Hearts: Recalling the day Allan Johnston ran riot at Ibrox

Allan Johnston's hat-trick is one of the most treasured Hearts moments at Ibrox. Picture: SNS

In the 90s, a trip to face Rangers at Ibrox represented suffering, turmoil and hardship. As welcoming as a root canal. It was required but resented.

Defeat was expected, a win was a mere dream.

Hearts knew that more than most when they travelled along the M8 on league business in January 1996. They hadn’t won in Govan in nearly eight years, just before Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’ was knocked off the top of the UK charts by The Bangles’ ‘Eternal Flame’.

Johnston celebrates with a jubilant away support. Picture: SNS

After just two wins in his opening ten league games having taken over from Tommy McLean in the summer, Jim Jefferies had steadied the ship.

Rangers were unsurprisingly formidable. Nineteen matches unbeaten in the league and on their way to the eighth of nine titles in succession. Andy Goram in goals and Brian Laudrup dictating the rhythm of the game. The Dane was graceful but hugely daunting. At one point in the match he had Paul Ritchie looking like he was on an invisible merry-go-round.

There were a couple of surprise omissions in Jefferies starting XI with club legend John Robertson and Gary Mackay on the bench as he opted for a clear gameplan, neatly summed up by commentator Rob MacLean who noted that the threat of the running power of John Colquhoun and Alan Lawrence in attack.

And it was those two who would link up, aided by some indecisive Gordan Petric defending, to tee up Allan Johnston after only seven minutes as the youngster beat Goram at the near post.

As a fan, seeing your team take the lead at Ibrox after seven minutes, your fatalistic tendencies kick in after the celebrations die down. You think ‘far too early’. 83 minutes of torment and suffering to endure. 4,980 seconds. Each feeling like a minute.

Magic Johnston

Yet, with Steve Fulton and Neil Pointon, surprisingly, clipping or sliding passes behind a high defensive line, Hearts were getting chances and passing them up. A double miss from Lawrence and Colquhoun provoked frustration and anger from the visiting supporters, knowing full well you have to take your chances at Ibrox otherwise you get punished.

Enter Allan Johnston. Again.

He snuck in behind the Rangers defence to run onto a Pointon through ball and delivered a deft dink over a helpless Goram. If it wasn’t so delicate it could have been seen as disrespectful to the revered goalkeeper.

Only he did it once again.

Breaking the offside trap he ran free. So many players had choked in such a scenario, spooked by the mere sight of Goram. But he waited and waited and waited some more, until the goalkeeper had made the first move, deciding to take a seat on the Ibrox turf, perhaps persuaded by a movement from Johnston’s hips.

The attacker shifted the ball right and then into the empty net.

It was fitting of his Magic moniker.

Remarkably, Johnston could and should have made it 4-0 when he ran free again late on.

He would just have to settle for the hat-trick, match ball and a place in Hearts history.

The Tynecastle side, meanwhile, were one of three teams to win at Ibrox that season. The others? Hibs and Juventus.