A sign of the times

IT was only 20 years ago, but the public reaction to Rangers' capture of Maurice Johnston seems astonishing in our more enlightened age, reflects Andrew Smith

SOMETIMES AN event from 20 years ago can seem to belong to an entirely different age. When it comes to Maurice Johnston signing for Rangers on 10 July, 1989, elements appear straight from the most ancient, primitive times.

The backdrop to the move retains a power to take the breath away that the passing years will never dim. But the bone-shuddering shock is no longer provided by the boldness of those at Ibrox in making Johnston their first high-profile Catholic of the modern era. Nor the fact that this never-to-be-topped transfer came only eight weeks after the striker had appeared to rejoin his former club Celtic.

What causes eyes to pop now in reading contemporary reports surrounding the most sensational signing in the history of the Scottish game is the reaction to Rangers manager Graeme Souness and owner David Murray ending the club's discriminatory player policy. Or institutionalised bigotry, to be more accurate.

On the do-you-remember-where-you-were day to dwarf all others for Scottish football followers, burning Rangers scarves and burning season books outside the stadium were the visual snapshots of burning religious hatred stoked by Johnston's arrival. Yet, the sectarian sentiments expressed freely on the player's £1.5 million switch from Nantes now seem altogether more inflammatory than any minor fire raising.

"Why him above all?" said David Miller, general secretary of the Rangers Supporters' Association. "It's a sad day for Rangers. There will be a lot of people handing back their season tickets. I don't want to see a Roman Catholic at Ibrox. Rangers have always stood for one thing and the majority of the support have been brought up with the idea of a true-blue Rangers team."

It was supposed to be only a lunatic fringe of the Rangers faithful that indulged in such bile. But it was a fringe with a real force of numbers, comprising punters from as far apart as Larkhall ("It is a kick in the teeth to Larkhall" said one member of the Loyalist Supporters' Club) and Dalkeith. In a pub in that town, the poison spewed forth. "I've been a Rangers supporter all my life but that's me finished with them. I am never going back, never ever. Rangers have no right signing Catholics," said John Potter. His friend James Smith claimed Rangers had been "sly because they made sure the season-ticket holders had paid and then they signed him", while another of their group Frank McKay presented an odd defence of the club's religious apartheid. "It's wrong if you are a Catholic or anyone else, but it's not wrong if you are a Rangers (fan] . It's part of the magic of supporting Rangers."

From the distance of 2009, what is remarkable is not that people held such views in 1989, but that they felt at liberty to air them in public forums. In the years since, the Rangers owner has talked about the need to remove a "stain" on a club he had been running only seven months before breaking with a tradition that dated back to the 1910s. Today, though, Murray is reluctant to overplay the significance of a transfer that undoubtedly did chip away at sectarian divisions.

"I can tell you that, first and foremost, it was a football decision," he says. "To partner Johnston with Alistair McCoist gave us the best possible strike partnership. We signed the player because he was the best Scottish player around, and that is what mattered. Of course, it removed a cloud that hung over Rangers and with the passing of time you can see from our record that there is no consideration of colour, race or creed in who we sign."

Murray isn't interested in being presented as some noble crusader. Neither, however, will he have any truck with the notion that he was an opportunist, who jumped on the Johnston trail when it emerged the player was complaining about contractual difficulties within days of being paraded at Celtic Park on 12 May.

"The transfer wasn't courageous, brave or bold, it was just the right thing to do. Anyone who knows me, or knows Graeme, would know how offensive it is to suggest, almost, that we were willing to forego the religious side only to get one over on Celtic. It wasn't about one-upmanship. Of course, we always want to beat our opponents, but that wasn't what was behind this. I made the decision based on business sense."

Just weeks before he was unveiled at Ibrox, Celtic paraded Johnston in front of the press as a £1.2m record Scottish signing – signalling his return from Nantes, the club he had left Parkhead for in the summer of 1987. The first signs that the deal was in trouble came when Celtic refused to meet tax payments. Johnston began to harbour doubts about a move he himself had initiated – crucially, without the help of his agent Bill McMurdo, then persona non grata at Celtic. After overtures by Souness to McMurdo, initially only days after he had been pictured in a Celtic strip, Johnston decided to "break down religious divisions" and earn the "Judas" tag from a spurned Celtic support. There are, though, problems with this version of events. It overlooks the fact that twice during the saga, FIFA, having seen the papers signed by Johnston – who inked two separate documents days apart – and the SFA both ruled that the player's contract with Celtic was legally binding. Indeed, two weeks after he joined Rangers, FIFA fined Johnston £3,000 for "unsportsmanlike behaviour"; and said they "deplored" Johnston's activities.

Yet the perception of the Celtic board as bunglers was cemented. That remains a bitter post-script to the episode for then Celtic chairman Jack McGinn. "In what sense could we have been said to bungle, I always ask myself?" he says. "There are a couple of indisputable facts in this case. We agreed a fee with Nantes, and signed a contract with the player that both our own governing body and the world governing body verified was legal and binding. We are laughed at for following the rules while the player is lauded for cheating. I've never understood that."

Johnston seems to have taken cold feet on the Celtic deal almost the instant he signed a letter of intent: what we now call a pre-contract agreement. And this despite his gushing about his "homecoming" in the boardroom of Celtic Park with some immortal lines.

"When I joined Nantes it had always been my intention to return to Celtic one day, although that seemed unlikely at one stage given the circumstances surrounding my departure," Johnston said. "No one can accuse me of being two-faced because I've always maintained that stance since then. I didn't want to leave Celtic and I don't intend to now. There was some rubbish about me wanting to join Manchester United. But it never entered my head to play for any other club. In fact there is no other British club I could play for apart from Celtic."

That afternoon there was also a memorable nod to his future – by a matter of weeks – employers. "I enjoyed playing against Rangers, but when I left I was unhappy about the fact that in games I'd played against them, Rangers were winning four matches to three. That's something I intend to remedy next season," he said.

Johnston did remedy his success rate in Old Firm games – by scoring three times against Celtic. He did so because McGinn and his board elected not to pay the £800,000 balance on the transfer of a player who "had no desire to play for the club". Two years ago, the Celtic manager of the time Billy McNeill said he felt let down by his board because he had implored them to see through the deal.

"There have been a lot of red herrings thrown out about this affair," says McGinn."When it came to making the player ours from the July, all that we could have done was put him out of the game. No doubt, after a lengthy legal case. What would have been the point in that? We would have been dead in the water if we had sold him on to Rangers for more money. That would have been our 30 pieces of silver and we would have been the 'J'-word our supporters called him."

By that McGinn means Judas. In recent years Jesus' betrayer has been somewhat rehabilitated, forgiven for his actions. It has only taken 2,000 years. Will it be as long before Johnston can expect the same for his part in a religious epic?