The Gallant Pioneers: Rangers 1872 Read Online Free PDF Page A

directors and other officials. “You sunk that penalty like an icicle, man,” I told Davie Meiklejohn. “Icicle!” he said. “Why, I never felt so anxious in all my life. It was the most terrible minute of my football career. I hadn’t time to think what it would have meant if I had missed and I can tell you I was relieved when I saw the ball in the back of the net.’’’2
  Allan’s respect for Meiklejohn (who, incidentally, went on to write for the Record) was absolute and that is not surprising as the Govan-born right-half, who also operated in the centre of defence, was an Ibrox giant who played 635 games between 1919 and 1936 and won 12 Championship medals, in addition to 15 caps for Scotland. He was one of the club’s greatest captains and his strength of character was never better illustrated than in that Scottish Cup Final when he stepped up to slot the vital first goal past Celtic ’keeper John Thompson from the spot, opening the floodgates for his team to go on and secure one of their most emphatic Cup Final victories. Nevertheless, Allan’s love of football in general and Rangers in particular did cause unrest on the editorial floor of the Record in the 1930s, as former Record and Scotsman editor Alastair Dunnett admitted. He recalled: ‘John McCall…who became editor of the Sunday Mail, told me once how he had been in charge of the Record on the night when the news broke of King Edward VIII and Mrs Wallis Simpson. He had rushed in with it to John Allan’s room, where the editor was sitting with his cronies, drinking and talking about football. Allan interrupted his discourse to look at the story and hear John McCall saying: ‘This is very important Mr Allan. It must be front page.’ Allan looked over the pages briefly, puffed his pipe and handed the pages back, saying: “Aye. Two columns down the page.” And turned to his visitors with “…as I was saying, Davie Meiklejohn is always at his best when he’s in defence…” This was a man who knew little in life except football and he was a rabid Rangers supporter, which did not do the paper any good at all.’3
  Allan’s influence stretched beyond the written page to the very corridors of power at Ibrox itself, where he was recognised as a confidant of Struth in particular. The legendary Rangers boss was effusive in his praise in an obituary for Allan that appeared under his byline in the Rangers’ Supporters Association Annual of 1954, his last year as Ibrox boss. In all likelihood, it would have been written by Allan’s nephew Willie Allison, who succeeded the man he affectionately referred to as ‘Muncle’ as club historian and public relations official. Struth recalled of Allan: ‘I still see him walk into my room with the smile of the kindly heart and the clasp of a loyal Ranger. He knew many of my secrets. They were sacred to him. No confidence was ever in danger when given to John. Our success was his success, yet in his role of critic he was a forthright, honest chronicler who sought no favours and gave none in the line of duty.’ Struth added: ‘I have known him to leave his office after many hours of exacting work in putting away his morning paper, slip quietly into his home and pen the deeds of our great teams of the past until roused from his labours by the dawn breaking in on his thoughts. A few hours sleep and he was back at his desk. So brilliant a pen as his could have told an absorbing story without the necessity of detail. But as he said to me: “Without the facts to prove the greatness of the club, my task would be incomplete.” It meant days of research – yes, months if measured in the hours he spent among his unique record books and in the old files that took him back to the beginning of the game.’4
  There’s the rub. Allan may have boasted files that went back to the beginning of the game, but it appears his records relating to the rise of Rangers were 12 months out. He insisted the birth of the