Journey man Crawford

His footballing odyssey has taken him from Ibrox to Alloa and East Kilbride and from North Carolina to Iceland and Finland but Robbie Crawford’s wanderlust and ongoing quest to improve as a player still has a long distance left to run...

I was gutted to quit Rangers but I couldn’t have played against them

WHO was at Rangers for 15 years yet had to wait until he went to Iceland to play in a European tie?

The answer to this teaser is Robbie Crawford, a 26-year-old son of Gourock, whose life in football reflects both the tumult of the Scottish variety and the refreshingly modern approach of finding a career path in the most unlikely places.

The journey up the Clyde to Rangers, then to Iceland and now to Finland where he will play in the national cup final today has had stop-off points in North Carolina and, well, Brechin. Crawford has taken it all in his stride.

He once was described by his then manager Ally McCoist as someone who would not say ‘boo to a goose’ but the erstwhile Rangers manager appreciated the player’s physical and inner strength.

That has been tested and toughened by life experience and Crawford can now chuckle at an existence that can involve a day’s travelling for an away match.

He plays for IFK Mariehamn, based in the Åland Islands between Finland and Sweden.

Now in the Finnish Premier Division (Veikkausliiga), the club has Dutch, Congolese, Kenyan and Australian players to complement the local talent.

They play Ilves from Tampere in the cup final today but have contested the qualifying rounds of the Champions League.

Crawford is both pleased by the standard and amused by the lifestyle he has had to adopt.

‘Yes, it’s different,’ he admits. ‘For away games, we have to take the ferry to Helsinski. That is overnight and takes up to 11 hours.

‘It is into the cabin and off we sail. Then, once we hit the mainland, we take the coach. The farthest game is 14 hours away by bus, so that can take a bit of getting used to, but it is great for team spirit.’

The personal spirit of Crawford is well worth investigating. It has sustained him on a long, demanding yet fulfilling career.

The son of two solicitors, who drove him faithfully to and from his training, he joined Rangers at eight years of age and survived the endless culls to become a firstteam player. ‘I always had the motivation,’ he says. ‘As soon as you walk through the door as a kid, you are competing against other guys. ‘This happens year after year. It is a huge club and the academy is one of the best and biggest in the UK, so there is an element of always having to be strong. ‘I loved being there but I am not quite sure how I came through it all. I suppose it was down to the fact that I always wanted to make the most of what I had. ‘I worked hard, did a lot of extra work.’ He was part of a generation of Rangers players (who made their competitive debuts in unlikely spots. Crawford (left, in his Ibrox days) played against Brechin City at Glebe Park in July 2012 as Rangers won a Ramsdens Cup tie. ‘Circumstances helped,’ he says of that day in the sun and that view of the famous hedge.

‘A lot of big players left in the summer and we went down to the Third Division, so that gave a lot of young guys like myself a chance.

‘It is not exactly how you picture a debut for Rangers but I remember it all clearly. It is a cliché about the joy of making the first team. But it is all true.’

The arrival of Mark Warburton as Rangers manager in 2014 signalled the end for Crawford at Ibrox.

‘It was exciting times pre-season,’ he says, ‘but the manager had other ideas. The writing was on the wall for me pretty quickly.

‘But that’s just the reality of football. It changes quickly. Managers have their own ideas and there was nothing I could do but accept it and move on. I had to make the most of my career.’

He adds: ‘I was gutted to leave. I had been there 15 years. It is not just the coaches that you become close to but the other staff such as the canteen ladies.

The whole place is part of your life. I have always tried to be positive, so I look back with gratitude. I owe a lot to so many coaches and to Ally McCoist for giving me my debut.

‘But it was over, so it was a matter of what next?’

Loan spells at Morton, Alloa and Raith Rovers followed before Crawford joined the Lowland League and East Kilbride.

‘Raith Rovers in particular just

didn’t work out,’ he says. ‘It was a time when I just wanted to enjoy football, just play with freedom, get back to how it all felt as a kid. I got that at East Kilbride.

‘I felt refreshed and loving the game again. I had offers from Championship clubs but my plan was always to leave Scotland.’

Why? ‘It was a combination of factors,’ he says. ‘First, there is the life experience.

‘Second, Rangers were a big factor in my life and playing against them would have been difficult. Third, I always had a notion to play abroad because I thought it would suit me.

‘It also helped that I was young with no family in terms of wife and children.’

The first destination was North Carolina and a trial spell with Capital Area RailHawks, then coached by Greg Shields, now on the staff at Dunfermline Athletic.

The opportunity there fell through but almost immediately he was approached by an Icelandic club.

‘It was appealing,’ he says of joining FH. ‘Steven Lennon, who was also at Rangers, was there and there was the prospect of Champions League qualifiers.

‘I enjoyed a week there and had no hesitation in joining them.’

He signed two years ago and played in a Champions League qualifying defeat of Faroes team Vikingur Gota and then in the narrow defeat to Maribor of Slovenia.

This was followed by a subsequent Europa League qualifier that was lost to Braga Step by step: Crawford has moved on from his days at Rangers to Finland, where he is loving life at current club IFK Mariehamn of Portugal. ‘That is something you won’t get at the majority of clubs in Scotland,’ he says, acknowledging that it is somewhat unusual to have the fourth tier of Scottish football on a Rangers CV but no European football. He adds: ‘I didn’t expect the level to be as good as it was in Iceland. Frankly, I didn’t know much about it before I went over. ‘But there are obviously really good players and the international success shows that they have much going for them. ‘The facilities were excellent and the investment in massive indoor halls and in coaches has paid off for them.’ Living just 15 minutes from Reykjavik, he found the transition easy. ‘Steven helped and flights back to Scotland only took a couple of hours, so it was very smooth,’ he says. So why leave? ‘The contract ended and it was time for a new challenge,’ he says. ‘I was ambitious to get to the best league I could and an opportunity in Finland came up. The manager of IFK (Peter Lundberg) showed great faith in me.’ The Finnish league, too, is a stepping stone with Alfredo Morelos and Glen Kamara of Rangers both objects of scrutiny in Crawford’s adopted homeland.

Kamara plays for the national team and Morelos starred for HJK in Finland before moving to Glasgow.

‘I know guys that I played with are now in the Scottish Championship and that suits them but it wasn’t for me. I needed something different,’ Crawford says. ‘What my travels have given me is a change in perspective.

‘I suppose I was in a bubble at Rangers for 15 years and I have now opened my eyes to what is out there. Football is a big world with a lot of opportunities.’

His focus is now understandably on a cup final and a league challenge, but where next for the nomadic Scot?

‘I would not rule places out,’ he adds. ‘If it makes sense footballwise and in a lifestyle way, then I am open to anything. It is just about progressing and seeing where it takes me. You have to enjoy where you are, too. That’s my mentality.’ The world is at his feet. The drive from Gourock has led to a Finnish ferry.

The destination board, though, is still incomplete.

I was stuck in a bubble in Scotland but I know what’s out there now