A night in Glasgow and a 1-0 win at Ibrox

Last updated : 23 July 2015 By Tony Scholes

The Celtic game was in the Anglo-Scottish Cup in September 1978. We beat them home and away to go through to a big Anglo-Scottish semi-final and final against Mansfield and Oldham.

The game at Partick was seven years ago yesterday and was a night when we found out that our manager a the time, Owen Coyle, wasn't universally popular with less than pleasant chants from the home fans aimed at him.

We won it 1-0 with a goal from Joey Gudjonsson. That was the positive; the negative was enduring a first half performance from trialist Gatis Kalnins who, shall we say, was not of the required standard.

With Coyle gone, and not at home visiting relatives, I wasn't expecting another trip north of the border, but with him Houston it was safe to go and I don't think we could have got a more prestigious game to play.

I know Rangers aren't a top flight club again just yet but this was a match I was always going to be looking forward to. Ibrox is one of those stadiums that you just want to see your team play in; it's iconic so, if any Burnley directors are reading this I wouldn't mind seeing us play in the San Siro or the Santiago Bernebéu.

This was the second trip away from the squad but this was the only one I was able to get to so we had our own mini-tour with an overnight stay in the centre of Glasgow, just a short journey away from Ibrox on the Clockwork Orange.

We made sure we were there in good time for a walk around the stadium and to see, in particular, the fantastic facade of the main stand. And we were still in our seats (standing area) long before the teams came out.

Ours was a team virtually shorn of strikers. No Marvin Sordell, Sam Vokes or Jelle Vossen who were all injured, although I'm sure they'd all have been available had it been a league game. Apart from the long term injury victims, Tom Heaton was still missing with a finger injury and there was no sign of the captain Jason Shackell who was back in Burnley, apparently, having treatment for a back injury.

There were over 22,000 in the stadium and I don't think I can recall seeing that number for a friendly before, and it all added to a superb atmosphere, interrupted only by some less than desirable and certainly unnecessary singing from some of our supporters.

Once the game kicked off, my concerns were the first ten minutes. I don't think I've fully recovered from Accrington yet. I can't report that we started well; we certainly didn't, but this was Ibrox opening its doors for the first time in a new era, with a new manager in charge, and a few new signings wearing the light blue shirt for the first time. You would expect them to do all they could to make a bright start.

They did look the brighter side, certainly for the first 20-25 minutes. They might have had a penalty for a foul by Ben Mee and Matt Gilks made one very good save down to his left in a much more assured performance than he gave at the Crown Ground.

Martyn Waghorn, who had only signed from Wigan the day before, missed probably the best chance when he headed wide.

We hadn't seen too much of us in attack to be honest but then, out of the blue, we took the lead. A long kick up the pitch from Gilks was flicked on by Lukas Jutkiewicz. The ball dropped nicely for Scott Arfield who turned inside a defender before placing a shot wide of Rangers' goalkeeper Wes Foderingham.

It proved to be the only goal of the game to give us our second pre-season win and we didn't really look as though we might concede the lead for the remainder of the game.

Juke was close to a second just before half time and after the interval we largely controlled things although, with lots of changes, the home side did come back in the closing stages. Even then, we were closest to a goal when Stephen Ward was inches away from his first Burnley goal; a shot from left of goal just going past the far post.

It had been another good pre-season work out and I this was much better than we saw at Stanley in, I have to say, much better surroundings at two thirds of the cost.

There were some impressive performances too. I thought Fredrik Ulvestad played well and the two substitute full backs, Cameron Dummigan and Ward, also did really well when they came on. Ben Mee, standing in for our former captain, also did well after a shaky start.

It's off to the crooked spire now where I suspect our manager might just get a very warm welcome from the home supporters.

The teams were;

Rangers: Wes Foderingham, James Tavernier (Fraser Aird 65), Rob Kiernan (Darren McGregor 65), Danny Wilson (Marius Zaliukas 78), Lee Wallace, Barrie McKay (Dean Shiels 65), Nicky Law, Andy Halliday (Jordan Thompson 65), Jason Holt (Tom Walsh 65), Martyn Waghorn (Nicky Clark 65), David Templeton (Kenny Miller 65). Subs not used: Liam Kelly, Ryan Hardie.

Burnley: Matt Gilks, Matt Lowton (Cameron Dummigan 65), Michael Duff (Michael Keane 65), Ben Mee (Tom Anderson 85), Danny Lafferty (Stephen Ward 65), Michael Kightly (Brad Jackson 78), Fredrik Ulvestad (Matt Taylor 65), David Jones (Steven Hewitt 85), George Boyd (Jason Gilchrist 85), Lukas Jutkiewicz. Subs not used: Alex Cisak, Luke O'Neill, Alex Whitmore.

Attendance: 22,344.

We might have left Ibrox just after the final whistle, but we were soon back there on the following day. We called in, and at Partick Thistle and Celtic to see if you could get a look round. And we were welcomed at two of them but left out in the rain at the third, so well done to Rangers and Thistle.

Unfortunately we weren't able to travel the few miles to watch the second game for whatever reason but it had been a couple of good days in Glasgow and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for next year's pre-season.