IT was a day to forget and the pain lasted for weeks. The ramifications were felt months later and now, 50 years on, it has not been surpassed.

It was the biggest shock that Scottish football has ever seen. It was Berwick Rangers 1-0 Rangers.

The events at Shielfield Park on January 28, 1967 sent shockwaves across our game yet the result was only one footnote in what was a remarkable year for Rangers, Celtic and Scotland.

The Wembley Wizards and the Lisbon Lions were born, while the Light Blues suffered European heartache against the might of Bayern Munich.

The year had started with a result that is engrained in the folklore of our game and a match that was the ultimate giant-killing as Sammy Reid netted the only goal in front of a crowd of just over 13,000.

The memories are still vivid for Willie Johnston, but they are certainly not happy ones. Rangers had been trailing for half an hour before the outside left was forced from the field, his afternoon going from bad to worse as the minutes ticked on.

“I ended up in the hospital with a broken ankle, so it wasn’t a great day for me,” he told SportTimes. “Big Jock Wallace done me. He never apologised for it either!

“I was lying in the hospital and I asked the nurse what the score was. She said ‘1-0 to Rangers’ and I went ‘that is alright then’ and she said ‘no, it was Berwick Rangers’. That was that. It wasn’t a good day, put it that way.

“I thought as time was going on that we would score goals, but it wasn’t to be. I was lying in the hospital and just hoping that we would win.

“I don’t know what happened. If I knew the answer, we wouldn’t have got beat.”

The result was astonishing, the reasons why it had come about seemingly unexplainable. It was just one of those days for Rangers.

Manager Scot Symon had left nothing to chance and fielded a side that contained the likes of John Greig, Ronnie McKinnon, Dave Smith, Willie Henderson and Johnston.

While his team-mates were left to suffer the ignominy of hearing the final whistle and trudging off the park as Berwick celebrated, Johnston had already left the action behind.

It was on the journey home that the magnitude of what had unfolded truly began to sink in.

“I had to travel back on the bus to Glasgow,” Johnston said. “I had to wait on the team and they picked me up on the bus at the hospital in Berwick.

“I was lying in the back seat with a broken ankle. It was agony.

“It was a terrible journey, absolutely shocking. I don’t think anybody muttered a word.

“Scot Symon and Davie Kinnear had to take me to the hospital when we got back and I can remember them talking in the car.

“I mind Scot Symon saying ‘I think this could be the last game David’. I think he knew he would be out at some point.

“There was a lot of talk that Scot was coming to end anyway because he was getting a bit old and Celtic were on the march after Jock Stein arrived.

“After a result like Berwick, the manager knew himself I think. But he was still in charge when we got beat in Nuremberg.”

Johnston and Smith returned to Berwick on Friday evening for a dinner that commemorated the achievements of Reid and his Wee Gers team-mates.

It was a tale that encapsulated the romance of the cup, yet the love affair ended for two members of Symon’s side.

The fall-out was, as expected, significant at Ibrox. Symon survived but Jim Forrest and George McLean would not.

The pair were pinpointed as the reason for Rangers’ defeat and within weeks had been sold to Preston North End and Dundee respectively.

“We were confident of winning the game,” Johnston said. “Berwick played well, they made it hard for us and at the end of the day they deserved to win.

“These things happen in cup games, but Berwick Rangers beating Rangers was the biggest shock of all time.

“We were a team that got beat on the day and Berwick deserved to win. Jim and George got the blame for it, though.

“We couldn’t say anything, we weren’t in any position to say anything. We were a team but those two boys took the blame, definitely.

“I wasn’t in on the Monday but there was a big inquest and I know certain things were said.

“The players took the blame for it but at the end of the day it was Jim and George that took the brunt of it.”

Only Symon will know if he regretted the decisions that he took in the days that followed that defeat. History will allow others to judge, though.

Rangers would end the season without any silverware, the Scottish Cup exit preceded by a loss to Celtic at Hampden and followed by a Division One campaign that saw them finish behind Stein’s side.

The biggest regret came on the continent. Symon had lead the Gers to the European Cup Winners’ Cup final six years previously but there was to be no redemption as Franz Roth’s extra-time winner denied them in the Nürnbergerstadion.

“I would say that was the biggest disappointment,” Johnston said. “To get beat in the early rounds of the Scottish Cup was bad, but it wasn’t a disaster.

“To get beat in a European final, that was the worst one for me.

“I think we would have won it [if Forrest and McLean had played]. We were a good team.

“Berwick was a bad day but everybody has a bad day. After that game, Jim and Big George never got another game.

“It ended up that against Munich we didn’t have a centre-forward and Roger Hynd played up front. I am not criticising anybody. It just wasn’t to be."