Everyone associates the Champions League with glitz and glamour. And I got a taste of that as a young player at Rangers – even when I WASN’T playing. For our group game against Monaco in September 2000, myself and Peter Lovenkrands didn’t make the match-day squad. The current gaffer Gio van Bronckhorst scored the winning goal for us that night.
But while we sat in the stand, the chairman David Murray called us over. Because I was a fellow Edinburgh boy, he wanted to introduce me to his friend. It was only 007 himself, Sir Sean Connery. David told him I was one of the club’s up and coming talents. Meeting James Bond in Monte Carlo? It doesn’t get much more glamorous than that, does it?
And on the pitch, Europe’s top competition doesn’t disappoint either. Incredibly, I managed to score in my first Champions League game for Rangers – and also my last. For the Monaco return at Ibrox, there was a clamour for me to start. I had just scored FIVE in one game against St Mirren in the league – but you could never be sure with Dick Advocaat as gaffer.
