Murty saw first hand how dual role can work

FOR confirmation that a structure with a director of football and manager can operate smoothly and successfully, the Rangers board could do worse than commence their enquiries by quizzing caretaker coach Graeme Murty.

Murty was Reading captain when a former team-mate, goalkeeper Nicky Hammond, was elevated from youth academy director to become the club’s first director of football appointment in 2003.

That set in motion one of the most prosperous periods in Reading’s history as, under Steve Coppell, promotion was gained two years later and peaked with an eighthplace finish in the top flight.

What Murty found striking about the dynamics of the arrangement was that he barely noticed his old buddy ‘Hammo’ being busy at all, thereby laying to rest any concerns that the lines of duty can become blurred in a set-up featuring a former player in a suit.

Coppell was left to conduct the football matters with spectacular effect and, over a 13-year spell under various managerial appointments, Hammond must have done more right than wrong because he was poached by West Brom to be their technical director last summer.

And the Baggies haven’t fared too badly in the top half of the Premier League this season.

When asked if the director of football appointment worked well for Reading, Murty replied: ‘Well, we won leagues and got into the Premier League, which was far above our pay grade.

‘As far as I’m aware, the director of football was there purely to support the manager. To help him in his role. To inform him about boardroom decisions. To give him ideas on recruitment.

‘It was quite strange because I played alongside Nicky. When we saw him around the place, he wasn’t director of football.

‘He didn’t have that title appended to him whenever he walked out on the training pitch. It was Nicky or Hammo. And, to be perfectly honest, we didn’t see him very often.

‘Ultimately, it comes down to the manager picking the team and the team going out and performing.

‘So as far as I saw it — and I saw it from a very removed part because I was a player at that time — he was simply there to make the manager’s job easier. Not harder.

‘The manager was in charge of football matters and we walked on to the pitch in no doubt as to what we were trying to achieve every week, through the manager’s message.

‘He was the guy in charge because he was the guy who selected the team.

‘I think it depends on the personnel, the clarity within the roles.

‘It depends on personal relationships within that model and acceptance of the role, accepting the people in there and using their knowledge.

‘But I also believe they must be strong people. People who are strong in their own convictions because — behind closed doors — they need to express views forthrightly. You can disagree, of course, quite forcefully.

‘But when that door opens after the meeting, there has to be a corporate way forward and, as professionals, we all need to be on board with the same message.

‘Whatever structure the Rangers board decides upon, people and personnel are going to have to fit around that — and not the other way round.

‘The club will put the structure in place that they deem necessary to move this club forward.

‘We need to move forward, to chase the guys in front, narrow that gap and put this l club back where it deserves to be right at the top of Scottish football.

‘So if the board is going to do that, then we all need to get on board with it, buy into it and go forward with it.’