I BOUGHT a new book this week - 'Duncan Edwards - The Greatest' by Jim Leighton. No not oor ain, bandy-legged, short-sighted goalkeeping great, just an English chap who grew up to tales of the Manchester United icon, so-tragically taken from us by the Munich Disaster of 1958.
Edwards is a player who has always held a fascination for me. One of my all-time favourite football pictures is one of Edwards clearing the ball from the England penalty area during the 1957 international; that picture oozes power and charisma. I also recall his part in the first Scotland v England Under-23 match, at Shawfield in 1955, when Walter Winterbottom switched him from left half to centre forward, whereupon he scored a hat trick in a 6-0 English win and in the process put paid to Doug Baillie's hopes of ever playing for Scotland. Years later I plucked up the courage to ask big Doug about the game - he was in no doubts, Edwards was the best player he ever faced.
Bobby Charlton is equally adamant about his big pal's greatness: "He's the only player who ever made me feel inferior", he says.
Edwards had it all, he was in the Manchester United first team at 16, the England team at 18 and surely, all else having remained the same, had he survived, Edwards and not Bobby Moore would have captained England when they won some wee trophy in 1966.
In a world where Sky's hype has made major stars of nonentities, we should remember the likes of Edwards, from a simpler era, where football was somehow cleaner and meant more.
THAT'S one of the reasons why I looked forward to Rangers' journey back to redemption from the Third Division of the SFL. The journey would, I felt, be good for the younger Rangers players. They might just learn something from it - don't ask me waht that something might be, but, anything which deflated the egos around that club, would be no bad thing. By the way, any Rangers fans out there - huge egos are not exclusive to Rangers players, there are plenty of others in Scottish football who believe, because they are being ridiculously well paid these days, think they are stars - when they clearly are not.
I must say, in the wake of Rangers' draw at Berwick on Sunday, we might be in for a bad case of the same-old, same-old, from McCoist's men. When the decision to demote the club three divisions was made, I immediately felt that one or two players might struggle to get their heads round the new reality of where the club was playing, and a few away draws might be on the menu.
The fact they have yet to win a league game on foreign soil, and ok yes, these are early days, does not surprise me. Bad attitudes are harder to erase than bad technique faults and that's another cross for McCoist and his management team to bear. Home games will be no bother, even a half-full Ibrox is worth a couple of goals of a start to Rangers in the SFL, but really and truly convincing his players that points have to be earned at some of these wee away grounds will be a major task for Ally this season.
That's why I had hoped to see more youngsters in the team. They will, I believe, take the lessons on-board far faster than some of the more-experienced players. However, if, as I suspect, the buy your way to glory management model is so-embedded in the Ibrox psyche that they can see no alternative, I fear further problems lie a few years down the road, when the club is back in the SPL.
I hope too that, after the wasted years under Murray, when Rangers thought themselves almost too-good for Scotland and made enemies with this mental approach; having learned where that approach got them - they had no friends when they needed them - I hope everyone at Ibrox takes time to foster good relationships with the other SFL clubs as they progress back to the top. For they now know, while the other clubs in the SPL badly need Rangers' fans and their cash, they will do them no favours.
Making friends and influencing people, whilst beating them on the park - that's a really hard one to pull off, but it's something Rangers have to do.
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