Munich goal hero Danny Lennon back in Kirkcaldy to reminisce about Raith Rovers’ 1995 European campaign

The West Lothian-born 56-year-old, currently managing Raith’s William Hill Championship rivals Airdrieonians, took part in a question-and-answer session at the town’s Waterstones to promote a new book about the Fifers’ only European campaign to date, We Led in Munich: The Unlikely adventures of Raith Rovers in Europe, written by lifelong fan Steven Lawther and printed by West Sussex-based Pitch Publishing.

Lawther, 55, originally from Glenrothes but living in Edinburgh these days, also read extracts from his 288-page book, priced £18.99 and available at the chain’s High Street branch and the Pratt Street club shop as well as online, and interviewed Lennon in front of a capacity attendance of 50 and both signed copies.

Around 10,000 Raith fans were among a crowd of 12,818 there to see manager Jimmy Nicholl’s team, captained by Shaun Dennis, beaten 2-0 by the German giants at Hibernian’s Easter Road Stadium on that Tuesday night three decades ago and more than 1,200 headed to the Bavarian capital two weeks later for the second leg, a 2-1 defeat at Bayern’s Olympiastadion watched by a turnout of 27,000.

108-times-capped German international striker Jurgen Klinsmann scored both of the visitors’ goals in Edinburgh, on six minutes and 73, and got their first at home, on 50, after Lennon had put the Scots ahead with a free-kick past goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, helped by an Andreas Herzog deflection, on 43, with Markus Babbel getting the hosts’ second on 64.

That 4-1 aggregate knockout by the cup’s eventual winners ended a six-match campaign, following on from a 3-2 aggregate first-round win against Iceland’s Iþrottabandalag Akraness that September, losing 1-0 away after a 3-1 victory at home; and a 6-2 aggregate knockout of the Faroe Islands’ Gotu Itrottarfelag in that August’s preliminary round, drawing 2-2 on the road after winning 4-0 at Stark’s Park.

Recalling that unprecedented and unrepeated venture into overseas competition, Lennon told last night’s audience: “The opportunity to go and grace a football pitch with the likes of the mighty Bayern Munich is every young boy’s dream when you’re eight, nine or ten years of age.

“Europe just had a totally different feel to it. To go out there and and challenge yourself against players that have been playing in World Cups, European Cup finals and at the top of the game.

“If you’re a professional football player, you want to pit your brains and challenge yourself against the top players and and we had that opportunity to do so.

“Was it realistic that we were going to get through? No, it wasn’t, you know, but there was always that belief in that journey that we all shared together. It was unbelievable and magic.

“When you’re playing and managing, you don’t look at things the same way. It’s not until maybe I’m filling out my CV and applying for jobs et cetera.

“You don’t really realise what you achieved and what you had, but to have had that opportunity, to have that deflected goal go in and get credited with it, you know, I'll take that.

“The biggest thing for me was to share that journey with wonderful people like yourselves, the fans. From day one coming into Stark’s Park, you just opened your arms to me, took to me and just made it feel like home, and it was an absolute pleasure. To come and play for you guys, it was a real honour.

“There were big, big clubs, even English ones, I think, that we could have drawn, but if we could have hand-picked one, that would have been the one that we would have all chosen.

“Going into those against Gotu and then Akraness, there was very, very little we knew about them. You didn’t have the data and you didn’t have the internet like you do today and sometimes when I think about that, I think that’s not a bad thing because sometimes we can overanalyse games. Sometimes, as coaches, as football players, we make a beautiful game complicated and it is just simple – a ball, 22 players, go and work your socks off, go and give your fans what exactly they want.

“That whole experience, looking at Bayern Munich going on to win that trophy and you look at the group of players that we had. We were determined and we were hard-working.

“I wish we’d had Bayern Munich at Stark’s Park – that is the only thing I’d change. I can totally understand, from a commercial point of view, why it happened, but if we’d maybe played here in Kirkcaldy, then maybe we’d have had a more realistic chance. I think that would have been one of our best chances because they wouldn’t have known where they were, looking behind the goal and there are people sitting on a roof!

