The pressure on Russell Martin and his Rangers players to record a victory over Celtic in the William Hill Premiership match at Ibrox tomorrow is, following draws to Motherwell, Dundee and St Mirren in the league and an ignominious Champions League exit at the hands of Club Brugge, considerable.
If the home team lose and fall nine points behind their city rivals in the top flight table after just four fixtures, the backlash from the stands will be ferocious and the calls for the manager to be sacked, which started in the first half of their game in Belgium on Wednesday night, will become deafening.
Derby debutants like Max Aarons, Thelo Aasgaard, Oliver Antman, Lyall Cameron, Nasser Dgija, Jayden Meghoma, Mikey Moore and Joe Rothwell should steel themselves for what lies ahead. Events in Govan will not, whatever transpires during the course of the 90 minutes, be for the faint-hearted.
Yet, the need for the Glasgow giants to put their dismal start to the new campaign behind them against their age-old adversaries was far greater and the circumstances surrounding the world-famous fixture infinitely more contentious when Bonni Ginzburg made his Old Firm bow at this early stage of the season back in 1989.
The defending champions had lost their opening two Premier Division games to St Mirren at home and Hibernian away that term. They had to avoid a third straight league defeat against Celtic at Parkhead to quell the growing discontent among a support which had grown accustomed to domestic domination.
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Ginzburg, the Israel internationalist who had been signed from Beitar Jerusalem in a £200,000 transfer just 11 days earlier, was tasked with filling in for Chris Woods, the England goalkeeper who was sidelined by an injury, as Graeme Souness’s side did battle with Billy McNeill’s team away.
It would have been a big ask for a new recruit at the best of times. But the fact that Maurice Johnston was returning to the East End of Glasgow for the first occasion since deciding to join Rangers instead of Celtic, who had unveiled the Scotland striker as their new signing that May even though he had not put pen to paper on a contract, increased tensions somewhat.
The 24-year-old, though, embraced the challenge with an admirable can-do attitude which the current crop of players, whose mettle has been called into question in recent days, will be doing very well indeed to emulate tomorrow.
“It was unbelievable,” said Ginzburg. “But pressure is good for you. If you can’t handle the pressure, it's a problem. You have to deal with it, it's healthy for you. You always have to push yourself in football.
“When we went out and did our warm-up before the game there were, I don’t know, around 5,000 people around the ground. But when we went out onto the park for the game it was completely packed. I thought it would be like that, but the noise, the atmosphere, was incredible.
“But the whole experience was absolutely amazing. After the game I went over to the gaffer in the dressing room and said, ‘Do we get paid for that?’ He turned to the squad and said, ‘Listen to this boys! Did you hear what he asked me? Did you hear what he said? That’s what I want in my players to be like!’ I think that game showed him that he could trust me.
“I knew there were people who would play for their entire lives and not get to be a part of a game like that. I was so grateful that I could experience it. I played in a Rangers reserve game against Celtic when I was in Scotland and 10,000 people turned up. The whole culture is different. As I say, it was amazing.
“I played for my national team for 13 years and won 68 caps in total. It was a different time because we weren’t always playing in Europe. That only started in 1992. But I still played in some big, big games for my country. But being involved in that match, in the Old Firm game, was something special.”
Was the young man from Tel Aviv not unsettled by the sectarian element of the ancient rivalry at all? Did he fully appreciate the religious aspect the fixture?
Did he understand the significance of Johnston, who had become the first high-profile Catholic player to sign for Rangers in a century the previous month when he had joined in a hugely controversial £1.5m transfer from Nantes in France, taking to the field wearing a light blue strip that afternoon?
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Ginzburg, who had himself been spotted by Rangers during an end-of-season tour of Israel and snapped up following a short trial in Scotland, was well aware of the various narratives around the encounter and was unperturbed.
“To be honest, it wasn’t a problem at all,” he said. “Parkhead was probably the safest place in Glasgow for somebody Jewish to be that day! Seriously, though, I read up about the history behind the game so I knew what it was all about.
“I thought it was an amazing story. It was a revolutionary decision by David Murray and Graeme Souness to sign Maurice Johnston. I actually became very close with Mo during my time at Rangers.
“Souness changed the direction of football in Britain. Players used to go from Scotland to England. But when he took over they came from England to Scotland. Terry Butcher, Chris Woods, Ray Wilkins, Trevor Francis, Graham Roberts, all came. For me, Rangers were the biggest club in Britain at that time.”
Was moving from Beitar Jerusalem to Rangers not a bit of a shock to the system then? Was the whole whirlwind experience not somewhat discombobulating?
“Plus, it was easy playing with those guys, it wasn’t difficult at all. It was such a good group of players. That was a really, really strong team. The only thing that was different, not strange as such but different, was the pace of the game. Compared to what I was used to, the pace was incredible.
“Being at Rangers was a wonderful football experience, but it was also an amazing life experience as well. I was with a great club, was with great players. It helped me to develop as a footballer, as a goalkeeper. But it also improved me as a person as well. My life for two years was train, laugh, play football, laugh. They really were a great bunch of guys.”
Ginzburg only featured in a handful games – one of which was a 0-0 draw against German behemoths Bayern Munich in a European Cup first round tie in the old Olympic Stadium - during the time which he spent at Rangers. Woods quickly regained full fitness, reclaimed his place and remained there.
