No regrets for John Rankin over turning down Ibrox

Published on Saturday 26 December 2009 20:14

AS A TEENAGER John Rankin sat across a desk from Dick Advocaat, stalling on an offer to sign for Rangers. At that time they were dominating Scottish football but more than a decade on, the Hibs midfielder says he does not regret rebuffing their overtures.

"I was also offered a contract by Liverpool and Manchester United and I think I made the right decision," he says. "They all offered me a three-year deal at the age of 16 and I chose the right one. It wasn't to do with money or Man U being the biggest club in the world. It was to do with the education I was getting outside of football."

In the days before Murray Park, the Premiership side could offer better training facilities, and Manchester United's ace was the offer to include two days at college in Rankin's weekly programme, giving him something to fall back on if he didn't make it as a player.

This afternoon, Hibs face up to the defending champions, keen to sustain their assault on the Old Firm duopoly, but Rankin says that he will never forget the day he could have signed for Rangers.

"At 15 I was going up the marble staircase with my dad to meet Dick and Bert Van Lingen. They wanted to know whether I'd be signing for Rangers or not but I wasn't even finished school. I'm sure I was going into a maths class straight after lunch but in between I had a trip to Ibrox!"

He says the pressure to sign was intense. "Rangers were the top club in Scotland at the time. Dick had done a lot in the game and I couldn't believe I was going to say 'no' to him. So I just left it – I told him I'd get back to them in a few weeks' time after my prelim exams. I don't regret it – it was a privilege to meet the man at Ibrox but I'd made my decision.

"I got a lot of confidence from that, it was the Rangers manager sitting there with a contract for me. At that time, Rangers were so far ahead of everyone in the SPL. At that point I couldn't have envisaged any club challenging them or Celtic. My only memories as a kid were of Rangers winning the league, no-one else. Just before I left for England, I remember Henrik Larsson scoring against St Johnstone to win the title for Celtic and stop Rangers' ten-in-a-row. But Rangers had dominated for years so I always regarded them as the biggest club. The next generation of kids probably think that about Celtic."

Now he is in a side which is threatening that dominance. Although Rangers have established a slight gap, victory for Hibs on their own turf today would close it to just two points. It's a game of cat and mouse Rankin could never have envisaged all those years ago.

"Back then I certainly would never have predicted playing in a Hibs team who were as close as we are to Rangers after 18 games of the season – especially when they've set such a high standard in my lifetime.

"The gap's closing but it remains to be seen whether another club can actually win the league. They'll always have more money than the rest and I think someone will always be willing to buy them, with the fan bases they have.

"That's probably why I can't see anyone taking the league off them – there will always be a fan in the background willing to plough money into them.

"Rangers are the benchmark and we'll need to rise to that standard. They've done it in the last couple of weeks – they've said 'we're the champions, come and try and match us'. That's the challenge for clubs like ours.

"But hopefully this is our time. That's what the manager tries to drum into us – it's about what we do in our own careers, whether we end up just as normal players or legends. We'd all like to be legends."