Scott Nisbet summed up the ordeal he has been through since being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer five years ago pretty succinctly during a lengthy chat about his entertaining, surprising and searingly honest new autobiography Red, White and True earlier this week.
“My body has taken a bit of a kicking,” said the former Rangers defender down the telephone from Lanzarote, where he has been running his football academy since way back in 2006.
That, though, has by no means been a new experience for Nisbet. It becomes obvious as you turn the pages of his compelling memoir that he had to deal with and overcome his fair share of hardship to scale the dizzying heights that he did during his playing career. It is also clear he has suffered some savage blows in his life in general.
He was never a cossetted Louis Vuitton washbag-wielding member of a pro-youth set-up at a Premiership club as a kid. No, he very much graduated from the school of hard knocks. Literally as well as metaphorically.
There is an amusing passage early on in his new book about the reaction in his street in the tough Muirhouse housing scheme in Edinburgh where he grew up when the then Rangers manager John Greig arrived to sign him in his burgundy Jaguar one evening when he was aged just 14 in 1982.
It was a dream come true for a fan of the Glasgow club, a proud moment he has never forgotten. But his accomplishment did not go unnoticed by the less desirable element who attended his school. It led to him being attacked regularly and ultimately expelled.
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“Playing for Rangers definitely created problems for me growing up,” he said. “It was around the time of the casuals and I soon had the Hibs casuals and the Hearts casuals to deal with. They all thought they were hard men. But it was often 10 guys against one, them against me. It was difficult time, but I got through it and ended up playing for the team I love.”
Many of his contemporaries were unable to escape from the harsh environment they found themselves in. Heroin was rife in Edinburgh at that time and they were tempted by the milk of the poppy. Nisbet knows that he is fortunate he had football to keep him on the straight and narrow.
“I could easily have gone the other way because Muirhouse was riddled with drugs,” said Nisbet. “A lot of my friends, boys I grew up with and went to school with, took the drug route. They died young, are sadly no longer here now. Put it this way, if I had a class reunion now there would only be about four of us there. But that upbringing has definitely made me a much stronger person.”
His success also led to him being given a brief mention in Irvine Welsh’s cult novel Trainspotting. In the chapter called Speedy Recruitment, the character Spud is bemoaning the prejudice that prospective employees have towards former pupils of Craigroyston High School before a job interview.
“Ye ken Scott Nisbet, the fitba player likesay?” he says. “He's in the Rangers first team, haudin his ain against the aw they expensive international signins ay Souness's ken? That cat wis the year below us at Craigie, man."
Nisbet is tickled that he has a name check in one of Scotland’s great works of modern literature. “I was aware of who Irvine was during my time in the ghettos,” he said. “He went down a different path to me, associated with different people, was a junkie for a while. I tell you what, I am so glad he turned his life around and achieved what he achieved. It was nice of him to give me a mention in the book. I’m still waiting for my royalties mind!”
Nisbet recounts his parents’ volatile and occasionally violent marriage – including one occasion when six police officers were required to remove his father from his house - in detail in Red, White and True. But he speaks in glowing terms about every member of his family and it is clear they each played an important part in his inspiring rise in their own way. Not least his uncles.
“My uncle Malcolm played for Hibs, Grimsby and Aldershot when he was young and was later the manager of Boness United,” he said. “He got them to the Scottish Junior Cup final at Hampden one season.
“If I didn’t have a game on a Saturday, my uncles John, Malcolm and Dykes would take me to the football. One week they would go and support Hibs at Easter Road, the next week they would go and cheer on Hearts at Tynecastle. They followed both Hibs and Hearts.
“They would always meet up at the Persevere pub at the bottom of Easter Road on the days they were supporting Hibs, and when they were Hearts fans they would go to the BMC Club in Gorgie. I was always a Rangers fan because that was my dad’s team. Those were brilliant times.
“My brother David also won a football scholarship to America. He went to Campbell University in North Carolina. That was quite an achievement for someone from Muirhouse. He played for Meadowbank Thistle for a while when he came home, but he was smart and went into business. At one point he owned the sportswear brand Sondico before he sold it to Mike Ashley.”
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One particular childhood visit to Easter Road made an indelible impression on the young Nisbet and fuelled his ambition to turn professional – the day that Manchester United legend George Best made his debut for Hibs in 1979.
“The stadium was packed, absolutely packed,” he said. “Best was past his prime by then, but you could see he had ability. Every time he got the ball he ran at defenders and took people on. It was amazing to watch.”
