Alistair Murdoch "Ally" McCoist, MBE (/məˈkɔɪst/); 24 September 1962) is a Scottish football manager and former player. He is the manager of Rangers in Scotland.
McCoist began his career with St Johnstone before moving to Sunderland in 1981. He returned to Scotland two years later and signed with Rangers. At Rangers, McCoist became the club's record goalscorer, netting 355 goals. In addition to this McCoist holds the Rangers records for number of league goals scored, number of Scottish League Cup goals scored and the most goals scored by a player in European competitions with 251, 54 and 21 respectively. McCoist is also third in the all-time appearance table for Rangers, having made 581 appearances for the club.
He is second in the Scottish top tier league's all time leading goalscorer having netted 282 times for St. Johnstone, Rangers and Kilmarnock between 1979 and 2001.
Largely thanks to his career at Rangers, McCoist was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2007. He is also a member of the Scotland Football Hall of Fame, having gained 61 international caps.
Paul John Gascoigne (born 27 May 1967), nicknamed Gazza, is an English retired professional footballer.
Playing in the position of midfield, Gascoigne's career included spells at Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Lazio, Rangers, Middlesbrough, Everton and Gansu Tianma, at all of which he scored at least one goal. He was capped 57 times for the England national football team.
Gascoigne was born in the Dunston area of Gateshead, England.
Gascoigne started playing football at the age of four, playing in the street and nearby park. He played for his school Brighton Avenue Primary School, Gateshead team from the age of eight, and later played for the local Redheugh Boys' Club although being underage. He later attended Breckenbeds Junior High School (which closed in September 1996) then the Heathfield Senior High School (also closed in September 1996), both in the Low Fell area of Gateshead.
He was noticed by football scouts while playing for Gateshead Boys, and given a trial at Ipswich Town although he failed to impress. Further trials at Middlesbrough and Southampton proved unsuccessful, before Newcastle United signed him as a schoolboy in 1980. At school he was once caught practising his autograph during a geography lesson, his reason being that he was "going to be a famous footballer". His teacher was unimpressed, telling him that "only one in a million becomes a professional footballer." Nevertheless, he was signed on as an apprentice at Newcastle in 1983, initially playing for the youth team under Colin Suggett.
Alexander "Alex" McLeish (born 21 January 1959), is a Scottish former professional football player and manager. Born in Glasgow, McLeish played as a central defender for Aberdeen during their 1980s glory years, making nearly 500 League appearances for the club, and won 77 caps for Scotland.
He started his managerial career with spells at Motherwell and Hibernian, before guiding Rangers to two championships and five cup wins in five years. McLeish spent ten months as manager of the Scotland national team which narrowly failed to qualify for the finals of the 2008 UEFA European championship. He then resigned this post in November 2007 to become manager of Birmingham City, who were in the Premier League at the time. Though Birmingham were relegated at the end of the season, McLeish guided them back to the Premier League in 2009. Birmingham then won the 2011 Football League Cup Final, but were relegated again from the Premier League at the end of the 2010–11 season.
Following this relegation he resigned his post at Birmingham to become manager at their city rivals, Aston Villa. This made him the first manager to move directly from Birmingham City to Aston Villa, and only the second manager after Ron Saunders to manage both clubs. Having only narrowly avoided relegation in the 2011–12 Premier League season, his contract was terminated by Villa at the end of his first season.