Ally McCoist played alongside Paul Gascoigne at Rangers between 1995 and 1998, with the Englishman providing the Scotland legend enough crazy stories to last a lifetime.
While two league titles earned Gazza hero status at Rangers, his spell north of the border also saw him cause a diplomatic incident after playing an imaginary Orange Order flute at Celtic Park, hiding two dead fishes in a team-mates car and even getting hung on a peg by Walter Smith after clashing with McCoist during half-time of the 1996 Scottish League Cup final.
One more slightly unusual story involved him putting a swan into the back of a car, while he also managed to get a pensioner involved in training, too.
Ally McCoist describes how Gazza managed to get a pensioner saving penalties in a Rangers training sessions
“I wasn’t in that car, it was Ian Durrant and Jukebox [Gordon Durie], I think, but getting a swan into a car would not be a problem for him,” McCoist tells FourFourTwo. “He managed to get an old pensioner on the bus to attend training one day – this pensioner ended up going in goal and saving penalties.”
On another occasion, a firework prank landed Gazza in a cell for a few hours.
“We were in the dressing room, and he wasn’t even involved in the conversation, but I was saying to people that I was going to have a wee firework display for the kids,” McCoist adds. “He sidled up to me two minutes later and went, ‘By the way, I’m your man if you want some fireworks’.
“Anyone with common sense would have walked in the opposite direction at that point, but I went, ‘Come on, then’. He ended up getting me two £100 boxes for about £30 and this rocket… well, the next level up needed to be manned! It had a head on it that wouldn’t have looked out of place at Cape Kennedy, I swear to God.
“We had a great firework display, then on the Sunday night, because he lived in the next village to me, he thinks it’s a good idea to let one off and point it in the direction of my village. At 2am, it lit up my bedroom and I was lying in my bedroom in hysterics.
“Then the cops phoned to tell me they were providing Mr Gascoigne with a bed and some breakfast in the morning, and would I be able to come over and pick him up… [Laughs]. At 6.30am, I was round at the police station. Gazza was shaking his head – he walked over to the car and just said, ‘That wasn’t one of my best ideas, was it?’”
