Colin Hendry reflects on his Rangers career as he recalls fraught Lorenzo Amoruso relationship, European triumphs and winning Parkhead title

Colin Hendry was a key component of that 1999 league-winning side and joked he was made the scapegoat following the furore created by a shocked and furious Celtic support.

“I got blamed for it!" he laughed.

“I got the blame because I was Scottish in a team loaded with foreigners! But yeah, why not? Why not?”

The Ibrox side had just dismantled their fiercest rivals on their own patch to reclaim the Scottish Premier League crown amid ugly scenes as many inside the stadium struggled to cope with what they were witnessing.

Hendry feels the decision to mimic Celtic’s huddle was justified given the enormity of their achievement.

“When you achieve things, when you win things, when you are the best at things - that’s when you’re in a position to mimic or do what you want.

"Within reason, you do what you want.

“We’ve got every right to do that because of what we did on the pitch as a football team.”

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And what a football team it was.

After losing out on a historic ten titles in a row under Walter Smith, Dick Advocaat had created a Rangers side who played a slick brand of football many supporters had never seen before.

Hendry was one of several acquisitions in the summer of 1998 when he arrived from Blackburn Rovers for a hefty fee of around £4m.

It was a deal that made a few eyes water given Hendry was nearly 33 but the defender didn’t feel any added pressure because of the fee.

“There was no pressure on me," he said.

“The pressure in relation to playing for Glasgow Rangers was the fact you’re playing for such a big football club.

“Rangers were, by far and away, the biggest football club that I played for.

“There was no comparison to Blackburn Rovers. There’s no comparison to Manchester City back in the day either.”

Hendry’s arrival on Edmiston Drive may have happened significantly earlier. 

He was linked a few years previously but financial constraints had put paid to that.

“When I was at Blackburn, I was aware of the interest." He said.

“They were keen but I think prior to Dick Advocaat taking over, David Murray and Walter Smith had agreed to not pay more than a million pounds for a player that was over the age of 30.

“That was quite apparent and was something they were going to stick to.

“Then Walter left and there was an exodus of players - Richard Gough, Coisty, the Goalie - there were so many players that left at a similar time.”

The move was widely considered to be David Murray-driven but that is disputed by Hendry who revealed Advocaat tried to sign him for PSV.

The Dutch side were one of a number of European giants interested in his services before his move to the Light Blues.

“Dick had a fancy to me in previous years, around the mid-90s. He was coaching in Holland and that wasn’t a place I really wanted to go but he made an enquiry.

“Jack Walker, the benefactor at Blackburn, said ‘He’s not for sale.’

“He also said to me there had been an enquiry from Roma in Italy. There was also Borussia Dortmund and FC Cologne in Germany and Sevilla in Spain.

"This conversation took place prior to me extending and signing my new contract at Blackburn, it was just after we won the league in 1996.

“I really thought I was going to see my career out at Blackburn but then when Rangers came knocking, it became apparent it could become possible because of Advocaat taking over. David Murray had a new purse of finance for him.

“I was in the middle of a good contract when Rangers came calling and I’ve got to hand it back to Denise, my late wife, obviously she was moving back to Scotland and everything else.

“It gave the family the opportunity to see the grandkids being born.

“You come to a stage in your life where you think ‘Let’s get back to Scotland.'

“I managed to win the league in England, but I’m thinking I could make the old man very happy because I can try and win a league medal in Scotland.”

Hendry would be one of eight new summer signings and amid a flurry of continental acquisitions, he was the sole Scottish addition.

He believes that was part of the reason he was enticed back north of the border.

“I was 32 and £3m plus is a lot of money. What I think they did was to add back a bit of Scottish identity off the back of the World Cup in 1998.

“So they’re bringing in the Scottish captain and it was great for me because I was going back home.”

If you didn't know Hendry’s nationality before his arrival in Govan, you’d have a pretty good idea when he walked through the front door of the Bill Struth stand on the 4th of August 1998 and put pen to paper.

Dressed head to toe in an eye-catching tartan suit, here was "Braveheart" himself in all his glory.

Hendry poses with Dick Advocaat after signing for Rangers

“That was my Banff and Buchan tartan," he laughed.

“The story behind the tartan suits, and I’ve still got them all, was that I got tartan in relation to my clan.

“It's got light blue and the navy blue through it. It didn’t have any red in it as such but it was close enough.

