By Alistair Aird
When the fixture list is released ahead of a new season, there are many key dates that supporters look for. Cup Finals, European qualifiers and Old Firm matches tend to be at the top end of the list. But of the four derby matches scheduled in the league calendar, there is one that has stood out historically; the New Year fixture. First played as a friendly back in 1894, the behemoths first met in a league match in January in 1898. Tradition would dictate that the match would then alternate between Ibrox and Parkhead, and over the century that followed that first league encounter, Rangers built up a remarkable record of results at Ibrox. This is the story of those matches.
After first being established as a friendly, an early January joust between Rangers and Celtic became a staple part of the fixture calendar in the league from 1899 onwards. But the first New Year Old Firm league derby actually took place on 1 January 1898 at Parkhead. And the encounter would end prematurely too.
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Both sides were vying for the title. Celtic had thumped Rangers 4-0 in the reverse league fixture in September, but Rangers had come out on top in a benefit match for James Madden and also edged a Glasgow Cup semi-final trilogy, winning a second replay by three goals to one.
This match would end after 65 minutes, though. With the sides locked at 1-1, supporters encroached on the field of play. According to one report, they surrounded the goal of Matthew Dickie and ‘prevented him from fielding the ball.’ The match was abandoned and replayed on 11 April. The rearranged match also ended in a draw, 0-0 on this occasion.
It’s fair to say that Rangers didn’t have the best of records in Old Firm league matches going into season 1898/99. Of the 16 fixtures played since the inception of league football in season 1890/91, Rangers had won only two, seven had been drawn and seven lost. But that would all change in one of the most famous league campaigns in the club’s history.
A first-ever league win at Parkhead was chalked up in September – Rangers won 4-0 – and by the time the sides met on 1 January 1899 in the penultimate league game of the season, Rangers had long since been crowned champions.
In what was then an 18-game league season. Rangers had won all 16 of their previous matches, and a hat trick from R. C Hamilton and goal from R. G Campbell ensured the winning run was extended when Celtic first footed Ibrox for a league match for the first time. A 3-0 win over Clyde five days later completed an invincible season in the league for William Wilton’s side.
That 4-1 win kicked off a remarkable run of results in New Year league fixtures against Celtic at Ibrox. A total of 50 Old Firm clashes were contested at the stadium between then and a 2-2 draw in 1999. Rangers would win 33 of them and only taste defeat on seven occasions. And two of those defeats came in the Southern League that was contested during World War II.
Three of the seven defeats came inside the first 11 New Year games played at Ibrox too.
The first was a 3-1 defeat in 1909. Thomas Murray got what was a consolation goal for Rangers seven minutes from the end. It would be one of 16 Murray would score in a Rangers jersey. He signed from Aberdeen in May 1908, scoring on his debut in a 3-1 win over Third Lanark in a replayed Glasgow Merchants’ Charity Cup tie. Murray, who would rejoin Aberdeen in June 1909, also netted a hat trick in an 8-0 win over Morton in November 1908.
That Old Firm defeat was the first in a run of 15 games that yielded only six wins for Rangers. Wilton’s side went five games without a win in that sequence too, losing three in succession against Hibernian, Third Lanark and Queen’s Park. But the 1-0 defeat in 1913, watched by an estimated crowd of 67,000, wasn’t quite as damaging, though. It was followed by 12 wins and two draws in the 14 league matches that remained. Rangers were champions for a third successive season, finishing four points clear of Celtic.
The last of the trio of losses was on 1 January 1921. This was Bill Struth’s first taste of a New Year Old Firm derby and it would be a bitter one, Celtic winning 2-0. But the loss was simply a blip and would be the only league defeat Rangers suffered in Struth’s first season in charge. Rangers had won 20 and drawn two of the 22 league fixtures before and proceeded to win the next 10 played after it. Rangers cantered to the first of 18 league titles under Struth. Celtic finished 10 points adrift in second place.
The 2-0 loss in 1921 would be a watershed moment. If you include Southern League matches played during World War II, it would be 20 years before Rangers lost at home to Celtic in a New Year Old Firm derby. If you don’t, then the next January defeat against Celtic at Ibrox would come in 1983.
There were some standout victories in that run too.
On 1 January 1925, Geordie Henderson scored twice in a 4-1 win. Henderson had signed for Rangers from Forfar Athletic in November 1919 and soon established himself as a prolific goalscorer. In season 1920/21, he notched up 21 goals in 23 league appearances, adding two in the Scottish Cup, one in the Glasgow Cup and a hat trick against Queen’s Park in the Glasgow Cup to his overall tally. He would score against Celtic for the first time in a 1-1 draw at Ibrox in October 1921, and reached the zenith of his Rangers career in season 1924/25, scoring 45 goals in 51 appearances.
