Former Rangers owner David Murray has been in the press.
That’s because he has released a new autobiography called ‘Mettle: Tragedy, Courage and Titles’, which is described as a ‘deeply personal insight’ into the businessman’s life.
After failing to take control of hometown club Ayr United, Murray aimed high and sought to buy Rangers from Lawrence Marlborough.
He did just that in November 1988 for £6m. At the time, Celtic were the champions of Scotland and holders of the Scottish Cup.
But just weeks later, Murray had the Derby County owner on the phone with the intention of doing the unthinkable.
David Murray on Rangers-Celtic merger phone call
Writing in his book, Murray explained that he is still astounded by the phone call from Robert Maxwell, who also owned Oxford United.
Put simply, Maxwell wanted to buy both Rangers and Celtic with the aim of MERGING both clubs into one entity.
Murray explains: “Football still has the capacity to shock and amaze and one telephone call just weeks after I had bought the club still astounds me to this day.
“My son Keith came racing through to where I was sitting at home and said, ‘Daddy, a man is on the phone wanting to speak to you.’
“I asked him who it was and he said, ‘Robert Maxwell’. Now Maxwell still owned Oxford United and Derby County at the time and had a stake in Reading so I assumed he was on to talk about a player.
“But when I picked up the phone, the voice boomed down the line, “David, it’s Robert Maxwell… I want to buy Rangers from you and then I want to buy Celtic and merge the clubs.’
“I checked my watch to see if it was happy hour. I can’t remember my exact response but it was fairly terse.
“I remembered that he had tried to do something similar with Reading and Oxford United and a planned team called the Thames Valley Royals. Needless to say, we had no further contact.”
Maxwell’s Rangers-Celtic merger idea was and is preposterous
Maxwell must have been in cuckoo land, because there’s no way on this Earth that Rangers would merge with Celtic.
It was a preposterous idea and you start to wonder if Maxwell was on the wind up, or if his intentions were deadly serious.
Murray’s ownership of Rangers wasn’t great news for Celtic. The Ibrox side went on to dominate Scottish football across the 1990s and won nine league titles in a row.
Celtic hero Wim Jansen stopped the 10, before a more competitive decade between the Hoops and Rangers lay ahead stretching into the late 2000s.
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