Rangers can win the title at Easter Road today, just as they did when Colin Stein ended Celtic's run of glory 35 years ago

prevented Celtic winning ten in a row admits that he has nothing to show for it.

Stein, who had just rejoined Rangers from Coventry City, was angry that he never received a medal that year. Before the Hibs game, he chapped on the door of his manager, Jock Wallace, to complain. By the end of the season, when he had scored three in eight matches, he even offered to pay for one of his own. Now faintly embarrassed by his indignation, which he voiced once again in his recent autobiography, he has decided to let it lie. "I'm trying to put a lid on it," he says. "I've cried about it so long, I don't want to pursue it any more. Even the missus says I've gone on long enough about it. You had to play so many games – ten I think – and I didn't realise that at the time. It was a league matter. Nothing to do with Rangers.

"Still, it was nice to score the goal that mattered."

It was his first since returning to the club after three years in England. In only his fourth game back, his team needed just a point to win the last title before the old first division was abandoned in favour of a ten-team top flight. The Ibrox side had 50 points with five matches still to play, Hibs were second on 41 and Celtic third on 40. The thousands of Rangers fans locked out of Easter Road for this afternoon's 2010 equivalent will not be consoled to hear that the crowd that day was 38,565. "There's not going to be many for this one, with parts of the ground getting bulldozed, but they seemed to be everywhere that day," recalls Stein. "I think maybe three-quarters of them were Rangers fans. It was absolutely mobbed, choc-a-bloc."

• Colin Stein was denied a league winners' medal despite scoring the championship winning goal for Rangers against his former club Hibs at Easter Road

Ally McLeod opened the scoring for Hibs, and Sandy Jardine's penalty hit the base of a post, but when Bobby McKean hit the byeline after just over an hour, the moment had come. Stein darted in front of his marker, and with a swing of his head, powered the ball between goalkeeper Jim McArthur and the right-hand post. "Easter Road erupts," said Arthur Montford up in the commentary position, and it did so again at full-time. John Greig, an injured substitute, came on for the last few seconds to enjoy their first title in 11 years. He was the only survivor from 1964.

Wallace was all over the pitch at the end, Greig was held shoulder high, and champagne flowed in the dressing-room. Later, Stein, Greig and Jardine went to the North British Hotel for a beer, bravely making it through the Rangers fans who had taken over Waverley Station. Then it was home to Linlithgow, where to this day, he is reminded not so much of the goal's quality, but of its significance. "It went down well with Rangers fans because it stopped ten in a row," says Stein. "I still have them, the older ones, coming up to me and saying they were at Easter Road to witness it. To be remembered after such a long time… it's a tremendous feeling."

That his goal was scored against a former team only added to the fairytale. Stein had been brought up in Philpstoun, West Lothian, where his boyhood hero was Joe Baker. He joined Hibs in 1965, and spent three years there, playing alongside the likes of Pat Stanton, Peter Marinello and John Blackley. They used to train near the sewage works at Craigentinny – "it was all right till the summer, then it kind of smelled a bit" – before running back through the Edinburgh streets to get changed. In 1968, he and his team-mates were down at North Berwick, preparing for the League Cup final, only to be told that it had been postponed due to a fire at Hampden. By the time it was played, the following April, Stein had left for Rangers in a 100,000 transfer.

One of his last games for Hibs was at Ibrox, when he and the Rangers striker, Alex Ferguson, were sent off. "I went in for a ball, and he sort of got me with those sharp elbows of his. I retaliated, and we both got sent off. I remember my parentage getting questioned when I went up the tunnel."

Stein wondered how he would be received at Ibrox when he joined the club shortly after, but he needn't have worried. He scored a six-minute hat-trick in his first appearance – a 5-1 win at Arbroath – another three in his second – a 6-1 defeat of Hibs – and two in his third, a 3-0 win against Dundalk in the Fairs Cup. "I should have got three in that game as well. I had one effort that hit the post, ran along the line and hit the other post. That was for the hat-trick. My third in a row. To get the Rangers support behind you so quickly was unbelievable. Even Hateley and McCoist, major idols at the club, didn't get accepted for a long, long time."

Stein settled in at Ferguson's expense. The future Manchester United manager's fate was sealed when he failed to mark Billy McNeill before the opening goal of the 1969 Scottish Cup final. The fans said that Stein, who was suspended, would not have made the same mistake. They said that Rangers might have won the title had Stein not been serving an eight-week ban for his clash with Clyde's Eddie Mulheron at Ibrox. Stein, who had been kicked several times before retaliating, threatened the Scottish Football Association with legal action, only to later drop proceedings. "Celtic's Robert Kelly was the SFA man at the time, and there were a lot of things written about a conspiracy, but I don't know if that was true. All I know is that I felt hard done by."

With ten red cards to show for it, Stein's temper was part of the package so enjoyed by fans. An old-fashioned, bustling centre- forward, he was strong in the air, full of energy and, most importantly, a scorer of goals. The supply wasn't endless, but they came in bursts, and many of them were crucial. He is still the last man to claim a hat-trick for Scotland. At the Nou Camp in 1972, when Rangers won the Cup-Winners' Cup final, he nicked the opener in a 3-2 defeat of Dynamo Moscow.

Stein, though, is also remembered for a goal he would rather forget. His injury-time equaliser against Celtic in 1971 was followed by the Ibrox disaster, when 66 people lost their lives on Stairway 13. The theory was that his goal had caused exiting fans to turn around, but an official inquiry later ruled out that explanation. "I carried the burden for a while, as though it was my fault, but the tribunal said it wasn't. It was a terrible time, though. Going to funerals, cremations. The only girl that died, Margaret Ferguson, had been along to my house two or three weeks previous to give my daughter a teddy bear. She was from Redding, near Falkirk. I mean, what's the chances of that? A million to one? Something like that stays with you forever."

The pity was that Stein's title-winning goal did not trigger the second coming many Rangers fans had expected. He lost his pace, and the following season, his place in the team as Derek Parlane, Derek Johnstone, even Martin Henderson – "I didn't rate him at all" – relegated him to the reserves. Another title was won, another medal missed, and before too long, Stein was off on loan to Kilmarnock and eventually retiring at the age of 31, despite offers to play in the lower divisions. "I was past my sell-by date," he says. "And I didn't want to be a target for all these bampots."

Stein, now 62, has been a joiner since. He has won the championship at Linlithgow Bowling Club six times, and his golf handicap has been as low as one, but he regrets not trying his hand at coaching. He also wishes that he had attended Wallace's funeral in 1996. "I should have gone because I had a lot of respect for Jock, but I didn't feel up to it. I just didn't want to. I turned my back on football for a long while. It's only in recent years, with the anniversaries of Barcelona, that I've got my interest back."

And, as if to emphasise the point, he nods towards his television in the corner of the room. At around 2:30 this afternoon, Stein will be watching.

Watch footage of Rangers winning the league at Easter Road in 1975: DdH1kpX2bOU">www.youtube.com/watch?v>DdH1kpX2bOU