Gary McSwegan on Rangers' 92/93 treble and Marseille goal

Signed for the Light Blues by John Greig CBE when he was just 11, Swiggy spent 11 rollercoaster years at the club he loves.

Here in the closing instalment of a two-part Rangers Review interview with Iain King, he looks back on THAT Champions League glory goal against Marseille.

First game in Europe, first touch in Europe, first goal in Europe.

Seldom in Rangers’ long and storied history has a substitute made an impact like Gary McSwegan did on a rainy Ibrox night on November 25, 1992.

Walter Smith’s Rangers looked dead and buried against Marseille on matchday one in the new Champions League group stage format. The French football aristocrats were cruising it in Govan after Croatian Alen Boksic slid them ahead.

Rangers, already without Ally McCoist, then saw skipper Richard Gough limp out of the game at half-time. His rookie replacement Steven Pressley made an error as keeper Andy Goram edged out to collect a cross and German superstar Rudi Voller pounced to make it two. There seemed to be no way back, so Smith elected to have one final throw of the dice.

He withdrew Trevor Steven to pitch academy product McSwegan into the fray alongside Mark Hateley up top with just 16 minutes left. What followed was the stuff of footballing fairytales.

Alexei Mikhailichenko, one of the side’s permitted three foreigners alongside Steven and Hateley, found space wide left and hurled in a cross that floated into the leaden Glasgow sky and arced towards McSwegan.

“Miko’s cross was swirling in the air and as it came in I was just thinking I had to put it back across the balance of their keeper Fabien Barthez,” McSwegan recalls.

“I knew I had to start it outside the post and it could drift in and it was an unbelievable feeling to see it go in.

“I wasn’t a powerhouse in the air during my career but I would practice the finishes in the air the same as I did with my shots. That night it paid off.”

From looking down and out, like a beaten boxer clinging onto the ropes, Rangers all of a sudden began to clear their heads. The momentum had swung towards them and it’s often forgotten that Swiggy also played a key role in the counter-punch equaliser.

Ian Durrant’s ball inside saw the striker ride a sliding tackle from French defender Eric di Meco and cleverly guide the ball back to the midfielder with the outside of his right boot.

A deflected cross ripped into the six-yard box for Hateley to bury a diving header and somehow snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat.

“Yes, I had a hand in the second too with that little give and go with Durranty for the cross that big Mark headed home,” recalls McSwegan.

“You know, I remember with a minute left there was a cutback from Neil Murray that almost reached me and the way I was feeling I was convinced I could have launched it in for a winner.”

There’s a moment when you watch the footage back that stops you cold if you recognise the cast of the back story. When Gary tears away in celebration of his goal, the first player out of the bench to greet him is his close pal and academy teammate David Hagen.

It’s almost three years now since David was taken from us by the curse of Motor Neurone Disease at the age of just 47.

“It’s still so hard to look at those photographs and see how happy David looks for me,” McSwegan sighs.

“He was one of those guys, a straight-A student who was daft in such a nice way. Hagey was a brainbox who was so full of fun, he was so likeable.

“Those feelings haunt you a little at times. I got sent a picture recently of a Glasgow Cup Final team and you can see me and John Spencer and I’m thinking of all the memories. Then I looked across the line and saw Ally Dawson and Dave MacFarlane and it jolts you to think that they too, like Hagey, are no longer with us.”

READ MORE: Ex-Rangers man Gary McSwegan on McCoist, Hateley and Celtic tackle

That treble season was to be Gary’s last at his boyhood heroes as he yearned for more top team minutes and quit for English Championship side Notts County in a £400,000 move in the summer of 1993.

It was a campaign of 44 games unbeaten, domestic dominance and Smith’s side went within a heartbeat of the Champions League Final. They won the Battle of Britain against English title winners Leeds United, beating Eric Cantona and the rest home and away.

“I feel it was like the modern-day run to the Europa League Final under Giovanni van Bronckhorst,” says McSwegan.

“You just had that feeling in 92/93 that we would always find a way to win. That season we had those 10 matches in Europe undefeated and we never felt we were out of a game.

“That night I got thrown on and we had a lot of injuries. Coisty was out, Goughie limped off at half-time, Neil Murray was in the starting team and Steven Pressley came in too.

“I’d been flying in the reserves before the game and I felt great, my confidence was up. They were an unbelievable team, though, it was a squad full of worldies. Alen Boksic, Rudi Voller, Abedi Pele. How much would they all be worth now?

“Then there was Didier Deschamps, there’s a guy that needs to win something as a player or a coach to start justifying his career! They had Franck Sauzee, then Basile Boli and Marcel Desailly at the back. They were unreal but they couldn’t get the better of us in Glasgow or in the 1-1 draw away in France.”

