The influence of Willie Waddell will always be felt at Ibrox. His achievements at all levels of the game are legion though it is as a manager that he is most clearly remembered, both in glory and in tragedy.
He was in the hot seat when Rangers enjoyed their finest hour – victory in the European Cup-Winners’ Cup final on 24 May 1972, almost 100 years to the day that a young Moses McNeil came up with the idea of starting the club.
He was also the man who led with authority in the wake of the Ibrox Disaster on 2 January 1971 when the horrific crushing of stairway 13 at the Copland Road end of Ibrox resulted in the deaths of 66 supporters.
In a 50-year association with Rangers, he rose from a school-boy player, eager to make his mark, to manager, managing director and vice-chairman of the club.
It was his drive and vision which led to Ibrox becoming the magnificent all-seater complex it is today. Its status as one of only a few in Europe with a five-star UEFA rating is testimony to his remarkable Rangers career.
Waddell played his first game for the club’s reserves at the age of 15. Manager Bill Struth then farmed out the youngster to Strathclyde Juniors to help him gain experience.
He turned professional in May 1938 and made his first-team debut at the age of 17 in a friendly against Arsenal at Ibrox three months later. It was a sensational start to his career, Waddell scoring the only goal of the game.
A week later he played his first League match in a 4-1 victory over Ayr. Waddell appeared in 27 League games that season, scoring seven goals, as Rangers won the championship.
Waddell seemed to be destined for an illustrious career when the Scottish League was abandoned after just five games of the 1939/40 season because of war. He had broken into one of the great Rangers teams and could have looked forward to a long international run.
As it was, he did not receive the first of his 18 Scotland caps until May 1946, making his debut in 3-1 win against Switzerland.
Rangers played in area divisional leagues during the war and Waddell was a regular and influential performer. They carried off all seven League titles played for in wartime and out of the 34 competitions they entered, they won 25.
During these years Waddell was maturing into a strong and powerful winger blessed with a great turn of speed. His acceleration was terrific and it became one of his most potent weapons as he sprinted his way past defences. His crossing ability was legendary. Waddell was capable of providing the most teasing of centres to test opposition nerves.
It was during this time that Waddell scored the first hat-trick of his career in a 4-2 victory over Third Lanark in August 1942. The result was that when the Scottish League resumed in 1946/47, Waddell was a highly experienced and gifted player.
That first season, Rangers picked up where they had left off in 1938/39, winning the first peacetime championship. Waddell scored five goals in his 22 League games.
He also scored twice as Rangers reached the new Scottish League Cup final, including one in the semi-final win over Hibernian, though he missed the final itself as Rangers became the first holders of the trophy, beating Aberdeen 4-0 in April 1947.
He didn’t appear in the Scottish Cup final win against Morton the following season either, though he had played a crucial part in the semi-final win, again over Hibs. The match was watched by a crowd of 143,570 people and was billed as the ‘Famous Five’ v the ‘Iron Curtain’. Hibs had most of the play, but it was Waddell who broke the deadlock with a run down the wing and a cross for Willie Thornton to head the only goal of the game.
Earlier that season, Rangers had flown to Lisbon to take on Benfica in a friendly match. Rangers won 3-0, but Waddell was also happy for another reason: an air hostess he had met on the flight, called Hilda, became his wife.
Waddell’s hard luck story in cup finals continued when he missed Rangers’ 2-0 defeat of Raith to win the League Cup in March 1949. He was Rangers’ top scorer in the competition, though, getting four in the earlier matches, including a hat-trick against Clyde. But the hoodoo was finally broken later in the season as Waddell was in the line-up as Clyde were beaten 4-1 in the Scottish Cup final.
That was the season that Rangers became the first team to win the Treble. Thornton was again leading marksman with 23 goals in 29 League games as Rangers won the championship and, once more, many of them came courtesy of his chief supplier Waddell.
Though Waddell was a player who usually provided service on a plate for others, he could be a powerful finisher himself. And perhaps the most important goal he ever scored was the one that won the championship for Rangers in 1952/53.
He had an almost telepathic relationship with Willie Thornton who said: "The great thing about Waddell was his ability to hit a cross on the run and he could do it with either foot … we just had this great understanding which was good for ourselves and, of course, the Rangers Football Club."
Waddell had won his second Scottish Cup medal eight day earlier as Rangers beat Aberdeen 1-0 in a replayed final. But on the last day of the League season they needed a point to make sure of the title and, with 15 minutes left, they were losing 1-0 to Queen of the South. Up popped Waddell to make it 1-1 and Rangers pipped Hibernian to the championship on goal average.
Waddell retired as a player in the summer of 1956. His last appearance in Light Blue was in a friendly against Manchester City. He played on the left win that game, his successor Alex Scott taking the right.
He immediately turned to management and had a successful spell with Kilmarnock taking them to a dramatic final-day championship win over Hearts in 1964/64. He then took a job as a sportswriter for the Scottish Daily Express, but he was back at Ibrox in 1969 replacing Davie White as manager.
These were difficult times for Rangers as Celtic were enjoying the best period in their history under Jock Stein. But Waddell rose to the challenge. He started to utilise younger players, a policy never more successful than in the 1970/71 League Cup final when 16-year-old Derek Johnstone headed the winner – against Celtic.
Two months later Waddell took the leading role in the club’s response to the Ibrox Disaster, vowing to rebuild the stadium so that such a tragic event could never happen again.
Eighteen months later, in May 1972, Rangers became kings of Europe when they lifted the Cup-Winners’ Cup in Barcelona, a triumph that was, in large part, testimony to Waddell’s preparations and decisions.
Having almost tasted glory in the same competition in 1961 and 1967 but lost out in the final on both occasions, the challenge this time was deemed to be even greater. Rennes, Torino and Sporting Lisbon were all put to the sword before the semi-final against old foes Bayern Munich. A 1-1 draw in Germany was followed by a 2-0 home win and the Gers were off to Barcelona to face Moscow Dynamo.
It was Waddell’s finest hour and Rangers 3-2 victory brought home a European trophy that the club and its supporters had craved so badly and it set the seal on his managerial reign.
He handed the responsibility over to Jock Wallace but remained a very influential figure behind the scenes until the mid-1980s.
Waddell died in 1992 but his influence at Ibrox remains as strong as ever.
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