Thefeedbackfromthe lawyerwasthattomove forwardheneededtodo whatwasinhiscontract. Which facilitated him turning up for work
THERE are many ways for a manager who feels he has been mistreated to deliver a statement to the watching world. While Mark Warburton, Davie Weir and Frank McParland disclosed their discontent over their departure from Rangers yesterday via the League Managers’ Association, back in August 2007 Rowan Alexander decided to make his point in person.
In one of the more infamous episodes in the recent history of Scottish football, the jilted Gretna boss, who was dismissed claiming £100,000 in unpaid wages, followed legal advice and fulfilled his contract to the letter by turning up at Fir Park for the borderers’ SPL season opener against Falkirk only to be refused entry.
The circus didn’t do Davie Irons and his team much good, as they slumped to a 4-0 defeat.
In any case, the man who accompanied him that day, Kevin Drinkell, remembers it well, even if the former Rangers striker doesn’t exactly expect Warburton and Co to turn up at Dens Park on Sunday, with their club tie on, ready to take the team one last time.
For the record, Drinkell has no inside knowledge of who said what, to whom, and when, during the messy events which unfolded within Ibrox last week. The two cases are completely different, but the episode at Gretna came to mind yesterday following the LMA statement regarding Warburton & Co, since differences of interpretation of a relayed conversation could yet lead the Ibrox side back to the courts.
In Gretna’s case, this was between Alexander and owner Brooks Mileson, who took ill then passed away soon afterwards; in Rangers’ case it was between Warburton’s agent Dave Lockwood and chief executive Stewart Robertson, where a deal was apparently brokered which would see the Ibrox coaching team depart for Nottingham Forest in return for waiving compensation.
“We would like to formally place on record that, at no stage, did we resign from our positions at Rangers,” the Warburton/Weir/ McParland statement said yesterday. “It is a matter of surprise to us, and to the LMA, which is advising all three of us, that despite its detailed public statements, the club has not answered key questions put to it by the LMA, in writing, requesting an explanation of why it suggested that we resigned from our positions.”
And on the back of that statement Drinkell reflected on the Gretna case. “It was obviously different for Rowan because it was Brooks’ baby, then he was out of the equation,” Drinkell told Herald Sport yesterday. “A lot of it didn’t involve lawyers with Brooks, it was often done on the shake of a hand. It was when he wasn’t available to make those decisions that the discrepancy, if you like, had happened. He was unwell and someone else had taken over the reins on it – it was about the interpretation of what someone had said to Brooks, and what Brooks had agreed with him. That was what made it a little bit complicated at the time.
“Obviously as a friend and an advisor – although I did a lot of work for Rowan, the club and Brooks at the time – the feedback I got from the lawyer was that to move forward he needed to do what was in his contract. Which facilitated him turning up for work.
“Then if he was sent away from work or whatever it put the onus on the other person. If his contract of employment said he needed to be there on Monday the third or whatever then he needed to do that.
“But Brooks never did get well again and sadly he passed away soon afterwards. It became a case of legals, black and white, all taken care of in a lawyers’ office.”
While Alexander battled vainly to recover his livelihood, the sums in question this time around are equally considerable in these austere times for Scottish football. In time, the two parties may agree somewhere in the middle of the £1m or so in compensation which is up for grabs, but the thought of this affair dragging on into another courtroom drama must be dispiriting for Rangers fans.
“The downside is that – irrespective of who is right and who is wrong – Rangers need to get it resolved and get back on track, get the support behind them again,” said Drinkell. “Because they are the ones who are going to lose out from Rangers being in and out of the courts again. They have been in and out of them often enough in the last few years.
“The fans finally thought they were back to building a team, getting back into the Premiership and looking forward, but this is another distraction,” he added. “I don’t think any supporter of any club really wants to know exact details of what this costs or that costs. All they want is to be proud of their team and what is happening on the pitch. They don’t care who wins in a court of law, they just want the bragging rights, to be able to puff their chests out and be proud of their team.”