Rangers reached the quarter-finals, meeting Leeds United in March 1968. After a goalless draw at Ibrox, two goals in six minutes at Elland Road in the second leg were enough to see Leeds progress 2–0 aggregate. The Yorkshire club went on to win the competition. The 1968–69 season was White's only full season in charge at the club. He made two major signings at the start of the season. The first was when he broke the Scottish transfer record and outbid the English Champions Everton to buy Colin Stein from Hibernian for £100,000. Secondly, he paid St Johnstone £50,000 for Alex MacDonald. The league campaign until the end of November was inconsistent, four draws and three defeats from thirteen matches, although the side did win the first Old Firm match 4–2 at Celtic Park. Rangers went on a run from December until April in which they lost only once in all competitions, 3–2 away to Airdrieonians in the league. In the second half of March, Rangers beat Clyde 6–0 at Ibrox in the league, beat Athletic Bilbao 4–1 at home in the Fairs Cup, and were 6–1 victors against Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup semi-final. Stein's disciplinary record caught up with him, and he was suspended from the end of March until the end of the season. Without his goals, the team dropped six points from the final six league games and conceded the title to Celtic by five points. The route to the 1969 Scottish Cup Final saw Rangers dispose of Hibernian, Hearts and Airdrieonians, before meeting Aberdeen in the semi-final. In the final, with Stein suspended, White opted to play Alex Ferguson rather than Sandy Jardine, purely because of the aerial threat of Billy McNeill at corners. Ferguson was blamed for a goal that Rangers conceded two minutes into the match in which he was designated to mark goalscorer McNeill. Two mistakes from Örjan Persson and Norrie Martin, minutes before the interval, were both seized upon by the 20-year-old George Connolly, resulting in two goals to give Celtic a 3–0 lead at half-time. Rangers lost the game 4–0, and Ferguson was subsequently forced to play for the club's junior side. The Fairs Cup proved fertile once again: Rangers went all the way to the semi-finals, defeating FK Vojvodina (2–1 on aggregate), Dundalk (9–1 on aggregate), DWS Amsterdam (4–1 on aggregate), Bilbao (4–3 on aggregate), before losing 2–0 on