucial volley from another Cooper free-kick.

Dave reflected: “I played a lot of football that year and the eight goals I got was a decent haul, that winner at Dundee United was a crucial one on the run-in.

“Remember, Graeme was 33 years old and still playing. He needed Walter Smith to make it all work.

Souness and McPherson in happier times at John Brown's testimonial in 1995 (Image: SNS)

“He was still a brilliant player and I just wanted to learn from him but it was difficult, he gave you very little.

“He’d lost a little bit of pace and that’s why the tackles he made as a Rangers player got later and later. I thought 50 percent were intentional and 50 percent he was just too slow.

“Looking back, he was the right man at the right time and no one else could have brought Terry Butcher the England skipper to Ibrox alongside Chris Woods, their keeper.

“It was immense for a young player like me to play alongside a man like Terry and learn from him.”

Souness wasn’t the first manager to spot that there was more to the 6ft 3ins McPherson than stereotyping him as a tall and lanky win it and head it away central defender. Big Slim could play.

Bred at famous Glasgow boys club Pollok United, he’d first been signed by Gers in 1980 and farmed out to Gartcosh.

Dave explained: “I was a 16-year-old kid, they felt I could develop better there and I played beside this little winger called Pat Nevin.

“Pat would go on to be a star for Chelsea, Everton and Scotland and I always felt he was too intelligent to play football!

“He was great to play beside and such a natural talent.”

Jock Wallace had often deployed McPherson in midfield areas, realising that he could carry a goalscoring threat coming from deep starting positions.

Dave was the first Gers player to score four goals in a European tie in an 8-0 mauling of Maltese minnows Valletta in September 1983 and he was centre-half that day!

He stressed: “I enjoyed those midfield roles too and then big Jock asked me to man-mark Paul McStay in the 1984 Skol Cup Final against Celtic when Ally McCoist scored a hat-trick and we won 3-2.

“I marked Paul out of the game and got Man of the Match which is a nice memory to have now.

“It was Greigy who gave me my first pro contract but then he got sacked and big Jock came in.

“They were two very different characters. Wallace was just mad but I loved him, it was old school man-management.

“There was little in the way of tactics with Jock if I am honest, his assistant Alex Totten did most of that.

“Yet even with Souness and Smith later on in my Gers career we didn’t get overloaded with that. The belief was that it was the Rangers manager’s job to pick the best team.

“Nowadays I feel we are losing a little of the game in the obsession with the ins and outs of the tactics. It’s a simple game.

“I remember before one European game, though, that Greigy had photographs of all their players and a dossier on their strengths.

“He was ahead of his time with that as this was 40 years ago before the days of video analysis.

“John took over a team who had won two Trebles in three years and they had all been his team-mates. That’s a tough dynamic.

“I was coming into a team then with the likes of Sandy Jardine, Tom Forsyth, Colin Jackson and Alex MacDonald in it.

“They were my heroes growing up and I was trying to replace them. It was daunting to say the least.”

For seven years, though, until Souness swung the axe the summer after that 1987 title triumph, McPherson's first spell in Light Blue brought so many highs and lows.

It was fitting that when the then 23-year-old needed someone to believe in him after the pain of his first Ibrox exit it should be two Gers legends who stepped up to the plate.

Alex MacDonald and Sandy Jardine were the co-managers of Hearts and they knew they were landing a polished pro at the right time.

McPherson became a leader at Hearts (Image: SNS)

McPherson revealed: “I went to the Hearts chairman Wallace Mercer’s house in Barnton on the outskirts of Edinburgh and he had a boardroom there with a huge table and about 24 seats.

“I sat at one end and he sat at the other and he had his wife bring me up the contract to sign!

“It was bizarre, but he made me feel important for sure. I had spoken to Alex and Sandy who I knew from my Gers days and I was more than happy to go there in the end.

“For a week I had been totally dejected but Alex and Sandy sold me on the move as a step to the side in my career and not backwards.

“They convinced me that going to Hearts could see me get into the Scotland team.

“They were right, I ended up the Hearts skipper and a Scotland player who made two major tournament Finals with his country.

“I was a side player at Gers with the responsibility all placed on big Terry but here it was on me and I had to stand up and be counted.”