Davie Wilson, winger with an eye for goal who graced the great Rangers side of the 1950s and 1960s – obituary

Davie Wilson, the footballer, who has died aged 85, was a potent force in the Rangers side that dominated the Scottish game in the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s; he was a rampaging, free-scoring presence on the left wing during an eight-year spell in which the Glasgwegians won the Scottish League title four times, the Scottish Cup five times and the Scottish League Cup twice, as well as reaching the first European Cup-Winners’ Cup final.

David Wilson was born at Newton, a Lanarkshire mining village, on January 10 1937, and was a Rangers fan from early on. Aged 12 he had a tour round Ibrox, and met the former Scotland outside-left Alan Morton, who asked him: “How’s your left foot?”

Young Davie told him he did not use it that much. “He instructed me to wear a sandshoe [a light canvas shoe] on my right foot, to encourage me to use the left more.” The lad took his advice, and in a school game not long after scored 10 goals.

Rejected as too small by Cambuslang Rangers, he was taken on by Baillieston Juniors. He was soon spotted by Rangers scouts, and was signed up in 1956. The following January he made his first-team debut, and in 1958-59 he made enough appearances to qualify for a League Championship medal.

But he did not nail down a regular starting berth until 1959-60, when he started banging in goals with increasing regularity. He scored 22 in all competitions that season as Rangers won the Scottish Cup and reached the semi-finals of the European Cup.

The following season, he was ever-present in Rangers’ 56 matches, scoring more than 20 goals as they secured the League title and the League Cup, though they lost the two-legged Cup-Winners’ Cup final to Fiorentina.

The Ibrox men were in their pomp, and Wilson was part