Ray WILKINS

He arrived in Govan in November 1987 boasting the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, and AC Milan as former employers, and the fee of £250, 000 that was paid to Paris Saint-Germain to secure his services must be regarded as one of the best pieces of business that Graeme Souness conducted during his managerial tenure at Ibrox.

Although he had had his critics throughout his career - his tendency to pass a ball sideways rather than forwards was deemed to be a rather negative style of play and earned him the nickname 'The Crab' - and was just one month short of his thirty-second birthday when he arrived at Ibrox, Wilkins was a player of genuine class, and he soon established himself as a mainstay in the Rangers team. Capped eighty-four times by England, he was a great passer of the ball, with a varied range, and the leadership skills that he had honed during his time in London, Manchester and Milan rubbed off on his team-mates, especially emerging talents such as Ian Durrant and Ian Ferguson.

Although he arrived in Glasgow too late to play in the epic League Cup Final victory over Aberdeen, Ray made his debut for Rangers in a 3-2 win over Hearts at Ibrox on November 28. He was a mainstay in the starting eleven from then until the end of the season, making twenty-nine appearances, which included both legs of the European Cup quarter-final against Steaua Bucharest.

Ray's presence failed to inspire Rangers to further silverware in 1987/88, but he picked up two medals in the 1988/89 campaign, as Rangers won the Championship and defeated Aberdeen to win the League Cup. He made a total of forty-five appearances, scoring two goals, and it is for one of those strikes that he is perhaps best remembered by the followers of Rangers. The goal came at Ibrox on 27 August 1988 and was the pick of the bunch as Rangers inflicted a 5-1 thrashing on their Old Firm rivals, Celtic. A throw-in from Gary Stevens was only cleared as far as the fringes of the penalty area where Wilkins was stationed, and the Englishman unleashed a thunderous volley with his right foot that roared beyond a statuesque Ian Andrews in the Celtic goal.

A respected member of the dressing room, Ray made a further twenty-two appearances for Rangers in the 1989/90 season before he left in December 1989 and returned to London to sign for Queens Park Rangers. In his final match for Rangers, a league fixture against Dunfermline Athletic at Ibrox, Wilkins' genius illuminated a match that was played out in a thick mist, and his display made a mockery of those who had criticised him for his style of play. Ten minutes into the match, he sprayed a terrific fifty-yard pass from the heart of the field to the feet of Maurice Johnston on the edge of the penalty area, leaving Johnston with the simple task of rolling the ball into the net to give Rangers the lead. The match finished 3-0 and Wilkins was afforded a standing ovation by the Rangers supporters as he left the field for the final time. Ray was visibly moved by the show of affection, having to wipe tears from his eyes as he saluted the stands for the last time.

After a four-year spell with QPR, Wilkins had a brief stint with Crystal Palace before returning to Loftus Road to become QPR's player-manager. He vacated the managerial hotseat in the summer of 1996 after QPR were relegated from the Premier League, and enjoyed a brief return to Scotland with Hibernian in 1996 before bringing the curtain down on his playing career with spells at Wycombe Wanderers and Leyton Orient.

Ray has subsequently managed Fulham and was assistant manager to Dennis Wise at Millwall. He was also part of the backroom staff when Gianluca Vialli was manager of Chelsea and Watford, and returned to Stamford Bridge in 2008 when he was appointed first-team coach when Filipe Scolari became manager of Chelsea.

An articulate pundit in the media and still much loved by the Rangers fans, Ray Wilkins was inducted into the Club's Hall of Fame in 2003. (Alistair Aird, Author of Ally McCoist - Portrait of a Hero)