The Rangers guilt I still feel as scathing Frankfurt verdict led to awkward Scot Symon run in - Archie MacPherson

It is said that time is the great healer. I would dispute that.

My confrontation with Scot Symon in a hotel on the banks of the River Tay in November 1967, just after he’d been insensitively sacked by Rangers when they were at the top of the league, still makes me feel the guilt of someone found with his hand in the till.

And that chilling experience lies rooted in the game he presided over in Frankfurt against Eintracht on April 13, 1960.

His sacking, seven years after that humiliating night, demanded some honest analysis of his career for our television programme.

Ian McMillan was the obvious choice. Signed by Symon from Airdrie in 1958, the classic Scottish inside-forward was one of those players who was gifted by nature to make his passing game seem like an art form.

He was also universally regarded as one of the gentlemen of Scottish football. In our studio I introduced him as the Wee Prime Minister after his namesake Harold in Downing Street, whose famous utterance of 1957, “You’ve never had it so good”, about the economy, could have referred also to the Rangers community enjoying the Symon era.

Symon would lead them to six league championships, five Scotttish Cups and four League Cups – a record which, you would have thought, could insulate him from any critical onslaught. Except life doesn’t often pan out like that.

McMillan was not a personal stranger to me. I had recruited him previously to do analysis for the BBC and had occasionally played golf with him, where he was the model of discretion when he came to speak about Ibrox.

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