​The season gone (1966/67) had been disappointing, to say the least. With a squad that looked capable, Ian McColl’s team had spent most of the season looking nervously at the relegation places and finished in seventeenth position. A thrilling fifth-round FA Cup contest against Leeds that required three games to sort a winner gave an indicator of what this team could be capable of, but really, the high points of 1966/67 were few and far between!The youth team had brought high hopes and silverware in the shape of the FA Youth Cup, and a number of that team had made their full debuts.Many supporters (and I was one of them) had great expectations coming into this new campaign that Kerr, Hughes, Todd and Suggett would augment the experience and skill of Jimmy Monty, Slim Jim Baxter, Bullet Mulhall, Cec and Len the flowerpot men, Martin Harvey, Geordie Herd, big Neil Martin and, of course, King Charlie Hurley to deliver a cracking season.Ian McColl had added to this squad in the close season. Brian Heslop, a young nineteen-year-old defender who could play all three half-back positions, had been bought from Carlisle for £5,000. Not too much was known about this lad; he seemed to be one for the future.McColl had also gone to the other end of the player spectrum and, for the same price, signed the very experienced Ralph Brand from Manchester City. Brand had a stunning record from his time at Glasgow Rangers. The thirty-one-year-old was still Rangers’ top scorer with 206 goals in 317 games when he came to Sunderland. In Brand’s earliest years at Ibrox, Ian McColl had been Brand’s team captain. From 1960 to 1965, Brand had Jim Baxter playing behind him and supplying a veritable deluge of assists from that famed left foot nicknamed “the claw”. This was a golden era for the Ibrox team that Brand and Baxter were key ingredients of, as Rangers went on to dominate north of the border, winning three Scottish titles, three Scottish Cups, four Scottish League Cups and finishing runners-up in the 1960/61 UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup. Brand had a phenomenal record of scoring in cup finals and the big games for Rangers.When Ian McColl had become Scotland manager in 1960, he capped Brand eight times in two years. Brand rewarded him with eight goals in these eight games. It was only the emergence of Dennis Law that restricted Brand’s international career.In 1965, Brand had been transferred to Man City for £30,000, around the same time his on-field team-mate (and lifelong friend) Jim Baxter had gone to Sunderland.Brand endured a torrid time at Maine Road, suffering from injuries, a loss of form and a change in the managerial direction of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison. He played only twenty-two games in two seasons, scoring three goals! Ian McColl stepped in with a £5,000 offer and Brand agreed to the move, hoping to re-ignite the autumn of his career alongside his former international manager/captain and his on-field partner in crime and mayhem, Slim Jim.A si