But his understudy was far from downhearted about making way for such an exceptional footballer. “Woodsy was England’s first choice keeper at that time,” he said. “I respected him greatly and learned from him. He wasn’t just a fabulous goalkeeper, he was a very nice person as well.”
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Not featuring regularly in the Rangers first team didn’t impact on Ginzburg’s international career either. He continued to add to his haul of appearances for his national team throughout his stay in Scotland.
He does, however, recall how Souness, who was notoriously combustible and confrontational at that early stage in his managerial career, was irked when his player was called up by Israel for their Italia ‘90 play-off matches against Colombia a few months after he joined. It took a tongue-in-cheek warning about his country’s intelligence agency to secure his release.
“I had to go to South America a couple of months after I arrived in Scotland,” said Ginzburg. “I was in the dressing room after a game against Motherwell and I was telling the gaffer about it. I said, ‘It’s a World Cup play-off game for my country! I have to go!’ He told me, ‘Oh, do you think so? Well, maybe you’re going to stay instead’.
“Dr Cruickshank, the Rangers doctor, went over to the gaffer and said, ‘Listen Graeme, if you mess with Bonni, you’re going to mess with Mossad. I think you have to release him’. I ended up going.”
Ginzburg continued, “I remember when I got back from that game in Colombia, Ray Wilkins presented me with a VHS video cassette of the match. I was totally shocked. I have no idea how he managed to get it for me. The world back then wasn’t like it is today. There was no satellite television, no internet, no You Tube, back in those days.
“As I say, I have no idea at all how he got it. But it was one of the biggest games of my life and he managed to get a video of it. It was amazing, I was so touched. That is what Razor, God rest him, was like. He was an incredible footballer, but he was an absolute gentleman too.”
Rangers have made their worst start to a top flight campaign since 1989 this month. But they recovered from going three games without recording a triumph 36 years ago and won their second consecutive Scottish title by a comfortable margin the following May. They finished seven points clear of runners-up Aberdeen and 17 ahead of fifth-placed Celtic.
Does Ginzburg, who still takes a keen interest in how his old club are faring, believe that the much-maligned Martin and his men can beat Brendan Rodgers’ charges tomorrow, turn things around in a similar manner to their predecessors and silence their detractors? He is far from optimistic.
“I am still a Rangers fan all these years later and will remain a Rangers fan for the rest of my life. That is the kind of club they are. I follow what they are doing and want them to succeed. When they aren’t doing well, as is the case at the moment, I am disappointed.
“But it’s a different quality of Rangers team now I’m afraid. When I was there, we knew that even if we had two or three bad games we would still win the league with the quality of players we had. The financial situation is completely different now because of the television rights.
“When I was there we had Terry Butcher, the England captain, and Gary Stevens, Trevor Steven, Ray Wilkins and Chris Woods, established England players. They you had Mark Hateley, Maurice Johnston, Ally McCoist, Richard Gough. They were all top, top level players.
“Sure, Rangers can afford to bring in players for two, three, four million pounds now. But that is what clubs in the Championship in England, in League One even, can pay. Yes, they are a big club with a huge support, but they can’t compete financially at the highest level any more. Celtic also have more money than them and are a far better team than they were when I was there.”
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Ginzburg reluctantly returned to Israel and joined Maccabi Yavne in 1991. He had hoped to remain in Scotland longer and was bereft when a prospective switch to Hibernian fell through.
“I was very disappointed as I had been told Hibs were interested in me,” he said. “I loved the life, loved the culture, loved the people in Scotland. The people were always very warm to me. I wanted to stay, to play abroad for a few more years. It was not to be.
“But I will always look back on my time at Rangers with great affection. I have continued to follow the fortunes of the team. I am certainly hoping they can beat Celtic in the Old Firm game on Sunday.”
Ginzburg worked as a television pundit in his homeland after finally hanging up his gloves in 2001. His celebrity status earned him an invitation to compete in their version of Dancing With The Stars. But he has been the technical director with the Israel Football Association (IFA) for the past five years and is firmly focused on bringing through their stars of tomorrow.
He talked enthusiastically this week about his hopes for his country’s next generation of talent, the noteworthy successes which the national age-group teams have enjoyed on the global stage in recent seasons and his hope they can secure a place at the European Championship finals for the first time ever in 2028.
He is a football man, not a politician. But is certainly conscious of the debate there was in Scotland this summer about whether Rangers should sign an Israeli player when his former club were linked with a move for the young Maccabi Tel Aviv forward Dor Turgeman. He is also aware of calls to FIFA to suspend his country from international competition because of the ongoing war in Gaza.
“The situation right now isn’t easy,” said Ginzburg. “Nobody wants to be at war. The people here want the war to come to an end. Hopefully that will happen. Everybody wants peace.”
Ginzburg is excited at the prospect of working with Beram Kayal, the former Celtic, Brighton and Israel midfielder who has just been appointed as his assistant at the IFA, going forward despite their different football allegiances.
“Beram is an Arab and a Muslim and I am Jewish and we are going to be working together,” he said. “In football, nobody cares about the colour of your skin or your religion. I am sure we will have a derby in my room when he starts his job! We will watch the game together. He will cheer on Celtic and I will cheer on Rangers.”
