TODAY, for Scotland's full-time footballers, the realisation will start to sink in. Their training session will be slightly different, a change of emphasis will be evident, because, in 24-hours' time the season will kick-off for real. It will matter, if only in terms of the effect on their wage packet, how they perform; win bonuses will now be there to be won, league position will determine the perception of the fans, expectation will have to be turned into realisation.
The transfer window will remain open for a further five and a bit weeks, so there will be some movement around squads and those players who do not hit the ground running might find there security, if there is such a thing in present-day football, threatened. But, while long gone are the days of free movement within an all-year-round transfer market, things are also changing in Scotland, as regards the two big players in that market - the Old Firm.
Rangers' capture yesterday of Hearts' Lee Wallace was a move we've grown accustomed to over the 140 years of Scottish football. In the early days, Queen's Park was the destination of choice of the provincial player who had perhaps gained the recognition of the SFA's selection committee, and who now wished to play, week-in, week-out, with better-quality team mates. But, with the advent of the Scottish League and professionalism, Queen's, for all their great pionerring work, became something of a sideshow, the places to go were Ibrox and Celtic Park, and that has continued ever since.
Anyone's all-time Rangers XI would contain more bought-in than home-grown players. During the Struth Years, from 1920 to 1954, the period when the Ibrox club established itself as THE leading Scottish team there was a steady stream of recruits from lesser sides - Airdrie gave them Bob McPhail and Jock 'Tiger' Shaw; from Queen's Park came Bobby Brown, Ian McColl, Willie Woodburn and Sammy Cox of the original 1949 Treble winners. From the great team of the early 1960s, the next Treble winners - Bobby Shearer came from Hamilton Accies, the peerless Jim Baxter from Raith Rovers, Ian McMillan was another stolen from Airdrie and on and on the recruitment from other Scottish clubs went.
Andy Goram from Hibs, Davie Cooper from Clydebank, Ally McCoist from St Johnstone via Sunderland, Alex Macdonald, also from the Perth Saints, George McLean, Tottie Beck, Bobby McKean, Ian Ferguson and Kirk Broadfoot from the Paisley Saints, Ian Redford and Richard Gough (via Tottenham) from Dundee United, Colin Stein, Craig Paterson and now Steven Whittaker from Hibs; Alan McLaren and now Lee Wallace from Hearts.
But, Wallace's arrival may be one of the last such moves - although I wouldn't rule out Rangers' interest in St Johnstone's Murray Davidson bearing fruit in this transfer window - because, Rangers are now under new ownership. I do not see Craig Whyte embarking on the free-spending of the Murray/Souness era, or backing European recruitment raids as per the Advocaat years.
In fact, with Gordon Smith, a man who has always espoused coaching and home-grown youth development as the way forward as Director of Football, I can see Rangers, who have already done well out of the facility, seeking to recruitment of new players increasingly from within the confines of Murray Park. It will be some time in the future, indeed, if ever, before Murray Park is spoken off in the same hushed tones as Manchester United's Cliff and now Carrington training grounds, or the famed Barcelona Academy, but, over the Whyte years, it will increasingly influence the make-up of Rangers' teams.
Why do I say this? Simple, Mr Whyte may be a Rangers fan of long-standing, but he is also a venture capitalist and such creatures look to develop clubs at minimum cost, seeking maximum return. If Mr Whyte can see one Danny Wilson and maybe one Gordon Wylde per season emerge from Murray Park, he will be delighted. He could then sell one on for a big fee to an EPL team and keep the other; Rangers' squad will become deeper, the team will improve in Europe and who knows, there may be another European trophy to be won somewhere down the line.
A viable production line out of Murray Park will enable Rangers to keep winning in Scotland, get better in Europe, without huge spending on salaries. Certainly, there will still be incursions into the transfer market - which will at least keep my colleagues on the red tops in work over the summer, peddling their fantasies, but I see, increasingly, Rangers becoming a developing and selling club rather than a buying one. And, if, as I believe it will, this strategy works - you can bet on Celtic following suit. The goal posts are moving
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