Kai Johansen
Footballer and businessman;
Born February 23, 1940;
Died May 13, 2007.

In an era when the presence of foreign internationalists plying their trade in Scottish football is a common occurrence - even if not universally welcome - it may be a surprise to the younger generation to learn that as early as the mid-1960s the influx of Scandinavian players was a significant innovation and talking point.

Hal Stewart, the Morton manager of the day, was the trend-setter who persuaded Danish internationalists Erik Sorensen, Kai Johansen, Jorn Sorenson, Carl Bertelsen, Leif Neilsen, Bjarne Jensen, Per Arentoft and John Madsen to exhibit their skills at Cappielow.

From a footballing perspective, the signings transformed the club.

The players were all internationalists; but the key to transfers that today would raise more than a few eyebrows was the fact that they were amateurs in their native country.

One such player was Kai Johansen. Arguably the most talented of all the 1960s Scandinavians, Johansen was an attacking full-back of the highest quality who arrived in Scotland with 20 full international appearances to his name.

Born in Odense, Kai was rated as one of the finest full-backs in Europe, underlined by his selection for the Stanley Matthews Testimonial Match at the Victoria Ground, Stoke, in 1965 that attracted football's best in tribute to the great man.

His £20,000 transfer to Rangers in the summer of 1965 should have been the prelude to a whole host of club honours, but the great Rangers team of the early 1960s was breaking up and Johansen found it difficult to adjust to life at Ibrox, by no means the first or last to so do.

He was certainly not the first Dane to wear the light blue: compatriot Carl Hansen had enjoyed a brief but successful sojourn in Govan in the 1920s.

The then Ibrox boss, Scot Symon, believed that defenders were there to defend and not to cross the halfway line.

The concept of attacking full-backs had bypassed him, and given that the Dane was by nature and inclination an adventurous, athletic, overlapping player of some pace, the restrictions that his manager sought to impose on his style of play created immediate problems that in particular was manifested in the 1965 League Cup final when Johansen had a most difficult time against the powerful and physical presence of John Hughes.

By the second-half of that inaugural season, however, Symon was persuaded to give Kai his freedom to attack, and the transformation in his game was emphatic.

By the season's close Johansen had written himself into the annals of Ibrox folklore with a stunning 25-yard drive to win the 1966 Scottish Cup final in a replayed 1-0 triumph over Celtic. It was the first by a foreigner in Scottish Cup final history.

It is a goal that lives on in the mind's eye of those present to this day.

However, the Dane's contribution to the success was more than just that goal, spectacular though it had been, for throughout both games he had effectively nullified the threat from Hughes, thus laying the ghost of the earlier League Cup final. Despite remaining at Ibrox for another four years, that Scottish Cup success would remain the only major trophy success of his career in light blue.

The European Cup Winners' Cup final of 1967 and the Scottish Cup final of 1969 both ended in defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich and Celtic respectively, but Kai Johansen remained a popular figure with Rangers' fans. He made 238 appearances for the club, scoring nine goals, before retiring in 1970 at the ridiculously early age of 30.

He then worked as a coach in South Africa with Arcadia Shepherds for a spell before returning to Scotland, where over the years he had a number of business interests, including public houses and sunbed centres.

He became very much an adopted Scot, even marrying at the grand Cameron House Hotel, Loch Lomond, as recently as 2004.

In recent years he bravely fought cancer, undergoing surgery in the Isle of Man to remove a tumour last year. Sadly, it was a losing battle and he died last Sunday.



ROBERT McELROY