FOOTBALL is forever littered with ‘what ifs’ and Colin West’s Rangers career very much falls into that category.
The big striker was Graeme Souness’ first signing as Light Blues boss when he arrived from Watford in May 1986 for £200,000.
However, after a decent start to his Ibrox career, his time at the club would be brought to a premature end due to an injury sustained in a League Cup tie against East Fife.
Despite only featuring 12 times for the club, West’s love of Rangers has never wavered.
He had enjoyed a fruitful season at the Hornets under Graham Taylor and finished the campaign as the club’s top scorer with 23 goals in all competitions.
He was a man in demand but as soon as he heard about Rangers' interest he was sold on a move to Ibrox.
“Watford were doing fairly well in the league, scoring goals quite regularly,” he recalls.
“Souness came to our game against Man United at home, we beat them 5-1 and I scored one of the goals. I didn’t realise he was there until somebody told me afterwards. You tend to think that at least you played well and won the game so other people are seeing that you’re doing a decent job.
“Then we played Chelsea away and he was at the game and I scored with a header from outside the box and we beat them 5-1 as well at Stamford Bridge. He then got in touch with (David) Speedie who then spoke to me in the players' lounge just to get my feeling for it.
“I thought, ‘Wow! That sounds ideal to me!’
“They obviously wanted to know if I was interested then they got in touch with the football club.
“When Souness was going into Rangers, he looked at me as a sort of Sandy Clark type, I think that’s what he was quoted as saying so I think he wanted that target man.”
For a 23-year-old West, the opportunity to play under an icon coupled with an iconic club was too great to turn down.
“That was the reason why I went because I played against Souness as a player. I was thinking this guy’s coming back from Italy to do something, Rangers is a massive club and if Souness is interested in me, I’m interested in what he wants to do.
“I played against him a few times when he was at Liverpool. He was driven, he was a winner. I wouldn’t say he’s dirty but he could be a real strong tackler, he’d leave one in on you but I think most people did back in those days. He always tried to be aggressive in winning the game but he was just an outstanding player, he could set the tempo, he could quicken it up, he could slow it down. Those types of players are always the ones where you think, ‘Wow!’”
It wouldn’t be long before West encountered Souness’ sometimes weird and wonderful training techniques with a ban on golf was swiftly introduced.
“I remember he took us to a golf course and he had us running up the big slopes and hills.
“He spoke to us afterwards and he said, ‘Listen, that’s what ruins your life so I don’t want anybody playing golf when there’s a game coming up!’
“There was a lot of running at Rangers. I was at the front of everything with Terry Butcher but once you were through pre-season, everything else was a doddle because the football was just what we wanted to be doing so we got our fitness through the football.
Both West and Souness’ Rangers debuts were ones to forget as they teamed up together for the first time in the infamous league opener against Hibernian at Easter Road.
The player-manager was ordered off after just 37 minutes for a dangerous challenge on George McCluskey that sparked a melee.
As well as the unsavoury scenes on the pitch, West says the incident sparked similar scenes off it.
“It was a big game in terms of my first game. My wife actually went to the game, she sat in the stand and she was virtually trampled on.
“That shows you how emotional everybody gets when there’s a little bit of a scuffle, a little bit of a melee on the pitch, she was getting thumped over so it tells you everything. She was just sitting down on her seat.
“Souness was setting his stall out that he wasn’t a guy to be messed with, although the tackle wasn’t the best. It was a little bit horrendous really and he needed to be sent off for it but it put a marker down to all of us. He just got emotionally attached in the game which is probably what most players do.”
Ally McCoist would net Rangers’ goal from the penalty spot that sunny August day in Leith. A former teammate of West from their Sunderland days, he says the legendary marksman was something special.
“We played a few games at Sunderland, he never really had the best of times,” he admitted.
“For me, that was put down to him just needing a bit more time to integrate with everything because when people say, ‘Ally McCoist didn’t do much when he came to England,’ I tell them it’s because he needed a bit more time to get the feeling for everybody and knowing how each other played.
