Trevor Steven, who secured legendary status at Rangers across two spells at Ibrox between 1989 and 1997, has revealed he knocked back an offer from Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United to move north of the border from Everton.
The right-sided midfielder started out with Burnley before transferring to Merseyside in 1983, where he helped Howard Kendall's Toffees win two league titles, the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup over the next six years.
Choosing Rangers over Manchester United
That success attracted interest in his services, and Steven was inundated with big offers in the summer of 1989 to leave the club, most notably from Ferguson's Red Devils, who identified the Berwick-upon-Tweed born player as an ideal replacement for the out-going Gordon Strachan.
However, Steven instead opted to team up with Graeme Souness' Rangers, who were continuing to spend big on top names from down south, taking advantage of the European ban stopping English clubs taking part in UEFA competitions following the Heysel tragedy in 1985.
Steven admits that the chance to link up with the likes of Iain Durrant and Terry Butcher was too good to turn down. Speaking to The Herald, he said: "English football had been weakened by the ban from Europe. That was a key thing for me, but the way I am built I didn’t want to stay in England anyway."
Life at Ibrox
"I had a brilliant time at Everton, and we had won everything that we could, and I was still only 25. But I didn’t want to go back and play against Everton wearing another shirt."
"So I went up to Rangers and Gary Stevens, my old Everton mate, was already there. We were thick as thieves. Terry Butcher and Chris Woods and Ray Wilkins and Trevor Francis were there as well, and I just loved Iain Durrant. He was one of the best players I had seen at that time in the game."
"Maurice Johnston came in, and I was well and truly parked in the headlines. But that was great for me. In those days things were happening at Rangers all the time. You would never know what was coming next. There would be a Graeme Roberts situation or a Terry Butcher situation or a new big name coming in. It was just exciting times, and I loved it. I must have, because I went there twice."
Career and Retirement
Steven helped Gers win seven league titles in total, with a short but sweet stint at Marseille sandwiched in between his eight year stay at Ibrox.
But a vascular issue in his leg forced the midfielder to call it quits on his career at the age of 33 while he was still in the Light Blues jersey. Steven, who won 36 caps for his country and played in two World Cups, admits it took a long time for him to get over not being able to do the thing he loved anymore.
"How did I cope with that? I didn’t really," he added. "I was divorced in two years. My routine was gone, and I was living at home with three kids every minute of every day after 20 years of basically travelling the world. That was it stopped. And that took a lot of getting used to. I don’t know that any footballers cope with that well, and I certainly didn’t. Once I stopped playing, I stopped having a purpose. You trade off being a footballer for a while, and then you become irrelevant. You become lost in a sea of retired footballers."
