THE BIG INTERVIEW

DICK Campbell had never known a win to feel so bittersweet. On an autumnal Tuesday night under the Kessock bridge, michael mcKenna’s dipping free-kick toppled Inverness from the summit of the Championship.

arbroath — part-time, unfancied arbroath — moved up to third place in the table and the manager couldn’t shake the feeling that one of his oldest pals had been peering down, guiding him towards another three points, from the great technical area in the sky.

‘I said to folk after the game that it felt strange to me,’ Campbell tells Sportsmail. ‘I felt on Tuesday night as if Wattie was watching me all night. He’d gone that morning and I can’t explain it, it’s just what I felt.’

Richard Campbell — Dick to his pals — was a 16-year-old rookie on the Dundee United groundstaff when Walter Smith entered his life. Installed in a club house in Seafield Road, broughty Ferry, eight young players sharing the same roof space felt at times like an initiation.

long before he began racking up the trophies over two spells as manager of Rangers, the 21-year-old Smith was already marking himself out as officer material.

‘We were all young boys,’ recalls Campbell. ‘me, alan liddle, Tommy Traynor, Ian Reid, Jim Henry.

‘and you know what? Walter’s leadership qualities were obvious even away back then. He was the gaffer. We were in absolutely no doubt about who was in charge.

‘If your room wasn’t tidy, you were for it. If you left the kitchen in a mess, then hell mend you.

‘If you were late turning up for the minibus going to training he left without you. If you gave him a bit of cheek, he would slap you around the back of the head.

‘I probably sneaked out the back door for a fly fag or something, but I never gave him any real problem. and when you room with somebody, that’s when you get to know them.

‘Since the day we moved in to that house, Wattie was a pal of mine for 53 years.

‘I spoke to him for the last time last week. and it’s a sad, sad time

for me this. a sad time for everybody.’

a month shy of his 68th birthday, Campbell’s closest friend and confidante has always been twin brother Ian.

He never felt much need for another sibling, but former brechin City compadre John Ritchie came as close as anyone before his death from cancer three years ago.

His relationship with Smith, the former sparky from Carmyle, began before he married his longsuffering wife anne-marie. at times, she felt like the spare wheel as the two men ribbed each other relentlessly.

‘I’m up at 33 years as a manager now,’ adds Campbell. ‘I’ve had 960 games as a manager and another 500 as a coach.

‘I’m kicking on to 1,500 games in the dugout all told and I’ll tell you this without fear of contradiction. Over that period I must have spoken to Wattie every second week. It was very hard for Wattie