Rangers hero certain Leipzig turnaround will come as Dave Smith jokes he's 'already booked up Seville'

“The boys have already booked up Seville,” he laughs down the phone. “That’s confidence for you.”

Dave Smith is on the other end of the line the day before Rangers take on RB Leipzig for a place in the Europa League Final.

The “boys” he refers to are members of the Dave Smith RSC in Fraserburgh.

When you have a supporters’ club named after you 50 years on from your heyday, it’s fair to say you must have been a hell of a player.

Dave Smith was.

He wasn’t as gregarious as John Greig, the man whose armband he wore on the night 50 years ago that most Rangers fans regard as their club’s best ever result, the one that paved the way for the European Cup Winners’ Cup to be lifted a month later.

Smith’s silky left foot was as instrumental to Rangers’ success as any of Willie Waddell’s players though.

Now, half a century on from the 2-0 semi-final win over Bayern Munich, the Aberdonian will look on from the stands tonight as this side try to follow in the footsteps of legends.

At 78, Smith still travels on the bus named after him. He is far more revered by the fans – who took him to Leipzig for the first leg – than the club he graced, it would seem.

“I’ve a season ticket but it’s through the Fraserburgh boys, not the club,” he says.

“They don’t have a lot to do with us but the lads on the Fraserburgh bus look after me well.

“They pick me up on the way to Ibrox and after only losing 1-0 in the first game – which we would have taken beforehand – we certainly have a chance.”

The Rangers legend has just written a book, “The Road To Barcelona”, chronicling the club’s 1972 success.

Even more memories will come flooding back tonight watching James Tavernier lead the side out against German opposition in a European semi-final,