Paul Gascoigne and the Celtic transfer plea chucked out by doubting board as star reveals push to match Rangers

Andy Walker has revealed that Rangers icon Paul Gascoigne could have been a CELTIC star long before he signed up at Ibrox.

Gazza joined the Light Blues from Italian giants Lazio in 1995 and became a favourite of the Ibrox fans as he helped keep them on course for nine in a row. But former Parkhead strike star Walker admitted that Lisbon Lion legend Billy McNeill targeted the midfield maestro in 1988 when he was still at Newcastle. The board at the time refused to loosen the lid of the biscuit tin at the time, though, and the rest is history.

Walker claimed: “Billy McNeill signed me from Motherwell in 1987 and Celtic had a strong team then, with the likes of Mick McCarthy, Billy Stark, Frank McAvennie and Paul McStay there. We won the league and Scottish Cup in our centenary season but Billy knew he still needed to strengthen because of the way Rangers were spending money.

“He told me that, in the summer of 1988, he’d informed the directors that he wanted to sign two players – Peter Beardsley from Liverpool and Paul Gascoigne from Newcastle. Bear in mind that Rangers had been able to sign up half of the England team then because English clubs were banned from playing in Europe at the time.

“Billy knew the difference those players could have made to us but he got a negative response from the board, who told him: ‘You already have a winning team so work with what you have.’

“Can you imagine Gazza – who became a Rangers legend when they signed him from Lazio in 1995 – playing for the Hoops? He was 21 then and ended up joining Tottenham. Beardsley, who was 27, stayed at Anfield while Rangers went on to win nine in a row.”

The former Parkhead board paid a heavy cost for failing to back the club’s greatest skipper in