GRAEME MURTY
His dad might not want him to be a winner today
GRAEME MURTY has already won his first Old Firm battle – he hopes!
His father, Edward, is a lifelong Celtic fan, but the interim Rangers boss believes his dad will be hoping his son can win this afternoon’s clash at Parkhead.
Murty, who takes charge of the Light Blues for the last time before handing over the reins to Pedro Caixinha, has little experience of matches at the stadium.
He sat in the stand when he was part of the Scotland squad for a game against the Faroes, and played there in a couple of pre-season games.
That doesn’t mean the white- hot atmosphere of a Glasgow derby will come as a shock to him.
He grew up hearing all about the madness of the Old Firm games.
The 42-year-old got a reminder of the rivalry when he broke the news that he was moving north to become a youth coach at Rangers last summer.
He said: “My dad and all his family are from Glasgow, so I was brought up in North Yorkshire understanding the history of the game, knowing what it’s about and what the occasion means.
“Standing on the sidelines, though, will be very, very new.
“My dad is still a Celtic fan. All of my father’s family are Celtic fans, and they reiterated that to me earlier this year when I met up with them – and got four hours of absolute dog’s abuse!
“They said: ‘ What are you doing?’, and I replied: ‘This is what I’m doing’, and I sat back and accepted their backlash.
“The thing is that my old man is a great believer in self-determination.
“He doesn’t believe in telling you anything that he believes should be your belief.
“We have endless debates on all sorts of subjects – religion, sport, most definitely about football – because he has got his way and I have got mine.
“I’ m really thankful that he’s broad- minded enough to give me a chance to go and be my own person. He’d better want me to win against Celtic! I’m reasonably content that he will want me to do really well.
“We haven’t had the discussion yet. I’m biding my time.
“I’ll chat to him about it before kick-off, but to be perfectly honest, I didn’t think I would be in charge against Celtic.
“I thought it would have been incredibly arrogant for me to say that I would be in charge for this game.
“My old man will give me some abuse, give me some stick, but I’ve got no doubt that deep down inside he will want me to do really, really well.”
Edward Murty will be watching proceedings from his retirement home in Spain’s Murcia region.
His son admits his future career could be decided by how the game unfolds.
He went on: “I think this could be a seminal moment in my life, not just in my career as a coach.
“It will go a long way to educating me as to whether I want to do this full-time, or whether I want to go back to long-term development of young players.
“Whatever happens, I’m still going to take my time. The worst thing I could do is go and jump into something after an experience like this.
“I feel that Rangers is a fairly unique football club, and I can take a lot of lessons from it.
“But I can’t take everything from here going into the next football club that I work at.
“This club is a very good generator of emotions, and I have to make sure that those emotions don’t cloud my logic.”
Murty, naturally, would love to exit the stage with an unlikely victory under his belt.
He said: “I don’t think anyone outside of the club gives us a chance.
“All we can control is our work- rate, intensity and understanding.
“The players have got a fantastic opportunity to show themselves in the best possible light to the new manager.”