“The day I signed was a proud moment. There was a handful of people pitchside to meet me and they were taking pictures and everything else.”

However, it wasn’t all plain sailing to begin with - the season had already started before Hendry made the switch from Ewood Park.

Despite agreeing he would be made captain and given the number 5 jersey for the campaign, Hendry found himself with the number 35 and would encounter his first run-in with The Little General.

“The thing about the captaincy and the number 5 jersey, this was all agreed with the chairman and my agent at the time," Hendry recalled.

“But the problem was the season started before I had signed because Dick wanted me done before the first game of the season.

“The first game of the season was at Hearts away and normally for the first game of the season you’ve got to appoint your captain and appoint your team numbers for the season.

“So these decisions had to be made prior to me getting to Ibrox and Dick, more or less, blamed me for not signing quick enough and for that I don’t get the number 5 jersey.

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“He said ‘The number 5 jersey in Holland is the left-back’, which was given to Arthur Numan and I’m like ‘Yeah, but we’re not playing in Holland Dick, we’re playing in Scotland.’

“He didn’t want to change the captaincy in the middle of the season but that’s a managerial type of thing and that’s what he went with.”

The man he went with was Lorenzo Amoruso.

Both he and Hendry would form the defensive partnership at the heart of the Rangers' backline that season that would be the cornerstone to treble success but it’s fair to say they didn’t always see eye to eye.

Hendry said: “They’re not shy the Italians anyway but with Lorenzo being the captain as well ... even though you’re older and more experienced.

"I wouldn’t say I was a better player than Lorenzo, but I certainly knew the game.

“You always had difficulty in a discussion, trying to finish the discussion when you think you’ve won it. So the argument would linger, simmer and just go on and on.

Hendry and Lorenzo Amoruso in discussion during a match

“Sometimes I’d just say ‘You know what, fine.’

“I seemed to have more discussions and disagreements with Lorenzo than I had with a lot of players but maybe that was because I was much longer in the tooth and I didn’t want to complicate the game as much.

“Lorenzo often liked a wee forage up the pitch which I did when I was 19 or 20 and got bollocked for. The big hook would come out and I’d get told to get back and stop doing this because it’s not part of the game.

“Lorenzo felt he could do it.

“He did have technique. All the Italians that I ever played with thought they had technique but not all of them did! Lorenzo did a bit but he wasn’t as good as sometimes he thought he was.

“He could strike a ball, he was good for a free kick.

“We had our disagreements but I think, all in all, we were good working with one another.”

Hendry would go on to make 32 appearances that season playing a major role in returning all three domestic trophies to the Ibrox Trophy Room but he admits it took him a bit of time to get used to Advocaat’s style of play.

“When you’ve got certain strikers up front, Rod Wallace, Gabriel Amato, Stephane Guivarc’h and Michael Mols came in as well, you’re looking at channel balls," he said.

“If I played a channel ball into Shearer or Sutton or Mike Newell or Kevin Gallacher, they know it’s a channel ball and that extra pass in the middle of the park is missed out whereas Dick wanted to play through the midfield.

“I get all that but I said ‘Hold on a minute, Michael Mols will skin anybody. You’ve got Gabby Amato, who when the ball goes into him it sticks. Rod Wallace - he’ll run the channels and get in about people’s faces.

“Lorenzo would say ‘Colin we need to play short, we need to play the short passes’ and then, of course, you’re playing the short passes and if the pass isn’t right you get caught and the opposition is right in about you.

“These days it’s a different ball game. The risk factor is now part of the game.

“If you make a fuck up and play the ball short into midfield or to the full-back and it gets cut out, they’re right in about you but it’s accepted because of the way they play the game.

“Back in the day it was never accepted because it was like ‘You can’t do that! That can't happen!' And you’d get absolutely bollocked for it.

“It would do you in psychologically if you weren’t a strong footballer."

On the subject of psychology, the Old Firm derby has the tendency to make even the most experienced players lose the head from time to time.

For Hendry, a man who had played the majority of his career in the English Premier League as well as a handful of Champions League appearances and numerous Scotland caps, this match struck him like no other.

“Pressure, absolute pressure. That’s the biggest domestic game of football I’ve played in," he insists.

Hendry in action during the Old Firm derby

“The biggest game in Britain is played in Scotland. Everybody knows that but trying to make people in England understand is difficult. The people that have been to this game will understand it.

“The people that go to Glasgow and see the size of the football clubs get it, but the people that haven’t then they’re still living in their own wee world.”

