When Rangers beat Celtic with 10 men to end their curse in the Scottish Cup

A lthough it ended in a league and cup double, Walter Smith’s first full season as Rangers manager was far from a procession. After grabbing the title in a final-day shootout with Aberdeen in May 1991 – less than four weeks after the dramatic departure of Graeme Souness to Liverpool – Smith had to rebuild quickly. With five players in and five out, it was the busiest summer of the club’s nine successive titles in that era. Because of Uefa’s imposed maximum of four foreign players, Smith had very little choice.

The most significant change was in goal, where he replaced the much-loved Chris Woods with Andy Goram. By October, it looked like a bad joke and one made on national television, no less. “Which Scottish football internationalist,” asked A Question of Sport host David Coleman, “took two wickets in the NatWest Trophy?”

“Andy Goram took the two wickets,” Gordon Strachan replied. “But he didn’t make any catches.” Mocked by his international skipper on BBC 1, pressure on Goram meant pressure on Smith.

At the other end of the pitch, however, he had discovered alchemy. With Maurice Johnston’s departure in November, Smith underlined his belief in the partnership of Mark Hateley and Ally McCoist and they repaid that faith with 115 goals between them in the next 17 months. With Goram finally finding his feet, Rangers drew in league leaders Hearts over the winter and powered towards a fourth championship on the spin, despite the odd moment of complacency such as an awful show at home to Celtic in March.

The Scottish Cup had been a problem, however, with no win in over a decade and some embarrassments under Souness. Rangers reached the semi-finals the hard way, winning at Pittodrie and Perth as well as coming from behind at