Two players claimed hat tricks too. In 1949, after Willie Thornton had opened the scoring, Jimmy Duncanson scored three times to secure a crucial 4-0 victory in what would be the first season that any club in Scotland secured the domestic Treble. And six years later, a little South African outside left called Johnny Hubbard netted three of the four goals in a 4-1 win.
Billy Simpson gave Rangers the lead after nine minutes, profiting on an error from the Celtic centre half, Jock Stein. Stein would go on to have what could politely be described as a bad day at the office. Willie Fernie levelled the match at 1-1 with a free-kick, and the scores were still level with 18 minutes remaining when Hubbard scored a goal that Sir Alex Ferguson later singled out as the best he had ever seen.
The ‘Football Correspondent’ in The Glasgow Herald described it thus:
Hubbard took his own particular way of creating even greater despondency, for he jinked round and past Haughney, Stein, and Bell before he walked the ball into the net.
With 10 minutes to go, Hubbard got his second goal, turning in a pass from Billy Simpson. And in the final minute, he clinically dispatched a penalty kick after Derek Grierson had been fouled.
Remarkably, over 70 years later, no Rangers player has managed to match Hubbard’s feat of scoring a hat trick in an Old Firm league match. John Barker managed it when Rangers beat Celtic in a league match for the first time ever in September 1893 and we’ve read about R.C Hamilton (1899) and Jimmy Duncanson (1949). Hamilton also grabbed three goals in a 4-3 Inter-City League win in April 1901 and Willie Reid did likewise in November 1912. But no one wearing a blue jersey has scored three times against Celtic in a league fixture since Hubbard did so in 1955.
Hat tricks haven’t just been rare in league matches, though. Jimmy Fleming scored three of the four goals in the Glasgow Cup Final replay in October 1929, and Willie McIntosh scored a hat trick as Rangers completed an 8-1 aggregate win over Celtic in the quarter finals of the Summer Cup in May 1943. Willie Johnston scored three in a Glasgow Cup tie in 1969 and Ally McCoist had a couple of trebles too, in the final of the League Cup in March 1984 and the Glasgow Cup Final in May 1986.
There was another league hat trick that rates a mention, although frustratingly it is considered unofficial.
On 1 January 1943, Rangers faced Celtic in the Southern League at Ibrox. Rangers were on a remarkable run that had seen them drop points in just four of their opening 19 league matches.
They started well against Celtic too. Jimmy Duncanson and Willie Waddell scored inside the opening four minutes, but Celtic had halved the deficit by half time and then had a goal ruled out for offside early in the second half. Within minutes, Rangers were 3-1 up thanks to Torry Gillick, although Gillick ended up colliding with the post. The referee instructed him to leave the field, but Gillick refused.
After 56 minutes, it was 4-1. Standing 50 yards from the Celtic goal, George Young fired a free kick into the box. Waddell appeared to get a slight deflection on the ball and it entered the net. The goal was later credited to Young, but at the time, the Celtic players protested, led by Malky McDonald, who was adamant that a Rangers player was in an offside position. The referee took exception and sent McDonald to the pavilion. Further dissent from Matt Lynch three minutes later saw Celtic reduced to nine men.
Rangers made their numerical advantage count. George Young scored a penalty kick, Waddell scored his second of the game and Gillick completed his hat trick. Alas, Gillick’s achievement is not afforded the recognition it deserves as the matches played during World War II are not recognised in the record books.
Rangers continued with their New Year Ibrox stranglehold over Celtic as the world flashed into the Fifties and then swung into the 1960s. A solitary goal from Waddell was enough in 1951 with Billy Simpson repeating the feat two years later. And after Hubbard’s hat trick there would be wins in 1957, 1959, 1961, 1963 and 1965. The 1963 fixture was the most comfortable of all of them, Rangers winning by four goals to nil.
On a pitch frozen solid by the wintry weather, Harold Davis opened the scoring after 12 minutes with a shot that took a deflection off Paddy Crerand and deceived Frank Haffey. But it took a scoring burst over 12 second half minutes to deliver a scoreline that reflected Rangers’ superiority. Jimmy Millar made it 2-0 after 68 minutes, John Greig grabbed the third two minutes later, and Davie Wilson, who alongside Davis, Baxter and Millar was singled out in the match report for playing ‘splendid football’, completed thee rout with 10 minutes to go.
The New Year game planned for January 1967 didn’t go ahead. The referee, Willie Syme, deemed the frozen pitch unplayable. The fixture was rearranged for 6 May and ended 2-2 to give Celtic the point they needed to secure the title.
