I WAS less than enthralled to read that Graeme Souness is set to take-up some sort of advisory or consultancy role with Rangers. Considering Souness perhaps did more than any other individual to ruin that club and Scottish Football in general, I would like to think no self-respecting Rangers' board would collectively let him back near the place. Let's not forget either, when Liverpool came knocking, you couldn't see Souness for blue stoor as he shot the craw back to England.
Such is the mythology around Scotland's two biggest clubs, such are the demands made on players by supporters who take entitlement to extremes, not every player they recruit passes muster. BS (Before Souness) the club did rather well in terms of player development. Whether they took players from other Scottish clubs, from the juniors, or straight from school – they brought through their own talent, and it worked.
Then, Souness arrived, suddenly Scottish players weren't good enough and we have come to today's situation, where there is hardly a Scot in the First Team. OK, I accept, given the greater riches available in England, and the way players' agents now manipulate the recruitment market, it is far-harder for Rangers to hold onto the club's top talent. However, if regular access to the Champions and Europa Leagues isn't sufficient to keep players from the riches of the Football League Championship and League One – well there is something far wrong in how the club is being run.
Take a look at one of the most-adored Rangers teams, the 1949 'Iron Curtain' side, which won Scotland's first domestic treble:
Bobby Brown (Queen's Park); George Young (Kirkintilloch Rob Roy), Jock Shaw (Airdrie); Ian McColl, Willie Woodburn (both Queen's Park), Sammy Cox (Dundee); Willie Waddell (Schools), Jimmy Duncanson (Dunoon Athletic), Willie Thornton (Schools), Billy Williamson (Petershill), Eddie Rutherford (Mossvale YMCA).
Apart from Williamson, every member of that team was capped at least once by Scotland. Of the five players recruited from other Scottish clubs, only Shaw cost a transfer fee, the other four were signed as amateurs. Two players, Young and Williamson came from the juniors while three: Waddell, Thornton and Rutherford came from schools or youth football.
Older Rangers fans speak fondly of another Treble-winning squad, that of 1964:
Billy Ritchie, Bobby Shearer, Eric Caldow; John Greig, Ron McKinnon, Jim Baxter; Willie Henderson, Ian McMillan, Jimmyh Millar, Ralphie Brand and Davie Wilson. Of that team, only Shearer – bought from Hamilton Academical, Baxter, from Raith Rovers, McMillan, from Airdrie and Millar, from Dunfermline Athletic cost transfer fees, the other seven were all signed as youngsters and developed at Ibrox.
Between 1955 and 1976, in the Under-23 era, Scotland capped 220 players at that level – 16 of these players – just over 7% - were Rangers players.
Take a look at those 16 players – in order of being capped at Under-23 level: Eric Caldow, Max Murray, Alex Scott, Ralph Brand, Davie Wilson, Willie Henderson, John Greig, Jim Forrest, Davie Provan, Willie Johnson, Sandy Jardine, Derek Parlane, Derek Johnstone, Stewart Kennedy, Ian McDougall and Colin Jackson.
Fourteen of these players went on to win full caps, these included three of the most-celebrated Scotland captains. Apart from McDougall, all were first-team regulars with the club.
Then we switched to Under-21 age group football, playing more internationals, and between the change in 1976 and the arrival of Souness at the start of the 1986-87 season, Scotland gave U-21 caps to 112 players, of whom 15 were Rangers' players – a shade under 13.4% of the total.
These 15 players, in capped order: Parlane, Chris Robertson, Bobby Russell, Gordon Smith, Ally Dawson, John MacDonald, Jim Bett, Ian Redford, Dave MacPherson, Ally McCoist, Hugh Burns, Derek Ferguson, Ian Durrant and Robert Fleck – nine full caps, percentage-wise a decrease from the Under-23 days, but still a good conversion rate – and again, nearly all enjoying good runs in the first team both before and after being capped at this level.
Then came 'The Souness Revolution” and things changed. In the 37 seasons since Souness arrived 58 Rangers players have been capped at U-21 level. Eighteen of these players went on to win full caps – a 31% conversion rate, which is very-good, until you realise quite a few had to leave Rangers to get enough senior football to become Scottish internationalists.
Others were sold-on to English clubs but the sad fact is, half of these U-21 caps have more games for the Scotland Under-21 team than Rangers' first team. Even Barry Ferguson, one of a bare handful of these players who became club icons, and another of the subsequently-capped number, Charlie Adam, had to leave the club to achieve their goal.
I was involved in Basketball when David Murray was the main man in that sport in Scotland. For all his Murray International Metals' clubs dominance in Scotland in the early 1980s – before he moved into Football, he was already using the management model he subsequently brought to Ibrox – buying-in non-Scots, mainly Americans, and, when he did recruit a Scottish player, that player was someone who had been developed elsewhere.
That model didn't bring him the European success he craved, and when he replicated the plan in Football, it brought about disaster for the club. You have to ask, if those young players who had to leave to win international honours had been allowed to remain at Ibrox – with the correct encouragement and sympathetic management, and better management of the transfer market – might Rangers have avoided liquidation?
I feel the club's present travails – where foreign mercenaries, recruited at transfer fee and salary packages which are beyond all but one other Scottish clubs, can be traced back to wrong-headed decisions made in the wake of Murray bailing out, and liquidation.
I still maintain, had the club, when relegated to the bottom tier in senior football, stuck with the young talent they then had and given them the years it took to get back to the Premiership to develop, it would be in a healthier state today.
Instead they followed the Holmes/Souness/Murray management model and bought-in the playing talent. Sadly, as can be seen today, an awful lot of the players they bought in simply were NRC – Not Rangers Class.
Of course, the High Heid Yins at Ibrox are, on the domestic stage, competing with other club bosses who are equally, if not more stupid and short-sighted, but ham-strung by not having the financial muscle of the Bigot Brothers, so, they, and their partners-in-crimes against football across the city get a relatively trouble-free ride.
Aye, Private Frazer is indeed the Nostradamus of Scottish Football – had ever opined on the subject.
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