10 Important Last Minute Goals That Should Never Have Happened

8. Ally Mitchell - Rangers 0-1 Kilmarnock (2 May 1998)

Referee Bobby Tait was retiring at the end of the season, and as a Rangers supporter, requested one last game at Ibrox. Surprisingly, it was granted, and with Rangers tying Jock Stein's nine titles in a row the season before, there were howls of conspiracy from the green side of Glasgow in a tight title race.

Tait had courted controversy earlier in the season, adding on five minutes of injury time in a Celtic visit to Tynecastle, which allowed Hearts' Jose Quitongo to score a late leveller. The paranoia only grew a month later when Hearts visited Celtic Park, where - despite a stop-start second half - Tait added less than a minute on in a game that finished goalless.

While Tait's overall refereeing of the game wasn't really in question, he found four minutes of injury-time at the end of the first half, which no-one could really figure out. In the second half, with Rangers looking for the breakthrough, the clock hit 90 minutes still scoreless. There weren't many stoppages in the second half, yet the game kept going. If there was any grace period from the referee to allow Rangers time to find a winner, it backfired spectacularly.

In the 94th minute, a cross from the right found Ally Mitchell, who rolled the ball into the bottom corner to give Killie a huge win in their race for Europe. Painfully, Rangers would go on to lose the title by just two points, as Celtic managed to stop their biggest rivals winning a record tenth title in a row.

Contributor
Contributor

A professional quizmaster, Jody loves MMA and likes to flirt overtly with pro wrestling. Supporting Aberdeen has been a fantastic character builder over the years.