| Born in Motherwell in 1962, Gordon Dalziel was a centre-forward
blessed with pace and a nose for goal. He rose through the ranks at
Rangers and made his debut for the first-team at the age of seventeen in
September 1979 when he replaced Kenny Watson in a 4-0 home win over
Clyde in the League Cup. However, he made only one further appearance -
in a 2-1 league defeat at the hands of St Mirren - in what was a bleak
season for Rangers. The defeat against The Buddies was one of fourteen
defeats that the Light Blues would suffer in the title race, and John
Greig's side finished fifth in the Premier Division and also lost out to
Celtic in the Final of the Scottish Cup.
Since a Rangers team
struggling for form and confidence is most certainly not the environment
in which one bloods promising youngsters, young Gordon returned to
continue his development in the reserve team. Indeed, with the exception
of an appearance against Chesterfield in the Anglo-Scottish Cup, it was
almost two years until he featured in the first-team again when he was
selected to play against Brechin City in a drab 1-0 win in the second
leg of the League Cup quarter-final.
Having racked up an
impressive goals tally in the reserves, Dalziel made a number of
appearances for the first XI over the course of the next few months, and
he scored his first goal in light blue in a thrilling league match with
Celtic at Parkhead in November 1981. Gordon opened the scoring in the
opening five minutes of a match that ended in a 3-3 draw, and his
performance earned him a starting slot in the team when Rangers faced
Dundee United in the League Cup Final at Hampden seven days later.
Dalziel flitted in and out of the team after picking up a winners' medal
at Hampden, but ended the campaign in style, netting a hat-trick
against Dundee at Ibrox in the penultimate league match of the season
and the only goal of Sandy Jardine's testimonial match against
Southampton.
That took his total to six goals in twenty-four
appearances in the 1981/82 season, but he failed to sustain his form in
the following campaign. With competition strong in the striking
department - Gordon had to compete with Derek Johnstone, Colin McAdam,
John MacDonald and Sandy Clark for a place in the starting eleven -
Dalziel managed just twenty-two appearances in 1982/83 and scored just
five goals.
The arrival of Ally McCoist in June 1983 and Bobby
Williamson five months later further increased competition for a place
in the team, and Gordon found himself regularly relegated to the
reserves. Thus, with opportunities to make the starting eleven becoming
more limited, he elected to leave Rangers in December 1983 after making
just forty-nine appearances and scoring twelve goals for the club. He
joined Manchester City and later returned to Scotland to play for Raith
Rovers with whom he won a League Cup winners' medal in 1994. (Alistair Aird, Author of Ally McCoist - Portrait of a Hero).
1979–1983 Rangers 34 (9)
1983–1984 Manchester City 5 (0)
1984–1986 Partick Thistle 43 (6)
1986–1987 East Stirlingshire 10 (2)
1987–1995 Raith Rovers 308 (170)
1995–1997 Ayr United 24 (4)
Total 424 (191)
Teams managed
1995–2002 Ayr United
2002–2004 Glenafton Athletic
2004–2006 Raith Rovers
2007–2009 Glenafton Athletic
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