Neil Simpson has broken his silence over his controversial tackle on Ian Durrant, saying: ‘I am sorry for the outcome. 100 per cent. If I could turn the clock back then I wish it did not happen.’
Durrant was carried from the field at Pittodrie 1988 with ruptured knee ligaments and was out the game for almost three years.
The tackle was seen as the start of the bitter rivalry that exists between Aberdeen and Rangers to this day.
But Simpson, 64, told Daily Mail Sport the conflict had begun in matches between the teams after Aberdeen became ‘dominant’ in the early eighties.
He said: ‘I have been in some battles with Rangers before the incident with Durrant.
‘I have seen crowds coming on the pitch, two players sent off, fights in the middle of the pitch, fights in the tunnel. Uproar. It was a powder-keg fixture.’
Aberdeen midfielder Neil Simpson tackles Rangers’ Ian Durrant back in 1988
In Simmy, his autobiography to be published on May 11, he said the match in October 1988 had a build-up that was “incendiary”.
He writes: ‘Grisly tackles were flying in the first few minutes.’ He then adds of the infamous tackle: ‘As I strove to get the ball, I stood on the knee of Ian Durrant, who was coming in from the other direction. It was a bad incident. I have never shirked away from that.’
The incident led to legal action with an out of court insurance settlement.
Simpson, who has never spoken to Durrant about the match, believes Rangers used the controversy to undermine Aberdeen. ‘When I received a letter from my solicitors over the negotiations I would find it was in the press a couple of days later,’ he said.
He wrote that when he later visited the Rangers training centre in his role as an SFA coach: ‘John Greig spotted me and spat out the words: “Who the f*** let him in the building”.
Simpson pointed out he was never sent off in his career and had played ‘310 games for Aberdeen, reserve games, boys games. That is Gary Lineker territory.’
Ian Durrant is carried off the Pittodrie pitch by Rangers coach Phil Boersma
The tackle, though, made him a hate figure for a section of the Rangers support.
Staff at a grocer’s shop in his village told him they were regularly asked where he lived. Police also informed him when his address was printed in a Rangers fanzine.
He said: ‘I have no antipathy against any Rangers player. I was on holiday once and one of Durrant’s best footballing pals was there with his family.
‘I didn’t know whether to approach him or not but he waved over and said we should catch up for a drink and our two families spent some time together.’
He also said Andy Roxburgh, then the national coach, suggested he should travel to the hospital and apologise to Durrant. Simpson said he would have but was advised not to do it for legal reasons.
Simpson also reveals in his book that he was the son of an unmarried mother and only traced his father in 2021.
