The moment Rangers fans turned toxic at Hampden as Motherwell sensed missed opportunity after ferocious booing

From Beith Juniors to starring in a national cup semi-final at Hampden Park and giving Rangers an almighty scare - it’s been a whirlwind six months for Motherwell defender Ewan Wilson.

The 19-year-old has been an ever-present in Stuart Kettlewell’s side this term, starting every game for the Steelmen during his breakthrough season at Fir Park. After loan spells with Stirling Albion in League Two and West of Scotland League outfit Beith, not even Wilson could have imagined he would have cemented his spot in the Steelmen’s starting XI in such a short period of time.

Walking out of the tunnel at the national stadium ahead of Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup last-four meeting with the Ibrox club, Wilson quite rightly took a moment to soak in how far he has come.

“I had to take a second for myself to reflect on such a milestone, from where I’ve come from,” he admitted. “I always look back on it and it has been a massive couple of months for me. It has been a whirlwind, coming from where I was in March to now playing in a semi-final at Hampden. It’s something that I can look back on, and it’s a really good achievement for me.

“It’s always good to hear positive feedback from the gaffer, no matter what you’re doing if that’s coming off the bench or as a starter. It’s a really good achievement (for the club). It’s been a while since we’ve been to a semi-final, so it was good to get over 8000 fans here and even though it was a disappointing result it was still a nice day out for them to remember.”

Andy Halliday had opened the scoring for the Lanarkshire side after 25 minutes against his former club, but Rangers staged a second half comeback with goals from Cyriel Dessers and Nedim Bajrami securing an Old Firm final showdown against Celtic on Sunday, December 15.

For Wilson, he reckons the current group of players Kettlewell has assembled will have other opportunities in the near future to go one step further and reach a cup final, despite stopping what they’re good at on Sunday.

“I think we will definitely be better for the experience as a team and a group,” he stated. “I feel we can go further and get to a final. We do have a great bunch of lads here, togetherness is great, so I do think we have that grit and determination to keep fighting until the end. I think it benefits us going forward and if we ever get this chance again, I’m sure we will do better.

“It was tough. We go ahead, I thought we started off really well, had them on the back foot and their fans turned on them straight away. Then in the second half we stopped doing what we’re good at, when we get the ball down and play, instead of just kicking the ball long, which we were forced to do, and it just comes straight back at us and haunts us.

“It was frantic out there. I don’t know if you would call it nerves, but I just think we didn’t really have composure, no-one really had a foothold in the game, got it down and relaxed, took their time to pass the ball. That’s really frustrating, because once we do that we carve out really good opportunities, as you saw in the times when we did get the ball down and play.”