Walter was more than a football manager... he was a man of real substance
FOR Rangers, the capture of a first Scottish league title in ten years felt like the very best of times. The Ibrox club had waited so long to return to the top of the tree that it felt, to many, like a rare and wondrous thing. A feat so precious that management, players and fans would refuse to relinquish it for all the treasure in the world.
It’s a testament to the respect and awe in which Walter Smith is held, then, that almost all of them would gladly hand back the trophy to have him back now. They would do so reluctantly, they would do it with pain in their heart. Yet one more day with ‘Sir Walter’ in charge would be worth the sacrifice.
Study the most successful football managers and history shows most to be imperfect individuals. Their ruthless, relentless pursuit of excellence and perfection bring sacrifice and failings in other important areas of their lives. A devoted husband, father of two sons and grandfather, Smith was unique. He was both a great football manager and an outstanding human being.
As a manager, he belongs to a rich and illustrious lineage of Scottish coaches including his great friends Jock Stein, Sir Alex Ferguson, Jim McLean and Graeme Souness.
As a man, he was universally known by his first name and, to rival fans, that was a persistent source of irritation. Had they actually met the man, they would have understood perfectly.
Days before Rangers won the title after Celtic’s draw at Dundee United, Sportsmail called Smith’s mobile seeking his personal contribution to a tribute pull-out. With lunch on the table, an apology was proffered followed by a promise to call back.
An indomitable figure of authority with Rangers, Scotland and Everton, the great man was always smart enough to defer to his devoted wife, Ethel.
When we eventually spoke, enquiries over his health and wellbeing were politely swatted aside. They usually were. For two-and-a-half years, a serious health issue had been lurking in the background. A private matter, it was never a subject ripe for public discussion.
He preferred to speak, instead, of Rangers. He expressed his deep and genuine admiration for the job done by Steven Gerrard as the manager of his club. A supporter growing up in Carmyle, Smith was never quite good enough to play for the club but forged a professional career with Dundee United and treasured memories of playing against Jim Baxter in a tournament in Canada at the age of 18, and alongside his boyhood heroes Jimmy Millar and Davie Wilson at Tannadice.
His playing career was undermined by a pelvic injury at the age of 29. Limited to games for the reserve team, United boss Jim McLean recognised a coach in waiting
Smith’s leadership qualities became apparent when he and Andy Roxburgh guided Scotland to success at the 1982 European Youth Championship. He was assistant manager of Dundee United when they won their first league title a year later and assisted Jock Stein with the Scotland set-up until his tragic and untimely death in a Cardiff dugout in October 1985. Assisting Alex Ferguson at the 1986 World Cup finals, Smith looked destined to settle into the pigeon hole occupied by football’s perennial No2s. He moved to Rangers to assist the new playermanager Graeme Souness the same summer, providing the calming, local knowledge needed to complement the headstrong global ambitions of an impatient Liverpool icon. With English teams banned from Europe in the aftermath of Heysel, Rangers managed to attract England captain Terry Butcher and goalkeeper Chris Woods.
Three league titles were won before Souness upped and left for Liverpool with five games of the 1990-91 season to go. Reluctantly, Smith picked up the baton.
A final-day triumph over Aberdeen secured a first title as manager. Despite the handicap of the three-foreigner rule, he never looked back, forging a squad of largely homegrown players such as Ally McCoist, Stuart McCall, Ian Durrant and Richard Gough to do the hard lifting.
Every great team needs a sprinkling of stardust. Eyebrows were raised when he signed Danish international Brian Laudrup. In July 1995, he then pulled off the stunning capture of a 28-year-old Paul Gascoigne from Lazio for £4.3million. At times, the artist known as ‘Gazza’ (left) was an unmanageable and troubled staple of the front pages. At others he was a simple, gentle soul who just wanted to play football. Quite brilliantly during the eight-in-a-row season.
‘If anybody could keep him on a tight rein, then I did,’ Smith once told me. ‘Generally you have a coach and you have a team. The team plays for you, the manager. But, in Paul’s case, we had to play for him; we had to live with all his foibles and his eccentricities to get that little bit of genius into our team.’
Adaptability and intelligence were hallmarks of a man with more to his palate than he was sometimes given credit for.
He plotted nine straight titles before being ‘nicely sacked’ in
October 1997 after rangers crashed out of the Champions League to Gothenburg, suffered a damaging uEfA Cup reverse to strasbourg and lost at home to Dundee united.
smith moved to Everton to manage the club for five years, financial restrictions and a change of ownership limiting his impact.
the call to manage scotland as replacement for Berti Vogts propelled the national team 70 places up the fIfA rankings and secured a memorable victory over World Cup finalists france at Hampden.
He led scotland to their only international tournament victory in Japan in may 2006, winning the Kirin Cup. It was there that a generation of younger journalists who once regarded the man with a mixture of trepidation and fear — this one included — stripped away the layers over a pint in an Irish bar in roppongi and grew to know an individual of immense decency, humour and likeability.
for any journalist, raising a manager of rangers or Celtic on the phone these days is like calling the White House and asking to be put through to Joe Biden. that was never the case with smith. right up until the final conversation, when he spoke of how easy Gerrard made it look to manage rangers, he always called back.
Like any manager, he had his moments. Over the years, the wise media professional learned to word questions carefully for fear of the ‘Walter stare’, a withering, bowel-loosening reaction utilised in response to a poorly-phrased query.
During his first spell in charge, when the pressure to match Celtic’s nine in a row was intense, the Walter stare was employed liberally. Working for DC thomson’s Weekly news in 1995, this reporter was once dispatched to Ibrox to request an interview with stuart mcCall weeks after criticism of a performance against Anorthosis famagusta had appeared in print.
tip-toeing towards the top table at the press conference felt like Oliver twist approaching mr Bumble with an empty bowl. the ‘naw’ was barked out without a sideways glance before the full question was finished.
By the time he returned to rangers in 2007 after a brief, but successful, spell with scotland, age and experience had mellowed him. He relied on an air of quiet authority to command both respect and a desire to please.
When paul le Guen’s short-lived reign ended dismally, rangers needed a safe pair of hands. there were none steadier than smith’s.
the impact of his first full season was remarkable. rangers won the League Cup and scottish Cup and might have won the treble but for a backlog of fixtures caused by their run to the final of the uEfA Cup in manchester. the club’s first European final in 36 years ended in a 2-0 defeat to Zenit st petersburg. Yet rangers were, once more, a competitive force.
success never came cheaply, of course. During smith’s second spell, the debts spiralled back up to £30m. the financial crash of 2008 saw the business interests of chairman David murray decline sharply.
By 2010, murray International Holdings had suffered a £175m loss, prompting Halifax Bank of scotland to double its stake in the company and squeeze rangers tight.
‘As far as I’m concerned, the bank is running rangers,’ declared smith in October 2009.
six months later, rangers faced crippling tax demands from HmrC over the murray Group’s use of disputed Employee Benefits trusts. After 21 trophies in total and a final-day title triumph in 2011, smith retired as manager.
He returned to the club as a non-executive director under new owners before a brief tenure as chairman in 2013.
for much of the last nine years, the residue of bitterness created by the liquidation process at rangers has polluted the well of scottish football. to his credit, smith remained resistant to the poison.
When his former Celtic rival and scotland colleague tommy Burns died in 2008, the rangers icon was one of the coffin bearers at his funeral. In a city where tribal rivalries run deep, he treated others with a level of decency, courtesy and humanity all too rare in the modern-day game.
for that reason alone, the tributes will not only be long, they will be many and they will be heartfelt.