A once-in-lifetime event?
When you’re as old as I am, it’s a seven in a lifetime event...and hopefully counting.
But there’s no way relative familiarity breeds contempt. I was four years old when the Old Firm contested European finals within a week of each other in ‘67 and seven when Celtic took Feyenoord three years later, so they didn’t register.
Rangers ’ win in Barcelona in 1972 did, though. For some reason the game wasn’t shown live, so it was a case of listening on the radio and watching the match in full when it was shown later in the evening. Can you imagine that happening these days?
Eleven years later, I was a cub reporter in local newspapers when Aberdeen did their thing in Gothenburg, but it all began to feel real when Celtic reached Seville in ‘03. Spending a week in Porto before the Final, speaking to the likes of their young manager Jose Mourinho (whatever became of him?) set up that never to be forgotten final that ultimately ended in tears for the tens of thousands of Hoops fans who made the trip.
That really did feel like it was the last time a Scottish team would make it, given the disparity in wealth between our clubs and the continent’s elite. Yet Walter Smith and his troops proved everyone wrong just five years later and although Manchester was to end in another disappointment, just getting there was remarkable.
And so to Monday morning ... dragging my old bones out of my bed at an unearthly hour to battle through the rain and roadworks to Glasgow Airport to witness what will be hopefully, a magnificent seventh after Rangers defied logic, budgets and two Bundesliga outfits to get to face another one in tomorrow’s final.
The taxi driver wore the look of a man who could have just pointed his car in the direction of the airport and let it do its thing, so often had he made the journey in the previous 24 hours.
Normally these guys say to you: “Where you off to mate?”
This was simply said: “Seville pal?”
Now, fearing the Daily Record bean counters would knock back a taxi trip all the way to southern Spain, I just said: “Glasgow Airport pal. I’ll make my own way from there.”
My own way involved a flight to Amsterdam, packed to the gunnels but not only with Rangers fans. In fact, the anticipated airport chaos didn’t materialise and the first flight was as calm as the conditions that took us all the way to the Netherlands without a hitch.
A few hours later, we were on the flight to Seville. This could have been renamed Bear Force One and was a bit more boisterous but with nothing more than high spirits. Well, vodka, gin and Bacardi at 37,000 could be called high spirits, I guess.
We are due to land at 8pm. Sevilla airport will be mobbed, a cushion of warm air will greet us as the exit doors open.
It will be time to find our hotel, grab a cocoa and get an early night ahead of a busy day...
You can watch Davie, Gavin Berry and Andy Newport talk Rangers in Amsterdam before flying on to Seville in the player above.