After a goalless draw at Ibrox in his Old Firm debut, Hendry’s first foray at Parkhead was one to forget as Advocaat’s side were battered 5-1.

However, he says it was the wake-up call they needed to power their way to the title.

“Scott Wilson got sent off and we played a lengthy bit of time with 10 men," he remembered.

“If anything, that game, that result and that performance worked in our favour because it just showed that you cannot become complacent in those sort of games.

“It was a blessing in disguise but I would never say that it was a good thing getting beat 5-1 at Parkhead by Celtic because that’s not the done thing.

“You don’t say things like that but as it happened, it gave us a kick right up the backside. Towards the end of the season when we’d done everything we needed to do, everything worked perfectly well for us when we did win the title.”

And win the title they did at the same venue in the most spectacular of fashions. More on that later.

As well as trying to wrestle back supremacy domestically, Advocaat was brought in to improve on the club’s European exploits.

Rangers hadn’t enjoyed a decent continental campaign since the famous 1992/93 Champions League run.

The Dutchman would certainly leave his mark and bring a level of respect that had eroded in previous years.

The 1998/99 campaign saw Rangers embark on a UEFA Cup run that would see them dispose of Shelbourne, PAOK Salonika, Beitar Jerusalem and Bayer Leverkusen.

And it was in that away performance at the Bayer Arena this Rangers team really came of age.

We all remember Barry Ferguson’s pirouette in setting up the move for Giovanni van Bronckhorst to open the scoring on the way to a 2-1 victory.

With Amoruso and Arthur Numan missing, Hendry would finally skipper the team on a historic night, not just for Rangers but for Scottish football.

He recalled: “What a team that was!

Hendry slides in on Carsten Ramelow during the 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen

“Leverkusen was one of the top teams in Germany and heavily backed by Bayer, the medicine company.

“I think there were a lot of people that maybe stood up and watched and thought ‘Wow!’ but that was the Advocaat effect.

“He had experience in Europe and he’d been through this a lot more than most."

These are the nights that whetted Hendry’s appetite and convinced him to sign for Rangers, he had sampled European football before, with Blackburn, but admits it didn’t quite have the same feel.

“I enjoyed the European games that I was involved in most of all.

“It’s strange because the Champions League games with Blackburn were Spartak Moscow, Legia Warsaw and Rosenborg.

“Before the draw, I’m thinking 'we could get Barcelona, AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Juventus or a Dortmund but no, we didn’t even get one of them'.

“We were like ‘Is this for real?’

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“Then, of course, I go to Rangers and I get Bayern Munich, Parma who were a top team at the time in Italy, Leverkusen, Dutch teams as well and that was more like it.

“That was more like European football and you felt you had arrived in Europe and you’re mixing it with the elite.”

Speaking of Parma, the Ibrox club went toe-to-toe with the Serie A giants, littered with world superstars at the time.

Before dumping them out of the Champions League the following season, the pair met in the third round of the UEFA Cup.

The first leg at Ibrox finished 1-1 with Hendry displaying the qualities that saw him earn the Braveheart tag.

He put in a towering performance, setting up Rod Wallace for the equalising goal, trying to snuff out an eye-watering front-two of Hernan Crespo and Abel Balbo and colliding face-first into the post to prevent a Crespo goal which resulted in a chorus of ‘There’s only one Colin Hendry’ ringing around an electrified Ibrox.

Hendry says that night is up there with the best he ever encountered: “That was one of the best atmosphere’s I’ve ever, ever played in.

“When people ask you ‘What’s the best atmosphere you’ve played in?’ I mention that game and I mention Scotland against Holland at Villa Park in Euro 96 when we got battered but we got a point from it.

“There’s a lot of games in my career but that game against Parma was right, right, right up there.

“When you go through the riches of players that they had, it was absolutely frightening.

“These players have gone to the top of the Premiership in England after that. Veron goes to Manchester United, Crespo goes to Chelsea, they were unbelievable.

“You’re playing against world-class footballers, a scary, scary Parma team.”

Hendry receives treatment after colliding with the post during the match against Parma

On that heroic challenge to deny Crespo, Hendry says it was one he shouldn't have had to make. 

He laughs: “If I recall, Lorenzo played the ball short back to Antti Niemi and the striker has nipped in. That would’ve been a stereotypical issue between me and Lorenzo."

