Rangers fans give their backing.

Gascoigne puts Ibrox men on easy street

KEN GALLACHER

23 Oct 1995

Rangers 4, Hearts 1

EVERYONE, it seemed, had had their say on Rangers' embarrassing midweek defeat from Juventus in Turin, and at Ibrox on Saturday, the less-than-silent majority decided it was time to declare their feelings.

The Rangers support gave the team their biggest home audience of the season, with more than 45,000 making their own declaration of faith in the club.

It may not make much sense to those who would want to take a more global view of the game.

But it does tell you that the domestic rivalries which have fuelled Rangers -- and others -- over the years continue to exist.

The sad thing is that the challenges are less formidable now than they have been.

This game was a case in point.

Rangers scored almost immediately, through the irrepressible Paul Gascoigne, and added two more goals before half-time.

By then the taunts of "Juve, Juve" coming from the area which contained the Tynecastle support, were becoming more and more pathetic.

Indeed, when you consider those who relish Rangers' European agonies, you have to wonder if they ever consider the plight of their own clubs.

By the end of the programme on Saturday, the Premier League had completed its first quarter and Rangers were six points ahead of their closest challengers Celtic, and with a massive goal difference of 11 to give them added comfort if they need it.

They won this match with ease and even Hearts' manager Jim Jefferies was forced to admit: "Every club who comes here has the same thing in mind -- try to get over the first 20 minutes or so and then see how the game may go.

"The first goal was a killer.

We stood back and allowed Paul Gascoigne to pick up the ball, move in on goal, and then pick his spot.

"Honestly, the first half just killed us.

Out of maybe five chances they created, they scored three times and that was us in trouble.

All we could do was to try to get a goal, which we did, and then played better in the second half.

If we had stopped them getting the fourth, we might have had an interesting last 10 minutes."

But you sensed that Jefferies was talking without any real conviction.

He must have known, as everyone else in the massive Ibrox crowd knew, that Rangers had the game won by the interval.

All that was left for Hearts was to keep the score as respectable as possible.

It was to their credit that they did so, even though they were helped by further Ibrox injuries to David Robertson and Richard Gough, which necessitated the defence being altered yet again.

Yet, while the champions' defence looked more vulnerable in the second half it was his own defence which disturbed Jefferies most.

"We have been punished by poor defensive work all season," he complained, "and we cannot allow it to go on.

"Obviously we have missed Craig Levein and he is going to be out for another five or six weeks.

We have to tighten up at the back because the mistakes being made are killing us."

So much so that the Tynecastle team are hovering far too close to the relegation area for their manager's comfort.

Predictably, Rangers, as ever, turned their backs on Europe to find that things had not changed too much at home.

They may fail in the Champions' League, but no-one seems able to mount a consistent and measured challenge here at home.

Their manager, Walter Smith, said simply: "We were pleased to get off to a good start.

It was important to do that.

"It was encouraging, too, to see the size of the crowd to and hear how the support got behind the team.

They have been turning out in big numbers all season and it was the right time to give them a result."

It was the right time, too, for Russian sriker Oleg Salenko to give the fans the goals they have been demanding from their summer signing.

He had scored just once before -- in the Brockville win over Falkirk -- and his double against Hearts was the first time he had been able to score at Ibrox.

Defender John Brown, who stepped in for the injured David Robertson in the first half and who appears to have temporarily abandoned his coaching role, pointed out: "There will be more goals to come from Oleg once we all get used to him and he gets used to us.

It takes time to settle, but the way he took his goals today suggests he will continue getting them."

The other Rangers' goal arrived from Gordon Durie, while Hearts' spectacular strike came from John Millar.

But the goal everyone will remember was the first from Gascoigne, where he showed all of his sublime skills and lifted his side's confidence when that was so vitally important.

Rangers had three players booked, Andy Goram, Paul Gascoigne, and Gordon Durie, while Hearts defender Neil Pointon was also shown the yellow card in a game studded by curious decisions from the match officials.

Taken from the Herald