There are two managers that stand out from the others in the history of Rangers Football Club. One is of course is the legendary Bill Struth, Scotland’s most successful club manager, the other Walter Smith. On two recent occasions when Rangers have faced a critical time in their history and needed someone to take charge Walter Smith has risen to the challenge.
When Graeme Souness turned his back on Rangers for Liverpool; it was Walter who filled the void and kept the title at Rangers in a last day thriller at Ibrox against an Aberdeen side who only needed a draw to win the championship. Rangers won the game with a double from Mark Hately and Rangers stayed on course for nine championships in a row.
Most Rangers fans will be happy that Walter Smith has returned to the club for a third time as a director. He will be joined by businessman Ian Hart
No one can doubt Walters’s football credentials or forget his return to Rangers for a second time; in our hour of crisis getting the call after the failed experiment that was Frenchman Paul Le Guen. Smith would deliver three titles in a row and a UEFA cup final in four years.
Such is the trauma that still haunts the Rangers support that even someone like Walter whose DNA is Rangers through and through cannot escape the suspicion of the fans. The support has still not fully come to terms with what has happened to Rangers in the past year and, Walters friendship with former chairman Sir David Murray whose handling of the club has been less than honest hangs over Smith like a shadow. Ranger’s fans will always be left wondering if those higher up the command structure at Rangers during Murray’s reign could have done more or acted sooner to avoid the events of February 2012 as Rangers plunged into administration.
There can be few who were employed by Rangers through Sir David Murray’s tenure if examined under the microscope can escape some of the blame for what happened to Rangers.
There has still to be a full post mortem on the Murray years.
Let’s also not forget that it was Walters’s man management style that brought and kept the likes of Paul Gascoigne, one of the greatest players of his generation at Ibrox. Few other managers could have got the kind of performances from the wayward genius as Walter did.
Suspicion of Smith because of his connection and friendship with Sir David Murray the former Rangers Chairman is natural but the support must at some stage begin to trust.
No one can deny that the Walter Smith years are some of the finest in Rangers history and for a generation he set the Rangers standard.
But with all that has happened since the catastrophic take over by Craig Whyte the support has a right to be cautious. That’s why; while recognising everything that Walter Smith has done for Rangers it is also important to remember that the club and its supporters must never again put all its faith in one individual. As we welcome one legend Walter Smith back to the club let us remember the words of the legendary Bill Struth: “Always remember the club is greater than the man”.
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another one of Cyberteds trips down fantasy road Gaza~~~~ wife beater / drunk / dope taker / disgusting low life that thinks pishing on fellow team mates is fun as well as shitting in dressing room floors is a an acceptable way of life, not forgetting flute playing at Parkhead in front of 50,000 Celtic supporters is not the way to keep the peace in powder keg games of that kind, aye The Myth trained him well
Says cyberted who has been wetting his knickers over Green for months…
lol!