Rangers would eventually go out of Europe a fortnight later at the Stadio Ennio Tardini, losing 3-1 after initially leading through a Jorg Albertz strike.

With Europe over for another season, attention turned to domestic matters and Rangers, with the League Cup already in the bag, had the chance to win the title at the home of their arch-rivals. 

It was the kind of match Hendry relished and he well and truly delivered.

He looks back on that 3-0 win fondly: “Parkhead was a simple equation - you don’t lose.

“You don’t lose and it was only a matter of time before we were going to win the league anyway.

“A lot of people lost the plot, I don’t think Rod Wallace deserved to get sent off.

Rod Wallace is sent off during Rangers 3-0 win over Celtic at Parkhead

“Hugh (Dallas) has got hit on the head with the coin. He’s made his decision about the penalty and sent the boys off and probably rightly so, but for Rod to go for what he was involved in - that was a cheap red card.

“But one word describes what happened that day at Parkhead and that was professional.

“It was purely and simply about the game, keeping a clean sheet and we’ve won the title.

“It doesn’t matter in the whole history of the game from now on, it can be equalled but it can not get better.”

Neil McCann netted a brace either side of a Jorg Albertz penalty and Hendry says he was a vital addition to that treble-winning squad.

“He was one of these players that could literally win a game of football for you.

"You look at the Celtic team when they had Henrik Larsson and Lubo Moravcik and they’re worth their weight in gold, but Neil McCann came in, and never looked back. He was outstanding, he really was.

“It doesn’t get any sweeter than that. I was there, I was part of that. It goes with me to my last breath.

Hendry and his Rangers teammates celebrate after winning the league title Parkhead

“That, in itself, is something that I’m completely honoured to be a part of.

“There’s not a lot of Celtic fans who can have a go at me about anything because I was there on that day at Parkhead when we won the league title.”

Hendry would help the club complete a clean sweep of trophies a week later, again against Celtic, this time at Hampden in the Scottish Cup final with Rod Wallace netting the game's only goal.

Hendry looks back with a great sense of pride at being a component of that Rangers vintage. 

“I’ve never lost a cup final in my career but that was the cherry and the icing on the cake winning that because there’s your treble.

“Part of the treble is winning the league at Parkhead, that is the real creme de la creme of trebles. There have been better players than me, more successful players than me who haven’t done that.

"I’m extremely honoured to have been part of putting Rangers back where it belongs, especially in Glasgow where it’s so ferocious, the tension and everything that goes with the game between Rangers and Celtic.”

The following season, Hendry was a bit-part player as Craig Moore became Amoruso’s preferred partner following his return from Crystal Palace.

Then aged 33, Hendry admits injuries and a disrupted pre-season put paid to his Rangers career.

“I came back pre-season injured because of the cup final.

“I had a groin operation in Belgium of all places and I didn’t fulfil the whole of the pre-season and then other people get an opportunity.

“Craig Moore stepped up in front of me and did well. He kept his place and I was bit-part. Dick was going with what he was going with.

“I actually thought I was going on loan to Coventry but I ended up getting a free transfer and signing for Coventry full time. Unfortunately, when you get told you’re getting sent to Coventry it’s exactly how it sounds - sent to Coventry means you get sent to Coventry.

“It’s a brutal game but everybody who plays a sport gets to a point when you’re not as good as when you were at your peak.

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“That just happened, as it happened to everyone else. That’s the only sure thing about football, you end up on the decline at some point.”

But Hendry isn’t bitter about his exit from Ibrox, like many before him and those after, turning out for the greatest club in Scotland is something he cherishes.

He admitted: “I was definitely on the way down in my career when I left Rangers but I enjoyed the period that I did have, every time I pulled on that blue shirt."

It's been over 21 years since Hendry departed Ibrox but the club is very much still at the forefront of his mind.

He says last season's invincible campaign was a joy to watch but warned it'll be much tougher to achieve 56.

“I was extremely impressed last season," he said in admiration.

“The difference in relation to when Gerrard took over to where he is now, he took over a team of lads, and now he’s got a team of men.

“That’s the way I would try and describe what Steven Gerrard has done in charge at Rangers.

“What he did was incredible and now that platform’s been set, it's time to go to the next stage and that’s retaining it.

“To retain a league, it doesn’t matter which country you’re in, is difficult.

“It wasn’t that easy when I won it with Blackburn and it certainly wasn’t easy winning it with Rangers but the next bit is, of course, retaining it and that’s the really difficult part."