Rangers reserves with 15k fans, telling Souness the 'hate' truth, and an opportunity missed - Stephen Watson interview

The Liverpudlian only turned out three times for the Light Blues but his pride at pulling on the famous jersey is still as strong today as it was back in the early 90s.

Watson was signed after impressing former Rangers scout and Reds star Geoff Twentyman and Walter Smith while playing for his Sunday League team.

The dyed-in-the-wool Evertonian was also on the books of Liverpool at the time but took great delight in knocking back the Anfield club for a move to Glasgow.

“I was playing in the Magellan District League for a team, we were playing on a Sunday morning every week and I ended up training with Liverpool.

"I carried on playing on a Sunday and trained with Liverpool on a Tuesday and a Thursday and then this fella appeared on the opposite touchline to where the coaches were.

“It was Geoff Twentyman who used to play for Liverpool and was the North West scout for Rangers. Then a couple of weeks later there was two of them there, I later found out it was Walter Smith who came down to watch me.

“The next thing, my Sunday League manager came up to me and says, ‘Rangers are looking at you,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ but they offered me a week long trial and the rest is history.

“At that time, it was just after English clubs were banned from Europe so all our good players went up to Rangers, the likes of Gary Stevens and Trevor Steven, to play in Europe. I’m walking into the lounge and they were walking past me, I was overawed by it all.

“I was training that week and we had a competition down in Galashiels. On the Sunday afternoon, we were in a social club afterwards and Davie Dodds just came up to me and said, ‘We want to sign you.’ I think it was for 18-months.

“I had to come back home and tell my mum and dad. They were delighted because I always loved football and my dream was to be a professional footballer.

“I remember being at school and my careers teacher asked me what do I want to be when I’m older and I said a professional footballer.

“I remember him saying to me, ‘You’ve got no chance.’ So it was a kind of fingers up to him.

“Rangers invited my family up when I signed, they put my mum and my dad up in the Bellahouston Hotel and they went over to meet Graeme Souness and while they were in the hotel room, Liverpool tried to get back in touch with me to sign for them.

“But I’d already signed at that point so it was good to get one over them.”

Speaking of Souness, Watson says he managed to put his allegiances to one side when working under the former Rangers boss.

“One of my jobs was to clean the staff room and get them all toast in the morning. Souness, Walter Smith, Davie Dodds, John McGregor were all in there and we used to have good banter because I was a mad blue and both Souness and McGregor played for Liverpool so they used to give me some stick.

“At one point I did say to Graeme Souness, ‘Can I just say something to you and don’t take offence? See when you played for Liverpool, I did hate you!’

“He just laughed thankfully.”

Moving north of the border and joining the biggest club in the UK as a fresh-faced 17-year-old may have been daunting for most but Watson credits his fellow apprentices for helping him settle into life in Govan.

“It was the younger professionals who helped me settle, the likes of Gary McSwegan, John Spencer, David Hagen at the time, he was one of my close mates, god rest his soul, Steven Pressley and John Morrow.

“It was brilliant, the club was so successful at the time and all the superstars used to sign like Mark Hateley, Nigel Spackman, Terry Hurlock, Dale Gordon, everyone was signing for them. The players they had were unbelievable, it was just a different level. Their dedication and the speed they played at was incredible.”

It would take Watson almost three years to break into the first team, however, he was a regular fixture in the club’s reserve matches when crowds of up to 20,000 weren’t unheard of for Old Firm encounters.

“They were brilliant,” Watson recalls.

“It was just like being in the first team, you’d get around 15,000 at some matches.

“Back then the first team used to have a squad of 15 or 16 and the gaffer used to have an idea of his starting 13 or 14 around lunchtime and whoever wasn’t on that from the first team squad used to drop down to the reserves so the first team would play Celtic at Ibrox and the reserves would play at Parkhead or vice versa.

“I remember we played Celtic at Parkhead and the first team weren’t playing for some reason.

“Gerry Creaney and Charlie Nicholas were playing for them and the only ones we had from the first team were John Spencer and Gary McSwegan.

“I think we beat them 6-2 or 6-3. Souness was watching and he came down after the game and said to all of us, ‘That’s the best Rangers performance I’ve ever seen at Parkhead.’

Watson would eventually make his debut against Hearts at Tynecastle in April 1993 in a thrilling 3-2 win that saw him clear the ball off the line in dramatic fashion late on.

It was a debut he never thought would materialise after being told he had no future at the club just a fortnight previously.

“We were playing Celtic reserves at Ibrox and we got beat 2-0, Martin Hayes was playing on the right-wing at the time and he gave me the absolute run-around.

“When we went in after the game, the reserve team coach John McGregor said to me, ‘Come and see me about your future on Monday.’

“So I sat there thinking I’m not going to let this spoil my weekend, I need to know what’s going on so I just knocked on the staff room and said to him, ‘Can we talk now? I’d rather not leave it to fester over the weekend.’

“He just told me, ‘I can’t see you having a future at the club after today.’

“I was like, ‘Ok, fair enough, that’s your opinion, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.’

“Then two weeks later I’m making my debut against Hearts at Tynecastle.

“On the morning of the game, I trained with the reserves and the first team trained at Ibrox. Davie Dodds came up to me and said, ‘You’re playing tonight,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I know we’ve got to be here at six o’clock.’

“He went, ‘No, you’re going through to Tynecastle with the first team.’

“My backside just collapsed!

“From being told I had no future with the club, John McGregor later said to me he saw something spark inside of me after he said that to me.

“I do tend to watch the game now and again, people often ask me, ‘Have you got any videos of you playing?’ and I go onto YouTube and I show them that game.

“The goals we scored that night were brilliant and the clearance at the end, I don’t know how I did it because I’m right under the crossbar.”

Watson would make his Ibrox bow a few days later in a 3-1 win over Partick Thistle that would nudge Walter Smith’s men closer to the title that would eventually be won at Broomfield against Airdrie a fortnight later.

Watson celebrates winning the title in 1993 in between Davie Dodds and Walter Smith

Despite breaking into the star-studded side, Watson struggled to kick on the following season and failed to muster another first-team appearance before being sold to St Mirren in the summer of 1994.

He admits he never made the most of the ability he had.

“I think it was a number of things, at that time they had so much money and the opportunities just didn’t come along.

“Maybe I could’ve applied myself a little bit better as well, I think it was an opportunity that I let pass by.

“There was a number of us that were put up for transfer, there was myself, Sandy Robertson, David Hagen and others because I think they just wanted to go in a different direction.

“At first I was gutted to leave but St Mirren was a cracking club as well and I enjoyed my time there.”

Nowadays Watson works as a care home manager in Widnes but he can forever look back fondly on being a small part of the most successful period in the club’s 150-year history.