Souness was saviour of Rangers.. he made me a boss

[ian1964 10,416]

MOULDED by Jim McLean, mentored by Sir Alex Ferguson, made by Graeme Souness.

 

Walter Smith's simple summation of the Rangers manager he has become.

 

It's 8.15am in Smith's understated office in the bowels of Murray Park.

 

The Gers boss, 63, is just 52 hours away from the nerve-shredding showdown at Kilmarnock that will decide his title fate.

 

With the first mug of decaf coffee gulped down Smith is energised, smiling wryly as he ponders the start of his Rangers adventure back in 1986.

 

Souness swaggered in as the new Gers player-boss from Sampdoria.

 

With Smith riding shotgun as his No2 the ex-Liverpool skipper changed the face of Scottish football forever before he was lured to the Anfield hotseat in April 1991.

 

The Rangers boss reflected: "I've read many accounts of the Souness Revolution and been humbled by what Graeme said about me.

 

"But listen, NONE of the rebirth of Rangers would have happened without Souness. He was the foundation of the modern-day Rangers.

 

"They could not have chosen a better person to change this club or lift the whole place. That's what Graeme did, he galvanised an entire club.

 

"He brought his persona, a swagger and a different view of Rangers. That transferred to everyone within the walls of Ibrox."

 

When Souness was asked to take over from his former Kop team-mate Kenny Dalglish he wanted Smith alongside him.

 

Two decades on the boss who guided Gers to Nine in a Row has not a shred of regret that he said no.

 

He stressed: "That famous bootroom at Anfield had been there with Graeme as a player. I couldn't see that I had a place in it. Graeme's combative character took him into all those clashes with the SFA but that streak makes him what he is.

 

"I look back at those years with Graeme and they had MORE of an influence on me than my time with Jim at Tannadice.

 

"I was taught about life at a bigger club and a winning club. Souness lived for that.

 

"I was a Dundee United man and he was an education, he changed me as I was a Jim McLean man with a little bit of Sir Alex Ferguson thrown in."

 

Tomorrow night, win or lose at Rugby Park, Smith will attend the Scottish Football Writers' Association dinner in Glasgow.

 

It's 25 years since he sat at the same bash at the old Albany Hotel and heard a guest behind him whisper: "You won't believe this, I've just heard Graeme Souness is the new Rangers boss."

 

By the end of the night their carefully-guarded secret was out, Smith was being congratulated on landing the job as his No2. Yet the fan who once travelled with grandfather Jock to watch his heroes on the Carmyle Rangers Supporters bus would walk into a club living in the past.

 

He looks back and sighs: "When I turned up there was almost NO ONE at Ibrox. I had two laundry women, Cathy and Betty, and Laura the manager's PA. Campbell Ogilvie and his secretary were there too but on the football side of things I only had Bob Findlay the physio. They sacked the entire football department on the proviso I'd come in ahead of Graeme leaving Sampdoria. Everyone else had left the building!

 

"This club was the pinnacle for me yet there was a tradition that the training kit was handed out to the players on Monday and not washed again until after they handed it back stiff with mud on a Friday.

 

"I knew there and then we had to take Rangers into the modern era."

 

Gers were in the gutter, scrabbling around needing to win their last three games just to qualify for Europe.

 

They hadn't won the league for NINE YEARS and fans craved a sliver of hope to cling onto. Smith recalled: "We got into Europe and we had Celtic in the Glasgow Cup Final.

 

"McCoist scored a hat-trick, we won 3-2 and I felt a wee marker was thrown down. Graeme was here, I felt that said to Celtic: 'Things are going to change at Rangers'.

 

"This club had gone nine years in a row without winning the league and those titles were spread around Celtic, Aberdeen and Dundee United. It wasn't just Celtic dominating, other teams were ahead of us now too.

 

"Something was wrong in this club and we had to change it."

 

Twelve rollercoaster months later Gers were champions again. Skipper Terry Butcher powered home a towering header at Pittodrie, Souness, true to the dramatic script he would always pen, was sent off.

 

Smith said: "People try to tell you there was a massive influx of players but there wasn't. We brought in Chris Woods, Terry Butcher and Colin West, Jimmy Nicholl on a free.

 

"The big thing was that we got Graeme Souness the PLAYER - and he was still a magnificent midfielder at 33.

 

"Around them we had the likes of Cammy Fraser, Dave McPherson, Stuart Munro, Derek Ferguson, Davie Cooper, Ian Durrant, Ally McCoist and Robert Fleck.

 

"We simply got a great reaction from a bunch of boys who loved having a fantastic footballer like Souness in their team."

 

Smith went to school in the quieter moments of that season. Intrigued by the success Souness had helped to craft at Liverpool, he constantly questioned his friend on the workings of the Anfield machine.

 

He revealed: "Dundee United were built on a coaching basis, formations, tactics, how we could get the best out of the players we had.

 

"Graeme's influence was from Liverpool, they bought players and placed them in their team with little instruction on what to do.

 

"I was inquisitive about what it was like for him there as they had so much success.

 

"I asked him what it was like to go from Middlesbrough to Anfield, what they'd told him. Turns out Ronnie Moran said to him: 'We brought you here to play where you play, so just play!'

 

"I thought that was so loose when I had operated under Jim McLean. Liverpool had the best and at United we had compsensated brilliantly for not having the best.

 

"I learned something there, I'd have times at Rangers where we had top-drawer players and I could follow that Liverpool philosophy. Then there were others when I could go back to my McLean teachings and compensate.

 

"Five years working with Graeme showed me a different way to be successful.

 

"He taught me how to have a persona and a confidence about a winning team.

 

"He showed me another world. I was a working-class Scottish boy as was he. But he had broken out and gone to England and Italy and learned so much.

 

"The modern Rangers couldn't have happened without him, he turned this club around. I know deep down I would not have been the manager I am without him."

 

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