It’s Lorenzo Amoruso Day – well, one of them anyway, with Blackburn Rovers fans celebrating the feast on April 5.
When the Italian centre-back joined Rangers in the summer of 1997, the 1-11 system was still in force in Scotland and he was usually to be seen in the number 5 shirt, as he had worn for Fiorentina in the first two seasons of squad numbering in Serie A.
The Scottish Cup final defeat to Hearts marked the end of Walter Smith’s successful stint as manager – the first of two, as it transpired – and the new boss was to be Dutchman Dick Advocaat.
In the Netherlands, the traditional numbering for a back four is lowest to highest, right to left – whether Advocaat planned to implement that at Rangers regardless of the players available, we do not know, but among his signings was left-back Arthur Numan, who had played under him at PSV.
The 1998-99 season was to be the first with squad numbers in the Scottish league and Rangers’ list had Numan at 5, with Amoruso given 3 – any sense of a ‘relegation’ offset by the fact that he was the new captain. Number 4 was given to new signing Daniel Prodan – the Romanian defender, now sadly departed, generally wore 3 for the national team but, unfortunately for him, injuries prevented him from having any impact at Ibrox.
Fittingly for Amoruso, the number 3 would lead the Gers to a domestic treble – in both the League Cup and Scottish Cup finals, they used 1-11, with Tony Vidmar deputising for Numan in the latter, wearing 5.
Come the summer of 1999, Amoruso would switch, however – taking the number 4 as Prodan was allocated 25. Colin Hendry, heavily associated with the number 5, had been given 35 when he joined from Blackburn Rovers mid-way through 1998-99 and, while he dropped down for 1999-2000, it was only as far as 16.
Instead, the number 3 was given to Craig Moore, meaning he achieved the unusual feat of wearing three different numbers for the same club across two seasons.
Given number 19 at the beginning of 1998-99, he joined Crystal Palace in October in a joint-deal with Gordan Petrić – they were in Division 1 of the Football League, where 1-11 still pertained, and he mainly wore 5 for them along with 4 on occasion – but the Eagles were beset with financial problems.
So it was that the Australian was back in Glasgow at the end of March. With 19 having been taken by goalkeeper Stefan Klos – and Petrić’s 15 gone to Stephan Guivarc’h – Moore was housed in number 38 for the remainder of the campaign before dropping to 3.
He would remain there until his departure in 2005.
