CHAPTER 1

The Pioneer: Dave Mitchell

In the early 1980s, Scotland's football demographic was a world away from the multinational modern game. Squads tended to be at least 90 percent Scottish, and it wasn't unusual for them to have 100 percent homegrown talents.

Another significant difference was in the competitive nature of the game. Titles were won by Aberdeen, Celtic and Dundee United between 1979 and 1983. Rangers were generally fourth best.

It was this environment that Dave Mitchell entered when he swapped Sydney for Glasgow, returning to the city of his birth after growing up in South Australia. More importantly for his family, he was joining the club that his father loved.

While the connection to Rangers was clear, it was still somewhat surprising to see the Gers look to the other side of the globe for a player to help lift them after a difficult four seasons in which they had failed to mount a serious title challenge, never mind become champions.

If there were players from outside the country in a Scottish Premier League squad, they tended to be from one of the immediate neighbours in the British Isles. In 1983, Rangers had Jimmy Nicholl and John McClelland from Northern Ireland, and the more exotic Robert Prytz from Sweden. The rest of the squad were Scots until a lone Australian international striker added another nationality to the mix.

In even more parochial times, Australia was a genuine footballing outpost, both in geographical terms and in terms of its quality of play. The only recognisable Aussie footballer at the time was Liverpool's Craig Johnston, while Scotland could still boast several world-class players and a strong league on the European stage. Aberdeen, led in those days by Alex Ferguson, had beaten both Bayern Munich and Real Madrid to lift the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1983, but ended the domestic season in third spot, behind Dundee United and Celtic. Rangers were back in fourth-17 points adrift of Aberdeen when a victory won you just two points.

So, the question on many fans' lips was, "Why Dave Mitchell?" This was the story of someone who was determined to make it happen. Mitchell had aspirations far beyond the domestic league in the footballing outpost of his adopted country.

He was no stranger to the international stage, having starred in the FIFA World Youth Championship in 1981. The tournament was hosted in Mitchell's native Australia and his team acquitted themselves well, making it past the group stage before being narrowly beaten by eventual winners West Germany in the quarter-final.

In that group stage, the Aussies went unbeaten, drawing 3-3 with Cameroon and 1-1 with an England side that featured future stars Paul Allen, Stewart Robson and Neil Webb. The highlight was undoubtedly a stirring 2-1 victory over Argentina. Their opponents in that match had Jorge Burruchaga in their lineup-the player who went on to score the winning goal in the 1986 World Cup final.

This experience may have whetted Mitchell's appetite but finding his way out of the limits of the Australian game would not be easy. Determined to make it happen, he was even prepared to pay a significant chunk of money to give himself a shot at the club from his city of birth.

First, he had to get the club's attention, and luck had it that his father, Jimmy, had played at semi-professional level alongside Stan Anderson, who had become assistant to Rangers manager John Greig. Mitchell's dad wrote to Anderson, enclosed a load of newspaper clippings about his son's achievements to date and indicated that he was a player very much in demand.

Greig was happy to have a look, which was significant in itself. Greig was arguably the club's greatest-ever player at that time. He had helped the club to considerable domestic success in the mid-1960s before Celtic took over as the country's leading side. However, Greig stayed around long enough for the pendulum to swing back towards Ibrox, the home of Rangers. He captained the the Gers to domestic trebles in 1976 and 1978, and, perhaps most memorably, he was skipper when Rangers lifted the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1972.

Having got Greig's attention, Mitchell went for a three-month trial at Ibrox. Unfortunately, the trial took place during a particularly harsh winter that limited opportunities to show what he could do, with training forced indoors on many occasions due to the frozen pitches.

What Greig did see impressed him, but he was not prepared to pay the AUD 100,000 that Mitchell's club Adelaide City wanted. Sydney City would, however, pay significantly less to take him east to New South Wales. The fee was $35,000-an Australian record at the time.

The dream of playing for Rangers would not die, though, and following a successful, title-winning year at Sydney, Mitchell pushed for a move again. But Sydney City wanted their money back, having invested such a significant fee in the young player. At just 21, Mitchell stumped up $30,000 to buy out his contract and seal a deal with the Gers as a free agent. It was a huge gamble that reflected the confidence he had in his ability to make an impact in the Scottish Premier League at a club that was crying out for a hero who would lift the team after several years of mediocrity.

Australian sports journalist Jason Dasey recalls how Mitchell's move to Rangers was received in his home country: "I remember first seeing Dave playing for Australia in the FIFA World Youth Championship in 1981. He was one of the outstanding players in the tournament and Australia did very well."

"I always followed his career after that. In the old National Soccer League, he was one of the top players, and I think he won Young Player of the Year. But while he was becoming a star in the domestic league, he had a dream of playing overseas and had to gamble by paying a significant sum of money to terminate his contract."

"$30,000 AUS was a huge amount of money at the time. Dave was so broke that he had to fly over on someone else's air ticket. In those days, security wasn't so tight. He was flying with a friend of the person whose ticket it was, so he had to pretend he was with this woman he didn't really know."

"He ended up making it all the way to the UK, flying on someone else's ticket. It was huge news at the time because the only Australian player who had really broken through on a big international stage was Craig Johnston at Middlesbrough and then Liverpool. It was the early stages of a lot of Aussies going to Europe, and Dave was certainly a pioneer."

In hindsight, the gamble paid off. Mitchell offered something a little different at a time when strikers tended to fall into one of two categories: big target man or shorter 'fox-in-the-box' types. In an interview with SBS Sport, Mitchell said, "I was a big and quick striker and quite aggressive. But I reckon I had more technical ability than many people would give me credit for."

His stay at Rangers would have a promising beginning, but there would be no fairytale ending, in contrast to his strike partner on the day of his competitive debut. A goal in a League Cup tie at Queen of the South was a positive start for Mitchell. Also on the scoresheet that day was Ally McCoist, the player who would go on to become arguably Rangers' greatest-ever striker.

Both players started again the following week in a fixture with a much higher profile. Mitchell was thrown into the league match at Celtic Park, in front of an official crowd of over 50,000. The young Australian's performance on the biggest stage of his career to date was so impressive that he was named man of the match.

The outcome of the game was ultimately disappointing, however. McCoist had Rangers ahead in 30 seconds, but the home side eventually prevailed, with a late goal sealing a 2-1 victory. Even so, the first Australian in the top tier of Scottish football had hit the ground running and earned the trust of his manager in one of world football's biggest derby matches. The following week, Mitchell would net his first league goal, though it came in another defeat-this time a 3-1 loss away to Hearts.

The first goals at Ibrox came in a 10-0 victory over Maltese side Valletta in the Cup Winners' Cup, and he would score against Porto in the same tournament a few weeks later. Mitchell was developing a taste for the big European nights. His star was very much on the rise.

Looking back, Dasey felt that Mitchell adapted quickly because his skill set was perfectly suited to the Scottish game: "Dave looked like a classic No. 9 in some ways. He was a big guy, about 6ft1in, and he was good in the air. But he was also very proud of his dribbling ability, and he had electrifying pace. He didn't like it when he was just dismissed as a typical big, physical centre-forward."

"He was definitely more technically skilled than some of the strikers of that era. He could play as part of a front two or as a lone striker."

"You have to remember that, as a young man, he had been playing for a few years against older, seasoned professionals in Australia, so by the time he reached Scotland, he was ready for the challenge."

If it had been a decent start for the Australian at an individual level, his team was struggling domestically. A 3-0 defeat at home to St Mirren was the final straw. John Greig, the manager...