At 61, Derek Parlane remains incredibly bright and youthful.

"I do try to look after myself but it must be something in my genes," says the former Rangers striker who, 35 years ago this week, left Ibrox to sign for Leeds United. By a miracle Parlane today looks scarcely any different from his fine playing days.

In conversation he is a throwback to a vintage period for Rangers: the sometimes momentous 1970s. In a game older Rangers fans will never forget, Willie Waddell handed Parlane his debut aged 18 on the night of April 19, 1972 in the European Cup Winners' Cup semi-final second-leg against Bayern Munich. After 21 minutes the ball fell at an awkward angle to him and Parlane somehow dug out a half-volley and scored past the great Sepp Maier.

"It was my Sliding Doors moment, the night that launched my career," he recalls. "I've sometimes thought back to that 21st minute against Bayern Munich in Glasgow and wondered: 'what would have happened to me had that shot gone over the bar?' It might all have been so different. The ball dropped to me, it was a half-volley, and my shot just scraped under the bar. I was incredibly lucky. I was just an ordinary guy in the right place at the right time.

"When Willie Waddell came in that night and started reading out the team - 'McCloy, Jardine, Mathieson, Parlane, Jackson, Smith . . .' - I was astonished. I thought there had been some mistake. I believed Alfie Conn would get the place of the injured John Greig. But it was the start of everything for me."

To the tune of The First Noel, the Rangers fans for years thereafter sang a song in homage to their centre-forward hero, easily recalled today: "Parlane, Parlane, Parlane, Parlane . . . born is the king of Ibrox Park." That song, too, was a page-turning moment for the striker.

"It was in the 1972-73 season when I first heard that chant. I was still a young kid, still trying to make my way at Rangers. But then, one winter's night, for the first time I heard that song about me, to the tune of The First Noel, coming off the Rangers end. I remember thinking, 'wow, they've accepted me, I've got a chance'. It was an unforgettable moment for me."

The tone was set for nine years as a Rangers and Scotland striker, first under the eccentric Waddell and then under Jock Wallace. Parlane today looks back to these times as the greatest days of his life.

"I'm not being disparaging about him, but Willie Waddell and I never really got on too well," he confesses. "He was a strong, powerful, intimidating man who had his favourites, and I wasn't one of them. He also had this peculiar 'traffic lights' system outside his office door at Ibrox. You'd knock on the door and, depending on what was happening inside, the light would flash red, amber or green. It sounds ridiculous today.

"It was actually Jock Wallace who had the greatest influence on me. I loved the guy, he was immense. At the start of the 1972-73 season Colin Stein was transferred to Coventry, and Big Jock threw me the No.9 jersey and said, 'here, son, make this shirt your own'. It was the start of a great time for me at Rangers."

After 80 goals in 202 appearances for Rangers, in March 1980 Parlane made a move away from Glasgow which he almost instantly regretted. He went to Leeds United, then in their post-1970s faded glory, for a marriage that never really worked.

"I'd been a decade at Rangers, I was 27 years old, and I felt I needed a fresh challenge," he says. "But it was a pretty strange experience. The day I left Rangers I had this sinking feeling that I was making a mistake. And when I arrived in Leeds I had that same feeling again. I just felt, 'this is a mistake'. My three years there weren't great, even though I scored on my debut, and I think my performances reflected my state of mind down there. I just couldn't replicate what I'd done at Rangers."

In 1983 Parlane moved on to Manchester City, then managed by Billy McNeill, and it meant he was well on his way to playing for the same three clubs that his father, Jimmy, had played for.

"I'd played against Billy McNeill a few times for Rangers in the early 1970s - at the start of my career and towards the end of his - and I maybe gave him a torrid time. Billy once told me that, if he ever became a manager, he'd like to have me in his team. I had a great time at Man City, and Maine Road back then was a great stadium to play in.

"As for my late dad, that is a strange quirk. My dad played for Rangers in 1947-48, and he had also been posted to Manchester during the war, and had played for City. He also went on to play for Airdrie, which I did late in my career as well. So I played for the three same clubs as my dad. It was a fluke."

Parlane has now been retired a year after spending 23 years in the sportswear business, including working for Reebok for 10 years. Through that, he got to know a figure not so well loved at Ibrox these days.

"I know Barry Leach really well - I hope that won't count against me!" he says. "Barry phoned me recently and said, 'I see your name in here [at Ibrox] on this board. I said, 'Barry, that isn't a board, that's the Rangers Hall of Fame. I keep him right."

On trips back to Glasgow from his north of England home, Parlane still gets recognised. "I was in Glasgow recently when a Celtic fan ran up to me and said 'hey, Derek, it's great to see you...but I hated you back then'. It suggested to me there was a kind of mutual respect there."