After Graeme Souness succeeded Jock Wallace as manager at Rangers in 1986, the teenage Nisbet found himself vying with some modern day greats of the game for a place in the Ibrox first team.
“I started out as a centre-forward, but moved to centre-half and then to right-back,” he said. “In one game Souness asked me if I could play centre-half. I said, ‘Yeah, I can play centre-half’. I had an outstanding match. In the dressing room after the game Souness came up to me and said, ‘You’ll never play centre-forward again’.
“I was up against Terry Butcher and Richard Gough for a start, probably the two best centre-backs in Britain. When I got moved to right-back, I was competing with Gary Stevens, the best right-back in the world at the time. But I learned so much off them, it was an education.
“They knew I was a centre-forward who had come back to play centre-half and they would talk to me. They would say, ‘Nissy, do this. Nissy, do that’. They were brilliant with me.”
Nisbet never attained the same iconic status as Souness, Butcher, Gough or Stevens. But he certainly had his moments during the 11 years that he spent as a player in Govan. He was in the Rangers starting line-up for the Scottish title decider against Aberdeen at Ibrox on the final day of the 1990/91 season and helped his side to prevail 2-0 and clinch a league win which was vital for new manager Walter Smith.
“It was a massive game,” he said. We could have won the league at Motherwell, but we blew it. It came down to the game against Aberdeen. Tam Cowan broke his leg in that game and John Brown snapped his Achilles. But we all battled away and got the job done. That helped us to go on and make history. If we hadn’t won that day we wouldn’t have done Nine-In-A-Row.”
Then, of course, there is THAT goal against Club Brugge. Mention the name Scott Nisbet to any Rangers fan, to any Scottish football supporter in fact, and they will always mention his freak strike in the Champions League game against the Belgians at Ibrox in 1993. His speculative shot from outside the penalty box took a deflection off the foot of Stephan van der Heyden, bounced and arched over the head of goalkeeper Dany Verlinden. He is reminded about it to this day.
Strangely, though, it is another moment in that 2-1 triumph which Nisbet remembers. He is adamant the red card which striker Mark Hateley received before half-time that night cost them victory in their next outing against eventual champions Marseille in France and ultimately victory in the competition. To this day, he suspects that foul play may have been involved.
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“That was the season Marseille won the Champions League and were stripped of the French title for match fixing,” he said. “In my heart, I feel that a bit of bribery went on in Europe as well.
“We went 44 games undefeated that season. We were undefeated in the Champions League as well. It was amazing to be part of that. It was a great era. But we will never know what went on and what might have been.
“Mark should never have been sent off in that Club Brugge game. It was a nothing challenge. Was that a set up with the referee as well? I don’t know. But he had a good record against Marseille when he was at Monaco.”
That Club Brugge game turned out to be Nisbet’s last at Ibrox and the second last of his professional career. He suffered a groin strain in a nothing challenge on John Collins of Celtic in his next outing at Parkhead a few days later. That developed into a serious pelvic problem which eventually ended his playing days. Not even a visit to the infamous faith healer Eileen Drewery could prevent the inevitable.
Having to retire aged just 25 probably seemed trivial back in 2020 when he was taken in to hospital after suddenly taking unwell. A scan found that he had a tumour on his left kidney. Further tests showed the cancer had spread to his abdomen and trachea. By a string quirk of fate, being based in Lanzarote saved his life.
“They kept the hospitals over here open during the Covid-19 pandemic and the treatment I received was second to none,” he said. “If I had been back home, I don’t think I would have made it, I don’t think would still be here. The airlines kept operating flights too. I flew to Gran Canaria to get my operations and radiotherapy done. That was scary. I was the only person in the airport. But that is what saved me.
“I must say, Rangers have been superb with me, my old team-mates have been superb, the supporters have been superb. In fact, the whole football community has been superb with me, even Celtic fans.
“I have had good news recently. I had tests done last month and the results were really good. My oncologist doesn’t want to see me for another year. During all of this, I have had two new hips put in. It has been a tough couple of years, but I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel. I can dance again pain free!”
Despite everything he has been through, Nisbet laughs loudly and jokes a lot during our blether. He is an enormously likeable character. It is easy to understand why he is fondly remembered by Rangers fans and so highly thought of by those he played alongside. He could never, by his own admission, be considered an Ibrox icon. But few men to pull on a light blue jersey have such an interesting or uplifting story to tell.
Red, White and Blue: My Story by Scott Nisbet and Alistair Aird with a foreword by John Brown and an afterword by Ally McCoist is published by Pitch Publishing and is available to buy now.