“He scored goals for fun in international matches so it’s not anything to do with the English game.
“He just had that instinct. He wasn’t quick and I wasn’t quick but how I got on in terms of scoring goals was I was mentally quick so I knew I was roughly already on my way before the defender had maybe clocked it and I think Ally is very much the same.
“He knew where to go. How many goals did he score where he was just onside because he knows when to go?
“It’s not about his burst of pace, he’s wasn't slow but in your head you mentally know when you’re going and you catch the defender when he’s not ready. He was also a top finisher obviously.”
West was part of a Rangers side littered with superstars, the Souness revolution was very much in full swing as the likes of England internationals Chris Woods and Terry Butcher arrived but there was one man already at Ibrox who was simply a level above – Davie Cooper.
“Coops was unbelievable,” West enthused.
“I put him in the same bracket, when I was at Watford, with John Barnes.
“The two of them could keep the ball for fun, could take the piss out of people in terms of what they wanted to do, little back flicks, their movement, could check back onto his right foot.
“The only thing that he probably didn’t do as well as Barnesy is score goals. But putting crosses in, he was fabulous. He was a great character as well, a real good fella.”
Speaking of a 'real good fella', arguably Souness’ greatest signing was to prize Walter Smith away from Dundee United to become his assistant.
The rest, as they say, is history but West says Smith displayed the skills necessary to become an Ibrox great.
“Walter was just a real good, great honest guy,” he recalls.
“He had loads of sides to him and I mean that by he had a real soft side, he had a real aggressive side but mainly he just wanted to work with players.
“He wanted to help players and he would look at how they were when they came in to training, if they needed a little bit of an arm around them, whether they had a problem, he spotted it straight away. He was a real top bloke.”
As McCoist and West were beginning to strike up a partnership in front of goal, disaster struck. The big centre forward suffered a horror knee injury in just his fourth game during a League Cup third round tie at East Fife.
West admits it would spell the end of his time at Ibrox.
“That was the sad point for me because although everybody speaks to me now and asks, ‘What was it like at Rangers?’ I feel a little bit sad and cheated because I got off to a decent start, scored a couple of goals in my first four or five games and then I got that injury.
“I was in plaster for nearly three months and because of the club being so big and wanting to go in the right direction they obviously got other players in and kept the run going, kept winning games and when I came back I was generally a substitute and coming on every now and again.
“That was the sad part for me because I just wanted to get back in that team.”
Despite his injury frustrations, West recalls the heart-warming treatment he received from both Souness and then chairman David Holmes.
“I remember when I got injured, the manager and the chairman got me into the manager’s office and said, ‘Look, you just concentrate on getting yourself back from the injury, anything you need just get in touch with anybody at the club’, they were unbelievable.
“I was moving into my house at the time and was getting some decorating done.
“The chairman said, ‘Look, I’ll get my people to do what you need to and get it all done, I’ll send them over and get everything organised from what you and your wife want and all you need to worry about is getting back fit.’
"I thought, ‘Wow! That’s a top club and a top fella saying things like that,’ now whether they could afford it or not is irrelevant because it was just the way he made me feel, it was such a special thing to do.
“Everything was bang on in my house, we had a big fireplace that the TV would sit on and we were waiting for the marble to go on top of this stone fireplace so my wife said, ‘Do you think you could get in touch with someone at the club?’, I said, ‘Look, when I go back in I’ll speak to them.’
“Funnily enough, a couple of days after I saw the chairman and I said, ‘Can I have a quick word?’, and he said, ‘Yeah, of course.’
“I just said, ‘Everything’s been brilliant, I appreciate everything you’ve done, I just need to ask you because my wife is wanting to get this marble sorted out,’ and he said, ‘Give me half an hour and I’ll try and find out what’s happening.’
“So I go over to the changing room, I must’ve only been in there 10-15 minutes, he pops in and says, ‘Can I have a word with you?’,
"He says, ‘Look, the problem is, your misses has picked this Italian marble so it’s got to come from Italy,’ I’m thinking, ‘Wow! Fucking hell, this is going to be some price isn’t it?’
