In the vast catalogue of depravity kept under lock and key in Scottish football’s cavernous cellar of shame, the events of the first fortnight of January 1988 remain among the most appalling.
On New Year’s Eve, aged just 23, Mark Walters, an electrifying winger rated as one of the most exciting emerging talents of the English game, turned down a move to champions Everton and left Aston Villa for Ibrox instead.
With the stroke of a pen he became the only black player in Scotland’s top flight.
And what happened next still casts its grotesque shadow over our sense of national pride, more than 30 years on.
“Yes, I was surprised by what I was walking into but you’ve got to remember it was happening in England before then too,” Walters says as he reflects on the two weeks which brought disgrace to Scotland’s doorstep.
“One of my first professional games as a teenager was for Villa’s youth team against Millwall. I was just a kid playing in the FA Youth Cup.
“There must have been about 10,000 people there but it was honestly the scariest experience of my life. You’re talking 40 years ago but I remember it like yesterday. I was getting spat at and people were doing Nazi salutes in my face. That was my first introduction to it.
“As I got older the same sort of stuff would happen at places like Newcastle, West Ham and Chelsea. It wasn’t on the same scale as I experienced when I moved to Scotland. But it had been going on for years and I was almost used to it in a way.
“So I knew it was going to happen in Scotland before I even put pen to paper. I was well versed so it wasn’t a shock to me.
“Frankly, I was prepared to put up with it. I wouldn’t say it didn’t bother me – of course it did – but I had prepared myself.
“I made up my mind I wasn’t going to allow it to affect me. I didn’t like it but I was prepared to put up with it to become a Rangers player.”
Walters made his debut at Celtic Park on January 2. In the run-up to the derby it was claimed that fruit shops in the east end of the city had sold out of bananas.
The sound of monkey chants rang around the ground when he touched the ball and the half time break had to be extended in order for fruit to be removed from the pitch.
Two weeks later this abhorrent ugliness was repeated at Tynecastle, in a rerun of a racist horror show which plunged the whole country into a prolonged period of conscience stricken self introspection.
That a current Rangers player, Glen Kamara, has just endured something horribly similar in Prague is a wholly unedifying reminder that racism remains alive and kicking at a time when Walters is set to make a return to Glasgow.
Next month the 57-year-old will take part in a glitzy tribute night for former Rangers boss Graeme Souness at the city’s Armadillo.
The haunting memories of his first few days on Scottish soil will not be far away. They seldom are.
All this time later, Walters remains conflicted. Immensely proud of his achievements –three league titles won in three and half years – and yet also still processing the vileness to which he was exposed. And perhaps even asking himself why he chose to stick it out.
And the utter despair evoked by seeing the next generation of oven ready racists round on Kamara, is all depressingly familiar.
He said: “Believe it or not just last month I watched a recording of my debut at Parkhead for the very first time.
“It was only then that I realised why the half-time break seemed to go on forever.
“At the time we were in the dressing room and I was thinking to myself, ‘What’s taking so long?’.
“But when I watched it back I realised it was because they were still clearing up all the bananas and stuff from the pitch.
“They were trying to protect me but it’s unbelievable when you look back at that now. Yes, it does hurt. I also watched the game at Hearts for the first time, which was just a week later. I remember someone threw something at me and I flinched because I thought it may hit me.
“But it was only when I watched it a month or so ago that I could see it was a boy of about eight or nine years of age who threw it. You could see a bunch of adults behind him all laughing and joking like, ‘Well done son!’.
“I just assumed at the time it was these adults who were throwing stuff. But to see it was actually a child? I mean, what chance did that young lad have if he was brought up to believe that was normal behaviour?
“That game at Tynecastle actually felt even more intimidating than my debut at Celtic but probably because the crowd was a lot closer to the pitch.
“But the stuff that was thrown at me at Parkhead was even more dangerous. I remember I saw a dart sticking out of the grass and a pig’s foot flying past my head.
“Looking back now I can’t believe I didn’t show the ref. But I just carried on because I was just so focused on my game.”
In 106 games for Rangers, Walters scored 32 goals, picked up three consecutive titles and lifted two League Cups before leaving for Liverpool in a £1.25million move in the summer of 1991.
It’s quite staggering that he now looks back upon that decision, to leave Scotland behind, as the biggest single regret of his time here.
He says: “I played in massive games like against Bayern Munich in Europe and the day we won the league in the final game at Ibrox against Aberdeen. But one that probably sticks out is when I scored my first goal against Raith Rovers.
“Once you score your first goal at a huge club you know you’re part of their history.”
