The financial predicament of the Tayside club may have been the motivation behind the sale but there is no doubting that the Light Blues landed a player of genuine quality.

A box-to-box hard-tackling midfielder, the energetic Aberdonian joined Dundee straight from school and became a regular first-team player in the 98/99 season - and even scored a last-minute winner at Ibrox on his 22nd birthday in 1999 to hand the Dens Park side a shock 2-1 win.

In March 2001 he became the first Dundee player to represent Scotland for 15 years and now has several caps to his name.

He made his Rangers debut against Celtic on January 3, 2004 but lasted only 30 minutes before he had to hobble off with a recurrence of a recent hamstring problem.

Gav roared back to action, though, and bagged his debut goal against former club Dundee in March that year.

However, his luck again deserted him when, after playing in only 11 matches for the Gers, he injured his knee against Dundee United at Tannadice and this brought a premature end to his injury-ravaged season.

Sadly, Gavin was forced to go under the knife yet again to cure a tendonitis problem on his right knee in June 2005 and was out again for a further six months.

He has, however, showed his courage by fighting back again and made several appearances at the end of the 2005/06 season.

Gav was also given a huge boost when Walter Smith included him in his squad for the trip to Japan and he made two substitute appeances against Bulgaria and the hosts as Scotland lifted the Kirin Cup.