“He said, ‘It was just taking its time to come, that’s the only problem but it’ll probably be with you in the next two to three weeks.'
“I can’t remember how long it took after that but it was all put in beautifully, I then went up to see the chairman a month or so afterwards and I said, ‘I need to organise this payment, can we get it all out the way?’
“He said, ‘No, listen, you concentrate on you getting back playing, everything’s taken care of’, he wouldn’t let me pay a bean.
“It was class and it wasn’t expected but they wanted to take all that worry away from me and her, they were brilliant.”
West would fight his way back to fitness and played his part in the memorable title-winning day at Pittodrie when he came on as a substitute after a Terry Butcher sealed a draw with Aberdeen to earn Rangers their first league triumph in nine seasons.
It’s a day West will never forget.
“I remember going away to Aberdeen and we got a draw and Souness got sent off again but that’s what I went up there for – to win the league, it was a great feeling.
“It was a great journey back down the road too. We must’ve stopped at so many different places to have a drink and to refuel, it was excellent.”
West only sampled the famous Ibrox atmosphere on a handful of occasions but, like many players before and after him, it left a lasting impression.
“It’s similar to playing at Wembley or at Old Trafford because that’s the sort of atmosphere you get.
“It’s a massive stadium and it was special because you kind of went out there with your chest puffed out knowing that you were probably going to win the majority of the games.
“If I went back now it would probably all come back to me because it’s all pretty much the same as far as I know in terms of the inside.
“The marble staircase and the big wooden panels on the walls. I’ve watched some videos on YouTube with Coisty and the dressing room is virtually or not far off the same.
“It’s still got that wooden effect, it’s a magnificent stadium.”
Despite playing a part in the club’s first league win under Souness, West’s time at Ibrox was up. With Trevor Francis arriving from Atalanta, West headed to South Yorkshire to team up with Howard Wilkinson at Sheffield Wednesday.
He says the decision to leave was not taken lightly.
“When you’re that age, I must’ve been 22,23, you just want to play and I wasn’t getting back in regularly.
“Before I went up there, Sheffield Wednesday wanted me to sign for them and I chose Rangers purely because of the size of it, Souness and probably distance-wise it was back towards where I was living in terms of Newcastle.
“Souness and his agent came and spoke to me and said, ‘Look, Feyenoord want to speak to you and Sheffield Wednesday want to speak to you.’
“I already knew a little bit about Sheffield Wednesday anyway so I thought, let’s go and see what Feyenoord’s like.
“I went over on a loan situation really, more or less, just to see what it was like and whether I would enjoy it.
“I enjoyed the football, the training was unbelievably hard though.
READ MORE: Mark Hateley: The art of the Rangers target man
“It was a lot of running and football in between. I remember we did 10 100 metre runs and you had to get under something like 14 seconds and you were thinking, ‘Wow! Fucking hell!’
“The other group would play a game and then after you done that you’d swap over so you’d play the game and the other ones would do the runs.
“It was baking hot and when you’re not the quickest, it’s a struggle to get those times but I enjoyed it, football for me is football.”
“My wife came over and she didn’t really settle, she didn’t really want to be there. Knowing that we just had a kid, if she had to be unhappy she’d rather be unhappy at home rather than a different country and then we just made the decision to speak to Sheffield Wednesday and I signed there.”
Spells at West Brom, Swansea City and Leyton Orient would follow before West would hang up his boots in 2001 at Hartlepool United.
He’s since spent time as a coach working at various clubs, his most recent being Oldham Athletic where he was assistant to Keith Curle before being dismissed last month.
And despite leaving Ibrox more than 34 years ago, West still keeps a close eye on events down Edmiston Drive.
“I always keep in touch with how they’re doing. Especially with a couple of mates that I’ve got who are from the other side in terms of the green and white, we just have a bit of banter and a bit of ribbing but for now it’s been on my side of late.
“I went to Ibrox again about four years after I left but I’d love to get back.”
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