HUGH MacDONALD INTERVIEW: IAN DURRANT
Decked by Souness but Durrant still glories in gallus days of old
THERE is a rousing ode to joy in the chronicles of Ian Durrant. The verses would include The Wonder of an Unbroken Wage Packet, The Glory of Being Gallus and The Ace of Spades (Benburb Remix).
Durrant is still an unfolding story but, at 51, he convincingly resists any attempts to introduce tragedy into his sporting life.
This, after all, is a character who can use the word tiff — to his credit, he smiles slyly — in an anecdote about being felled by a right-hander from Graeme Souness, his one-time midfield partner and manager.
The boy from Plantation has become a man who believes that when life gives one a lemon, then one should not only make lemonade but conjure up a Champagne shandy.
He is also, incidentally, enthused about an Irn-Bru Cup final later this month that is causing a fizz among his players and supporters at Dumbarton where he works as assistant to Stevie Aitken.
There are considerable reasons to be cheerful but there has been a lazy conspiracy to define Durrant by the knee injury sustained 30 years ago in a dreadful challenge by Neil Simpson of Aberdeen. Yet the midfielder recovered to amass more than 350 games for Rangers, Everton and Kilmarnock. He also picked up eight title medals — only one achieved before the knee injury — and all three of his Scottish Cup wins came after he had defied predictions that he would not play again.
Durrant admits soberly that his recovery encompassed almost three seasons and was completed after some ‘dark days’ but he adds: ‘I had the resentment at the start. I had something I loved and I thought it had been taken away from me.
‘But when I got back playing I moved far away from anything like that. It was like Christmas every day. When you have that joy, there is not much room for anything else.’
He was the stereotypical laddie who could be found kicking the ball in a close. He was extraordinary in that he was a Rangers regular by 18 and the hero of a League Cup final a year later. It was a success shared by the family.
‘I will never forget the look on her face,’ he says by way of an introduction to The Wonder of an Unbroken Wage Packet.
His mother, Ruby, was sitting with husband, Hugh, mulling a night in front of the telly when Durrant Jr sauntered in.
‘It was 1985 and I was on £25 a week, but I played in the first team and we won and I got the £170 bonus. So I came home with the brown packet unopened. I said to my mum: “There you go, that’s for you… as long as you give me £20 to see me over the weekend”.
‘The next thing I saw was them climbing into a taxi to go to Shawfield dugs for a night out.’
THE laugh is as light as the message is strong. Durrant was brought up in a tight, workingclass family. His father earned a regular, but unspectacular, wage as a scaffolder. ‘We didn’t really have two bob but it was a happy upbringing,’ he says.
‘When I signed for Rangers at 13, or whatever, it was a cause for joy. My da’ was a Rangers man but my mum was a big fan, too.
‘They watched me everywhere. On a snowy Tuesday night at Stenhousemuir, you would look up and they were there.
‘My first managers were John Greig and Jock Wallace. They were both great. Jock always told me that a footballer had the gift to make people happy and I loved that. I had a gallus streak,’ he says.
On a weekend dominated by the Rangers-Celtic saga, Durrant recalls his passion for the fixture. With the evident relish of someone who scored on his debut in an Old Firm match, he says he was never anxious before the matches. The Glory of Being Gallus has not faded over the years.
‘You either put a Pampers on or you puff your chest out. I would thrive on it,’ he says, smiling at his youthful confidence. ‘I would think: “You are at the big table now”.
‘I had belief in my ability, no question. But I also had belief in the players around about me.
‘When Souness came, everything changed, too. I was standing in a tunnel behind him. That was my spot, behind him and in front of Ally [McCoist] and Terry Butcher.
‘You would see opponents looking across in the tunnel and you knew they were the ones who had to be apprehensive.
‘Mind you, I am old-school Old Firm. I loved the atmosphere and I loved the tackles flying in. Wee (Peter) Granty always rattled me early. Sometimes in the tunnel.
‘I am focused on our game with Queen of the South but my thoughts on the big match are simple. Celtic, to me, are still by far the better team but Rangers have closed the gap. It makes it interesting. I hope, obviously, that the title race goes to the wire.’
He switches from the concerns of the present to the turbulence of the past.
‘Souness was really hard on me but he was fantastic for me. I was on the end of a few of his tirades and I was on the end of a right hook, too,’ he says.
In reply to whether he considered hitting the manager back, Durrant eyes his inquisitor for the possible fitting of a straitjacket before replying: ‘I was more concerned about getting hit by the second one. It
was a tiff in training. As I was going down I could see him lining up the second one. Luckily, someone stepped in.’
Souness later apologised and Durrant says: ‘It’s a gentleman’s game. You play hard and then you move on.’
This philosophical response is replicated in his answers over the knee injury that almost ended his career at 21.
He says: ‘That was a time of fear. I was told I wouldn’t play again but I went to Lilleshall for 14 months.
‘It was the best thing I did. I trained my mind to be positive. The staff there told me they could get me fit but I had to get myself over the line.’
He did. Incredibly, his return in a reserve match against Hibernian in January was watched by 18,000 to 30,000 depending on the source.
‘There was a joy about coming back. My thinking had changed. I was playing for the moment. I felt the dark days had been dealt with. I had lived the dream now I was fulfilling the dream.’
He enjoyed his subsequent spell at Kilmarnock before joining Rangers coaching staff. He left the club in June 2016 after the departure of McCoist as manager and joined Aitken at Dumbarton just more than a year ago.
The Ace of Spades is now given an airing. ‘We all muck in,’ he says. ‘I do everything from helping to clear the snow with a shovel to drawing up the training. But Stevie Aitken is astonishing. He takes training before heading off on the night shift. He will surely get a bigger club.
MInD you, this one is big enough. The town has gone mad for the cup final against Inverness and we look like taking more than 2,000 to McDiarmid Park.’
It is the first cup final for the club in 121 years. Durrant has a more gilded past but it does not lessen his appetite. The training at Benburb is within hearing distance of the tunes of glory he orchestrated at Ibrox.
He says: ‘I learned there that it was all about being the best you can be. Walter Smith was outstanding in forming me as a player and a coach.’
He does not patronise players. He says: ‘We make demands of them. I don’t like the word try. I use the word do. I am going to do this, do that.’
A cup final beckons, as does the fight to escape the play-off spot in the Championship. He says: ‘I tell the players don’t look at what is behind you, always focus on what is front of you.’
Durrant is talking about the league table. The sentiment, of course, applies neatly to a journey from the dark days of struggle at Lilleshall to nights of joy under the lights at Benburb.