Marseille would later be embroiled in a match-fixing scandal that saw them stripped of their Ligue 1 title and relegated. That gnaws at every Rangers player who took part in the kick-off of the Champions League era and came so close to a final against AC Milan that many believe they could have won.

These days 52-year-old Gary just feels privileged to have been a part of that fabled Rangers team.

“I was in a dressing room full of true men, international players, proven winners,” he says.

“And working as an understudy to the likes of McCoist and Hateley? I learned so much and I wanted to take what I could from them.

“I could never have been Coisty’s strike partner, we were too similar as players. We wanted to be in the box scoring and not running the channels. He was such an unbelievable finisher and people don’t realise what a master of his craft he was.

“I remember one finish in particular at St Mirren at his peak when he quickly shifted the ball across his body from his right to his left and scored almost in one movement.

“I’d never seen that, it was class. People didn’t appreciate his skill level at times.”

Finishing School. There’s no question Gary had some of the best teachers a young goal-getter could wish for. Yet when the summer of ’93 rolled around his head had to rule his heart.

“I’d worked under John Greig, Jock Wallace, Graeme Souness and then Walter so I had a lot of experiences even though I’d end up leaving the club at the age of 22,” he explains.

“I just felt like the clock was ticking, I was watching my old youth teammates like Eoin Jess make Scotland squads and I was stuck in the reserves. I wasn’t developing by then, I loved Rangers but I had to go and learn my trade.

“Walter told me there was a contract there for me if I wanted it but I had to go and play. By then there were kids in with me in the reserves and it was frustrating me. But what a way to go. I went out on a treble, it was an unforgettable season to be associated with.

“I did the right thing, after that the club signed Gordon Durie and Duncan Ferguson so it was the right time to leave.”

McSwegan opted for the first club Rangers gave him permission to talk to - Notts County.

Gary, who’d go on to star for Hearts, Dundee United and Kilmarnock in Scotland’s top flight, proved his worth with 21 goals in 62 games at Meadow Lane.

READ MORE: Dujon Sterling's inspiring Rangers journey through adversity

“It was the Championship and they weren’t a big club in relation to others in the league but we finished seventh that first year,” he explains.

“I had a great experience there and constantly being in the first team against the likes of Sunderland, Newcastle, Wolves, West Brom and Derby was a new world for me.

“It was a right good standard, they had paid money for me and they wanted a return. They weren’t a rich club. They’d just sold Tommy Johnson, who’d play for Celtic, to Derby and we had a decent side that first year.

“We thumped Spurs 3-0 in the League Cup at Meadow Lane and they had a starting line-up that included Gheorghe Popescu, Sol Campbell, Nick Barmby, Ilie Dumitrescu, Teddy Sheringham and Jurgen Klinsmann.

“You sensed they’d stopped playing for the manager, though, and sure enough Ossie Ardiles was sacked the next day. Scoring twice in that one meant a lot to me and it was a memorable night for the club.”

It would have been easy to sink without trace after Rangers and join the ranks of the hard-luck stories who have been eaten up and spat out by this footballing giant of a club.

Gary refused to let that happen and built an excellent professional career that ended with 431 games and 124 goals when he finally bowed out at the age of 38.

He earned international recognition too and savoured the joy of scoring in a dark blue jersey as he slid home Mark Burchill’s cross in a 3-0 Hampden win over Lithuania in what would be his second and final Scotland cap.

“It meant a lot to get my goal in the game against Lithuania before the 1999 Euros play-off against England,” he explains.

“Then I was on target for Hearts in the next league game but I injured my ankle and I knew I couldn’t play in the first leg against the English at Hampden.

“Five days later I was fit enough to be on the bench for the second leg at Wembley. We were 1-0 up and needed a goal but Craig Brown didn’t turn to me.

“By then I was 29 and that was it, for me it seemed like they felt that was the end of that team and I was never seen again. I’d had the times of being away for five days and not playing but I always have the memory of scoring for Scotland. They can’t take that away from you.”

Last week’s announcement that Greatest Ever Ranger John Greig was to receive a CBE in the King’s Honours List brought more memories flooding back for Gary.

“It was John who first signed me for Rangers as an 11-year-old kid,” McSwegan grins.

“I remember on my first day of S form training I was playing in a bounce game on the red ash park on the Albion car park beside the ground.

“Greigy and Tommy McLean were playing to make the numbers up and I scored a hat-trick. They took me up into the manager’s office after that and I signed. You know, I live in Lenzie now and I still see big Greigy power-walking up and down the street.

“I look out and think that legend signed me for Rangers 40 years ago!”