SINCE I HAVE owned a Thomlinson T-Ball and a pair of light-brown, hard-toed, leather, nailed-in studded Manfield Hotspur boots, I suppose I can be dismissed as a dinosaur. But, I did have the first pair of Puma boots in Scotland – pre-dating Pele, and had a pair of white boots a couple of years before Willie Henderson – who wore them long before Alan Ball. So, I am not immune to novelty and innovation.
However, I find myself at a loss trying to make sense of current management models – this current fashion for titles such as: Director of Football, Technical Director, Head of Football Recruitment and so-forth. I find myself wondering what the past managerial giants of Scottish Fitba would have made of having to work with, far-less answer to a suit with a big title and an oversight role.
To look at another sport and arguably the most-successful sports team on the planet – New Zealand's All Blacks. The ABs have a Head Coach – Scott Robertson, who makes the big calls, however, the whole ethos of the team is that they are a TEAM, park your ego at the door of the dressing room, all for one and one for all and, if you cannot agree to these parameters and buy-into the group culture, you are not going to be there for long.
Folk-lore/Legend tells us, when Rangers had a virtual monopoly on the Scottish titles, Bill Struth was God, but, he was barely seen by the players. He laid down the parameters and the ground rules and left it to the Trainers and the Senior Players to run things. I remember a conversation with the great Eric Caldow, in which he told me: “When I broke into the First Team, George Young was the Captain, but, he was more than that, he was player-manager. Mr Struth wasn't in the best of health, but, while he still picked the team and was very much the man in charge, George was the Manager in the dressing room – and we would have run through a brick wall for him.”
That Rangers' team was choc-a-bloc with Managers. Bobby Brown,Ian McColl and John Prentice went on to manage Scotland; Willie Waddell won domestic and European titles with Kilmarnock and his old club; Willie Thornton and Young had successful spells in club management: Johnny Hubbard didn't go into club management, but his MBE was as much for his grassroots coaching with South Ayrshire Council as for his excellence from the penalty spot.
Billy Williamson coached at Queen's Park, and was a much-respected Head of PE at Lenzie Academy, while Harold Davis, another team mate of Caldow's also had a spell coaching at Hampden; although, to be fair, Iron Man Davis was a Scot Symon signing. With that amount of football knowledge, the Manager's job is easy.
That apparently, is not how Russell Martin is finding things, even this early into his Rangers' career. I fear for Martin – his team was, as they say in Glasgow: “jammy” in the extreme in beating Panathinaikos at Ibrox. They then took jamminess even further in the second leg in Athens, before, if not crashing and burning, coming down to earth with a serious bump at Fir Park on Saturday.
I decided to watch the game and, by mid-way through the second half, it was clearly only a matter of time before Motherwell pulled back Rangers' early lead. I don't know how much input Martin has had in the summer recruitment, but, from what I have seen in the three televised matches I have watched, Rangers are going backwards faster than that mythical Ferrari-engined Italian tank from WWII.
Here's a suggestion for Manager Martin: invite a team of former Rangers' stars up to the training ground to take on the current squad in a five-a-side tournament, say: Gregor Stevens, John Brown, Lorenzo Amaruso, Jörg Albertz and Terry Hurlock – a few minutes facing that lot and the new boys would have an idea what it meant to pull on a Rangers' strip.
Some are suggesting, Martin may already have: “lost the dressing room” - I fear he may not yet have found it, and he has to do that quickly.
To be fair, I ought to have watched the other half of the Bigot Brothers start their campaign on Sunday. However, there were rival claims on my attention – an intriguing Formula 1 race in Hungary, an even more nerve-shredding run chase in the Test Match at The Oval; so my remote was in danger of over-heating as I flicked through the channels. In the end, the Cricket won – talk about sporting drama.
Apparently, it took Celtic 87 minutes to get the inevitable winner against St Mirren, Season 2025-26 could be a long one in Scotland. I wonder if Aberdeen and Hearts can offer us hope when they collide tonight.
Mind you, I did notice one interesting fact as I reviewed the weekend action. The West of Scotland Football League is being led by Auchinleck Talbot. Played 3, Won 3: ok, winning a league is a marathon rather than a sprint, but, maybe, just maybe, after last season's rebuild, Tucker Sloan and his squad have rediscovered their mojo.
They have rebranded the old Scottish Junior Cup this season – who better to be the first winners of the new competition than the serial winners of the old one?
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