The untold Mo Johnston to Rangers story as Bill McMurdo reveals ANOTHER Celtic hero could have moved to Ibrox

The seeds were sown on the most famous transfer in Scottish football history the night the heavens opened over Hampden and Mo Johnston scored the two Scotland goals that downed his adopted homeland in a World Cup qualifier.

March 8, 1989. Scotland 2 France 0 and former Celtic icon Johnston, then at Nantes, ripped Michel Platini’s team to ribbons en route to qualification for Italia 90. A few seats along from Johnston’s agent Bill McMurdo in the national stadium directors’ box sat Rangers manager Graeme Souness and his assistant Walter Smith. Watching and wondering what if...

Four months later, Souness ushered Johnston into the Blue Room at Ibrox as a Rangers player and almost 34 years on, there is not a day goes by without McMurdo being asked about it. Football’s first super agent - the man who brought George Best to Scottish football but is still best remembered for the MoJo deal - lifted the lid on the transfer that shook Scottish football to its core in the latest episode of Record Sport's new Off The Record podcast.

“I knew Graeme had always liked him,” McMurdo, now 78, said. “I met him and Walter that night at Hampden when Maurice scored the two goals against France. He was doing great with Nantes and had become a much better player alongside the likes of Marcel Desailly and Didier Deschamps.

“He signed on July 10, 1989, and every day since then somebody mentions Maurice Johnston. I just had a feeling that Rangers were buzzing about. They had gone out of their way to tell me how good he was that night at Hampden.

“I asked Maurice, who was back in Glasgow at his mother’s house a few weeks later, ‘Would you go to Rangers?’ He said, ‘Yes, that wouldn’t be a problem for me. I’d love to play for Graeme Souness’.

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