EXCLUSIVE
STRACHON BROWN STRACHON RODGERS
THAT awkward moment when you discover you have a nickname you didn’t even know about.
For Gordon Strachan it arrived in the most uncomfortable and yet memorable of circumstances. Standing in his technical area at a packed, gloating Ibrox, two goals down and on to a hiding in his first Old Firm derby.
Even now, almost 13 years on, the memory brings back a wry smile.
Strachan, who spent four years at the coalface of this intense sporting rivalry, said: “I remember hearing the Rangers fans chanting, ‘What’s the score, what’s the score?’ At first I was wondering who they were chanting it at. Then I heard it was somebody called Chesney.
“Tam Burns came to stand beside me and I said to him, ‘By the way, who is this Chesney they’re singing about? They’re giving him absolute pelters. I wouldn’t want to be him right now.’
“Tam put his hand over his mouth and said, ‘That’ll be you.’ I looked at him and said, ‘How the f*** is it me?’
“He told me Chesney was some wee ginger guy on Coronation Street. I thought, ‘Oh, right. Fine!’
“I can’t say I found it funny at the time but I can’t help but laugh about it now. Maybe that’s just me because I can find something to laugh about even in the darkest moments.
“But I can still see the look on Tam’s face when he spoke out the side of his mouth and said, ‘It’s YOU.’”
Better, more satisfying memories were built along the way as Strachan recovered from this baptism of fire to rattle off three successive title triumphs during his first three years as Celtic manager.
Eventually he would see off old pal Alex McLeish before assisting in the whirlwind demise of Paul le Guen as part of this silver-laden process.
But even though Strachan was busy racking up the trophies – he also lifted a Scottish Cup and a couple of League Cups – his side was never so dominant that he was spared from the internal, lingering dread of the next derby day.
He said: “There was a real edge to them. We genuinely felt we were going I WAS talking to him at his testimonial dinner the other night. His reaction up at Pittodrie a couple of weeks ago is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in football.
When I saw it at first I turned to my wife and said: “Did I just see that? Did you see what he just did there?”
He’s been halved in two which normally keeps people down. Then somebody else comes in and whacks the ball off his head. And Brown, right, actually thinks it’s quite funny.
You sit there saying to yourself, “Am I really watching this happen? What is going through his head?”
I sometimes wonder if his brain processes pain the way other people’s do. He’s probably thinking to in against a Rangers side who could beat us every time we played them.
“There is absolutely no doubt about that so I always knew I had big choices to make. And it wasn’t just me who felt it either.
“The supporters and everyone around the football world knew it was a CelticRangers game so anything can happen.
“The shackles come off, everybody goes for it, it’s a bit of a war and you have no idea how it’s going to end up.
“That’s not been the case for a good few years now. It’s been hard to get excited about the fixture because Celtic have been so far in front.
“But this one feels different. This one feels like the fixture I knew because there is an edge to it again.”
And so, for the first time in a long while, Strachan’s eyes will be transfixed to the action at Ibrox on Sunday when Brendan Rodgers takes Celtic back across the Clyde.
He still backs Celtic to win. Maybe even heavily. And, by doing so, kill any possibility of a title race stone dead.
“Celtic are by far the better team and I don’t think anyone would really disagree with that,” he says in a way that ignores the complete lack of logic which is applied to this particular fixture.
“But the fact Rangers are getting stronger and building momentum means this match has captured the imagination again.
“It’s refreshing for everyone that the fixture is generating excitement again because all it himself, “Did I just get whacked on the head there? Yeah, I must have. It’ll probably start hurting tonight when I go to my bed!“
But he is the guy you want leading your side into a game like this. He sets the standard for everyone else. Obviously they can’t all be as physical as him but he sets the standard in terms of mental strength and he can drag you along with him.
Rangers now seem to think they have guys with a similar mental strength but you only find that out when you step on to the field. has generated over the last two or three years has been negativity over Rangers’ performances and negativity over the standard of the Scottish league.
“Hopefully this game can bring that standard up again in the minds of people throughout the world.
“They will realise it is back. They’ll think to themselves, ‘I’ll need to make a point of watching that game now,’ when for the last few years they’d maybe have taken a look if there was nothing better on the other side.
“But it feels now as if the game means something again, like it did when I was there.”
Even now – days before kick-off in a match that doesn’t involve him – Strachan can feel that familiar, sickly tension gnawing at his insides.
He said: “The best part of it is when the game starts. You enjoy that bit.
“The rest of it is all propaganda. You worry about saying the right things, about picking the right team, telling people they’re not playing. It’s all just stress and hard work.
“I look back now on my first one which was really bad at the time but it’s hilarious now.
“I got the players together before it and showed them a video of the Celtic-Rangers game to let them see the kind of emotion that was involved because a couple of them were new to the club and had no idea what the fixture was all about. I could see a couple of
I look back at my first one, it was really bad at the time but now it’s hilarious GORDON STRACHAN
the older players rolling their eyes and thinking, ‘What’s he doing now? For Christ sake, we know what an Old Firm game is all about.’
“You could tell just by looking at them. They had experienced this game before and I hadn’t.
“But what I did know is the team that loses its composure and discipline is going to get beat.
“If you go 1-0 down and want to start kicking people then someone is going to get sent off – and that’s exactly what happened to us.
“Within 30 minutes Alan Thompson got sent off and we end up losing it 3-1.
“I went into the dressing room after the game and closed the door behind me. There was a lot of screaming and shouting going on outside.
“I was inside telling them, ‘I warned you about this before the game but we still got one player sent off.’
“I then heard a voice pipe up at the back of the room. ‘No, we got two players sent off !’
“I said, ‘What? How did I miss that?’ And then Lenny, who has just walked in the door, says, ‘He just sent me off as well coming up the tunnel.’
“I said to him, ‘That’s great. Well done. You’re clever as well.’ And this was me in my first derby. I had absolutely no idea.”
Strachan learned a few lessons about Old Firm day along the way. The memories he cherishes today are likely to last a lifetime. I SIMPLY don’t believe Celtic fans are getting restless about manager Brendan Rodgers. Maybe a couple of them who phone up your Hotline are but that’s it, trust me. I was surrounded by supporters the other night and there was not one murmur of doubt. I should never comment on one or two people phoning or texting a hotline because these people do not count. If you had 60,000 people inside Celtic Park and you asked, “Hands up who is happy with Brendan?” you might get one of them who says, “Wait a minute, I just phoned the Hotline to complain about him – and I used two different names!”
The job Brendan has done has been phenomenal. Most of us who have managed Celtic have had a crazy moment somewhere along the line, like losing a cup tie at Clyde.
But Brendan’s Celtic don’t make these mistakes. The concentration level is so high they don’t have these horror moments.
UGO FOR IT GERS