Rangers hero talks about his stage four cancer fight, scoring a historic goal at Ibrox and a career-ending goal at Celtic Park.

As anyone who’s been following the remarkable Sir Chris Hoy’s story in recent weeks, that’s not news anyone wants to hear. “It would have been a death sentence thirty years ago,” Nisbet says.

With the shock of Hoy’s announcement still vivid, he knows enough to know that it still might prove that. However, he’s desperate to put his shoulder to the wheel – or should that be foot to the pedal – in support of the ‘Tour de 4’ charity ride Hoy is planning from Glasgow to Edinburgh next summer to demonstrate stage 4 does not necessarily signal the endgame. As soon as he knows the dates, Nisbet says, he will book his flight over from the Canary Isles, where he moved 20 years ago.

“He (Hoy) has gone from stage 4 cancer to announcing it is terminal,” he adds. “I’d love to work with him and do the cycle from Glasgow to Edinburgh. I know exactly what he’s been through. So do many other people with stage 4 cancer as well.”

It was a lonely journey in more ways than one. His three children are spread between Edinburgh, his hometown, and Australia. In the latter case, his eldest, TJ, was often inaccessible in the extreme. “He is a steeplejack,” reports a proud Nisbet. “He hangs from skyscrapers and does repairs, things like that. He sometimes goes into the outback, into open mine shafts and abseils down them.”

Nisbet was living on the edge too. His older sister Deborah had died from kidney cancer. Now he was facing having his own left kidney removed. Meanwhile, with no tourists permitted to travel to the island, his soccer school business was in cold storage. “I had to survive on what money I had already made from the soccer school, some savings,” he says. He had already sold his medals a few years earlier to help fund his coaching ambitions.

“Mentally and physically it was hard,” he continues. “Having the big (kidney) operation and then getting radiotherapy, your body gets battered, you know what I mean? I had bad days and good days. I was determined I wasn’t going to let it get the better of me.”

His condition improved to the extent that he was allowed to travel to Sydney to celebrate TJ’s 30th birthday. “My oncologist and urologist gave me permission to fly,” he says. “If they had not given me permission, I would not have gone – I did not want to be stuck on the other side of the world if anything happened.” His other children, Indya and Chad, joined him. He had feared never seeing them again.

Another emotional trip was back to Ibrox just over a year ago. Unfortunately, it was the 3-1 defeat to Aberdeen that cost Michael Beale his job. He was in the Cooper Club, the suite named after his old teammate Davie. “I was dying to get on that pitch and just grab the players by the scuff of the neck: ‘Come on lads, you’re playing for Rangers now!’” he says. “I had to sit nice and polite.”

Not many, I’d wager, although this strike against Club Brugge is wedged in my and other people’s memory and is being constantly enjoyed afresh online. The kids at the soccer school are impressed, perhaps having looked over the shoulders of parents tapping Nisbet’s name into Google seeking confirmation of his football credentials. They exclaim: “You scored in the Champions League!”. He replies, “Aye. When it was the proper Champions League!”

Rangers were one of eight champions split into two groups of four in the inaugural season of the Champions League. Nisbet’s goal is brought to mind this week with Brugge due on the other side of Glasgow. As hard to believe as it is, Wednesday’s Champions League clash with Celtic is the first time the Belgian side have been back in Scotland on competitive duty since that rain drenched night in March 1993, when Rangers were looking to extend their unbeaten run in Europe’s premier club competition.

Although they went ahead with a goal from Ian Durrant, it wasn’t looking good when Brugge equalised early in the second half with the hosts having already been reduced to ten men after a red card for Mark Hateley. Cue Nisbet. “It might be the biggest fluke in Europe this season, but who cares!” cried commentator Alan Parry as Nisbet’s shot-cum-cross – or was it a tackle? – from near the touchline struck a divot and arced over the head of goalkeeper Dany Verlinden.

“The half-time team talk by the gaffer (Walter Smith) was, ‘Keep battling, keep winning everything’. And we did. Luckily, I went in for the ball. And the boy pulled out at the last second. The ball caught part of his boot. And then it must have hit the driest spot on the pitch that night, because the last time I saw the ball it was heading towards Harthill!” He looked up to find it had taken a diversion into the back of the net. Ally McCoist can be seen wheeling away, arms in air. “He thought the ball was coming in for him,” smiles Nisbet. “I deliberately missed him out!”

Sir David Murray, the former Rangers chairman, has broken cover to write the foreword. To be fair to Souness, he later returned to manage an ‘international select’ in Nisbet’s testimonial, with the defender coming on to score a late penalty in time-honoured tradition. When the defender did eventually make a sensational return to football, it was no surprise it was for Rangers – Arniston Rangers. Junior football was probably not on any prescribed list of pastimes for someone in his already compromised physical condition, especially given the logistical complications.

“I was on the beach with my sunglasses on, watching the world go by…And I got a phone call from the chairman of Arniston,” recalls Nisbet. “He said, ‘Nizzy, what are you up to?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m lying on the beach at the moment, I’m enjoying myself.’ “He says, ‘Any chance you could come back Saturday? We’re playing Whitburn. If we get beat, we’ll get relegated. I’ll give you 500 quid and I’ll pay your flight.’ “I said, ‘OK then’. So, I flew back on the Friday, played against Whitburn at Whitburn. Won. I was back in Playa Blanca on the Sunday.”

The arrangement continued for nine years and came at the cost of his two hips, something he was warned might happen. One kidney taken out, two new hips put in. “I’m held together by duct tape,” he says. Nevertheless, he’s keeping on keeping on. He power walks to his soccer school every day, including Christmas Day, when holidaying kids want to show off their new football shirts. He’s amused by the thought of Brugge coming back to Glasgow for the first time since his goal. “I think that finished them off!” he says. “Maybe Celtic will give me an invite!”

Maybe they will. Nisbet deserves all the goodwill going, from friend and foe – he mentions how many messages of support he has received from across the game, including Celtic supporters. At times recently, the only invite he feared he was getting was to his own funeral. He has, however, recently received good news. “A few weeks ago…” he says. “I had to go back to Gran Canaria for a CT scan and blood tests. And now the results have come back: No cancer. Or, as they put it, no disease! That’s how they put it to me!”