A John Greig penalty kept the winning January run going in 1969, but when the sides met at Ibrox on 2 January 1971, the tale would be of tragedy rather than triumph. Late drama saw both teams score in the final minute, but 66 Rangers supporters wouldn’t go home to recount their memories of the match to their families. The crushing on Stairway 13 would be the catalyst for change, though, with Willie Waddell vowing that Ibrox would be modernised to ensure that this terrible tragedy would never be repeated. The wonderful arena we play our football in now is a fitting memorial to those who perished that afternoon.
There would be a narrow 2-1 win in January 1973 which was followed by a colossal 3-0 win in 1975. Out to halt Celtic’s charge towards 10 league titles in a row, Derek Johnstone, Tommy McLean and Derek Parlane scored on a mudbath of a pitch. It proved to be a pivotal moment. Celtic hadn’t lost since September – a 2-1 home defeat against Rangers – but this would be a hammer blow from which they never recovered. They won only four of their last 14 league matches, losing seven of the other 10. In contrast, Rangers only defeat came on the final day of the season by which time the title had been secured for the first time since 1964.
The advent of the Premier Division and the introduction of four Old Firm league matches per season may well have been the reason that the two faced off at Ibrox in 1976. But normal service was maintained thanks to a header from Derek Johnstone. A 3-1 win in January 1978 extended the winning January streak even further.
Season 1979/80 saw the sides face off on 29 December rather than in January – the game ended 1-1 – and a Jim Bett penalty was sufficient to secure the points in January 1982. But all good things must come to an end. On 1 January 1983, Rangers lost at home to Celtic in a league match in January for the first time since 1921. Paul McStay opened the scoring, but although Kenny Black restored parity, Charlie Nicholas scored with 20 minutes to go.
A second successive 2-1 defeat followed in January 1985, but normal service would be resumed emphatically when Celtic first footed Ibrox in 1987. With the imperious Graeme Souness pulling the strings, Robert Fleck and Ally McCoist found the net in a 2-0 win that set Rangers on course for a first league title in nine years. They would drop points in just four of the 18 league matches that followed, confirming themselves as champions following a 1-1 draw against Aberdeen at Pittodrie.
January 1989 delivered a Mark Walters inspired 4-1 win and Walters scored again in 1991, the opening goal in a 2-0 victory. Trevor Steven’s header made it a happy start to the new year in 1993, and Ian Ferguson was on the mark in 1995 when the sides drew 1-1 on 4 January.
But there would be another standout Ibrox victory in January 1997.
A flu bug had spread round the home dressing room. Brian Laudrup was one of the players ruled out. But a Jorg Albertz blockbuster put Rangers 1-0 up before a late double from Erik Bo Andersen had Walter Smith dancing down the track as his side summoned up sufficient energy to win 3-1.
And the 100-year journey from that first Ibrox Old Firm league match in January would be completed on 3 January 1999. The enigmatic Gabriel Amato equalised a goal from Alan Stubbs with a sumptuous diving header, and the Argentinian teased and tormented the Celtic defence before setting up a goal for Rod Wallace. Henrik Larsson netted eight minutes later and the game ended 2-2.
So there we have it, a remarkable run indeed. Including the single Western Division match played in January 1940 and the three Southern League matches played at Ibrox during World War II, Rangers faced Celtic at Ibrox in a league game in January of 50 occasions, winning 33 of those matches (66%).
Between 1949 and 1982, Rangers won 15 and drew one of the 16 New Year Old Firm derbies played at Ibrox. And between 1923 and 1939, there would be eight wins and a draw in nine matches.
In total, Rangers have scored 94 goals in the 50 fixtures – an average of 1.88 per game – and conceded 40. And the Light Blues only failed to score in five of the 50, in 1913, 1917, 1921, 1933 and 1945. A clean sheet was recorded on 19 occasions.
Rangers Football Club have a rich history of success. Some of our achievements have been quite rightly lauded more than others while some – like our remarkable January Old Firm record – are perhaps overlooked. It seems in these uncertain and troubled times at our club that many long standing records are being shattered. Lets hope that come January 2026 our current crop are in a better place to ensure we can still proudly wear the crown of being Kings of the New Year.
Postscript: Of the friendly matches mentioned at the outset, Rangers won the first one at Parkhead in 1894 by three goals to two. This came some 47 days before Rangers won the Scottish Cup for the first time in their history, beating Celtic 3-1 at second Hampden Park on 17 February 1894.
Celtic won 3-2 at Ibrox in January 1895, and the following year witnessed a 3-3 draw in Glasgow’s east end.