Rangers have appointed the scout who recommended the club sign Jamie Vardy ahead of Leicester.
The Glasgow giants announced on their official website on Monday evening that director of football Mark Allen has transformed the scouting department in a drive to return the club to their former glories.
Allen has made a number of new appointments to assist him in improving the club’s recruitment process, which include a return for nine-in-a-row hero John ‘Bomber’ Brown.
The fans favourite, who famously waged war on Charles Green’s takeover on the steps of Ibrox in 2012, will head up scouting across Britain.
Allen told Rangers TV: “When you go back and look at some of those characteristics I mentioned in terms of the player profile, John is well-known to have had that history with Rangers Football Club and will know what a Rangers player looks like.
“He will be able to identify those sorts of characteristics.
“He has a track record in scouting previously and he was an easy choice for me and one I wanted to make almost immediately.”
Two years ago it emerged Brown recommended England and Leicester star Jamie Vardy, then with non-league Fleetwood Town, to Light Blues chiefs during the Craig Whyte era.
Brown, 55, said: “I saw Vardy half a dozen times and reported he’d be a revelation in Scotland. He was sensational. I thought he’d batter defences up here. I’ve never seen a striker work as hard.
“I’m convinced Rangers would’ve got him hands down – and before Leicester – if the club was being well run because we were in the Premier League at the time.
“But Craig Whyte’s regime was in full flow. Instead of trying to buy good players, Ally McCoist wasn’t able to get any joy from Whyte.”
OPINION
Rangers’ recruitment has been wretched since their return to the Scottish top flight, over-reliant on the contacts of Frank McParland in the summer of 2016 and then Pedro Caixinha 12 months later. Neither can claim to have worked the oracle, as a succession of bang average players were signed from across the globe and the English lower leagues. Allen has been tasked with bringing the club’s archaic recruitment set-up into the 21st century, and time will tell if it can make the club far more competitive. The bar has been set pretty low in recent years, and the room for improvement is massive. Brown has a good track record in scouting and an eye for the stars of tomorrow, which is the key element to the job. What Rangers would give for Bomber to find them the next Vardy. It would be the type of signing that would totally transform the team.