“The thing that I was concentrating on that night in Munich was making Kahn work. The biggest thing for me was just to make sure that I hit the target as something can happen. As we’ve all seen, you know, Herzog puts his big napper in the way and he deflects it. It was a great moment.”

Easter Road – chosen by Raith to host the first leg because its capacity was more than twice that of Stark’s Park, 5,500 at the time, since increased to 8,867 – was familiar territory for Lennon, having played for Hibs from 1987 to 1993 before moving to Kirkcaldy and later to Ayr United, Ross County, Partick Thistle, Gretna and Cowdenbeath.

Looking back at swapping the capital for the kingdom north of the Firth of Forth, he said: “There was talk about me coming to Raith Rovers two years before I did.

“I got to know Jimmy and he’d actually made a couple of attempts to bring me here, but Hibs were a big club, you know – it was like a family club. It was all that I’d known from the age of 15 and I still had two years of my contract to run when Jimmy came calling on the last day of the window. If I’d known then the experience I’d go on to have at Raith, I would have come two years earlier.

“I knew that Rovers were one game away from being relegated and going back down into the old first division at that particular time, but it was something that I needed, you know. I needed a better opportunity to come and play regular first-team football. At Hibs I was getting the odd few minutes here and there and that wasn’t good enough for me.

“The camaraderie in that dressing room at Raith was absolutely incredible. It’ll always be a special chapter in my life. There were unforgettable moments.

“Shaun Dennis epitomises what Raith Rovers were all about. He was absolutely fantastic for me and for two years we were thick as thieves. The nonsense that us two used to get up to bears no comparing to the professionalism at Hibernian but, for some reason, it worked and I wouldn’t change it for a minute.”

Rovers had earned their place in Europe by beating Celtic 6-5 in a penalty shootout, after ending open play tied at 2-2, to win the Scottish league cup, known as the Coca-Cola Cup at the time, in November 1994 at Glasgow’s Ibrox Stadium, watched by a crowd of 45,384.

That followed a 5-4 penalty shootout win after drawing 1-1 hosting Airdrie in their semi-final the month before, getting the better of St Johnstone by 3-1 away in the last eight that September, edging out Kilmarnock 3-2 at home in round three and giving Ross County a 5-0 second-round hiding on the road.

Remembering that route to silverware, Lennon, ruled out of the final itself by an injury in training, said: “We weren’t firing on all cylinders in the league as the campaign got under way, but, for some reason, in the midweek games we were playing really, really well and put in some big performances and got some big results.

“I remember Ally Graham scoring a hat-trick at Dingwall, I remember wee Colin Cameron getting a fantastic hat-trick against Kilmannock and there was a difficult tie away up at St Johnstone in the quarter-finals and then you thought, bang, this could be something special.

“I wasn’t thinking of Europe or anything. It was just euphoria, the opportunity to get to a major cup final again. I did experience a couple at Hibs but only as part of squads. I never got on the pitch with them.

“I think there were only five days to go to the final and we were up training and one of the wee young boys, Mark Quinn, caught me late. He caught me just on the top of the foot with a late tackle. That happens – it’s part of football. I got up from that tackle and I was walking gingerly and, within ten to 15 seconds, I was running about again. I then just heard a snap, so it must have just been about to go. I knew deep down then that that was that and that was my final gone.

“I remember going up to the hospital and I got an X-ray and I had a wee moment to yourself and there were a wee couple of tears, but you get over that.

“The lads in that dressing room, the characters, they’re with you, they feel it for you, but you know there’s a job to be done and, for me, the biggest part was not feeling sorry for myself.

“I’ll never forget how Jimmy Nicholl still made me feel a part of things – the gatherings, going away, the preparation before – and that meant a great deal to me.

“He also took me along there so that I could help guide the younger boys like Stevie Crawford and Cameron, but those guys, they were fearless, absolutely fearless, real Roy of the Rovers stuff.

“Some players go through their full careers and never get to a cup final, never get anywhere near it, and it was absolutely fantastic. Each and every single one of them had such an impact. When they won the cup, I was absolutely delighted for them.”