FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME
From Old Trafford and sitting with Posh Spice to Broadwood via Sao Paulo, John Rankin’s life in football has been blessed with memories if not trophies
HOW to measure a career? Should it be given a value in terms of silverware? Should it be weighed in wages? Is it made more worthy by glory? Or gilded by the respect offered by peers?
‘I never won anything,’ says John Rankin, who played football for more than 20 years. ‘Even when Clyde won promotion at the end of my career, I missed the play-off because I had a bad injury. So I don’t class that as something that I achieved.’
Yet his career is illuminated by wonderful experiences. Rankin, 37, is a product of the playing fields of Airdrie and beyond but he was signed by Manchester United, played on loan for Corinthians in Sao Paulo, saw his mother sit goggle-eyed at Posh Spice in the directors’ box at Old Trafford, took lessons from one Champions League winner and offered the same to a future winner of the greatest trophy in the club game.
He also spent more than five years serving his fellow professionals as chairman of the Scottish Professional Footballers’ Association.
This, then, is the measure of the man and the gauge of the player. Now a coach with the Under-18 team at Hearts, he says: ‘My greatest achievement is probably playing for the length of time I did.’ The story thus stretches back into the last century and a three-year-old is kicking a ball on the sidelines, watching his dad playing for Clarkston Thistle.
This love for football and the presence of his father led Rankin to Manchester United. ‘I was playing and my dad was the ref,’ he explains. ‘Scouts then would not approach the coaches, they would go to the refs after the game and ask for the team lines.
‘The Man United coach asked for the name of the No10, so my dad gave him the name of the No8 instead, which was me,’ he says. Before adding with a chuckle: ‘Only kidding.’
In the best traditions of Lanarkshire fatherhood, Ian Rankin did not mention this development to his son.
‘On the Sunday night — no mobile phones — the house phone goes and it was the Manchester United scout. I was shocked,’ he admits. He was transported to a ‘different world’ aged only 14.
The training facilities were impressive, the immediate experiences remain with him more than two decades on.
‘I played at Bristol City in an
Under-15 match and the main stand was sold out,’ says Rankin. ‘I just thought: “Wow”. There was the plush bus to away games, the pre-match meal, the hotels.’
He was part of the intake that produced Darren Fletcher, Phil Bardsley and Kieron Richardson for the first team.
Rankin remembers one moment clearly. ‘Old Trafford. I was sitting in this office before a game with my mum and my dad around the time I signed,’ he says.
‘Suddenly this door opens and it was the manager. Alex Ferguson starts talking away to you. He wanted to know people. He starts talking to my mum and dad about people he knew in Airdrie. I am having a wee look at my watch and thinking that it was not long to kick-off but he talked away.
‘Then we went up to the directors’ box and my dad and I are watching the game but Posh Spice is sitting behind us and my mum is mesmerised by it. That’s the difference about Man United, I suppose.’
There was another extraordinary experience. In 2001, he was loaned to Corinthians in Brazil.
‘I was a late developer and I was having problems with my pelvis as I grew quickly,’ he adds. ‘The manager asked me if I would go abroad to gain experience.
‘It was an experience I never thought I would have. It was not a lot different, training-wise, football-wise but… it was strange for a 17-year-old. It was a different culture, nobody spoke English.
‘It was hard, but I look back and think it did me the world of good. It opened my eyes to the world. It was dangerous, so we had to be chauffeured about. You couldn’t get out of the car. The poverty was right in front of you.
‘The car pulls up at the traffic light and kids with no shoes on are hanging sweets on wing mirrors and they would go down the line and time it to come back and take the money.
‘There were times when we didn’t eat there because of mix-ups over the language and other stuff. But I knew a lot more about the world when I came back.’
A FAMILIAR voice echoes around the Oriam training centre in Edinburgh. Rankin is taking the Under-18 players at Hearts but recognises the tones from another hall. ‘Andy is giving out his instructions,’ he says of Robertson, of that ilk, who is vocal when training with the Scotland squad.
‘He is part of a dying breed in
that. We are part of the emoji culture where people communicate in symbols. You send someone a smiley face or a thumbs-up,’ says Rankin. ‘Andy is one of those who communicates well on the pitch.’
The left-back, who has won a Premier League, Champions League and World Club title, was encouraged in this trait by Rankin at Dundee United. ‘I was a traffic warden among many talented kids,’ he says of the Tannadice team of 2014.
‘I would point, shout and direct. They would fulfil the instructions. They were brilliant at it. They were like sponges: (Stuart) Armstrong, (Gary) Mackay-Steven, (Ryan)
Gauld, Robertson, (John) Souttar, (Ryan) Dow, (Nadir) Ciftci…’
There was, too, a confidence about Robertson. ‘He took on instructions but he would do his own thing, too,’ says Rankin. ‘We were playing Motherwell, 3-1 up in the dying minutes. I had played for Hibs in the 6-6 match, so I was telling everyone: “Don’t concede. Just get through this. Just sit in”.
‘I was conscious of Andy, too. He would bomb on and I would sit normally. But I shouted to him near the end: “Don’t move”. Then Brian Graham robs their centreback and plays a square ball to me and all l hear is: “Ranks, Ranks” on the outside. I slid it to my left and it’s Andy bombing on and he fires it into the top corner.
‘As we are celebrating, I am punching his stomach, telling him: “What did I tell you?” But he’s going: “I scored, didn’t I?”’
The smile is evident in Rankin’s voice as he says: ‘He had a bit of swagger about him even then.’
The feeling is mutual. Robertson, sitting in a hotel in Doha on the day before the World Club final, talked about his debt to Rankin, saying he had been given a wonderful education in the game. The older man does not shrug this praise off.
‘I was proud. I was gobsmacked,’ he says. ‘You don’t expect that from someone of his stature now.
‘Younger ones learn how to deal with the demands of the older ones and learn from their habits. Andy has done this. He’s gone from better to better to world class.’
Rankin, too, learned an early lesson that accompanied him on his journey through Ross County, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Hibernian, Dundee United, Falkirk, Queen of the South and Clyde.
He continues: ‘I trained a lot with David May at the end of his career. If you speak about Manchester United he may not be the name that immediately pops into people’s heads, but the way he trained with the reserves was educational.
‘He warmed up properly before a session, he showed me how to conduct myself on a training pitch, he still had that desire to win. He gave instructions, he pointed you in the right direction.’
Brian McClair, also at Manchester United, and Barry Wilson, at Inverness Caledonian Thistle, were also inspirational. ‘At the age of 36, you could see Barry doing “extras”, particularly on his finishing. That emphasised to me you can always learn, you can always get better.’
He has taken lessons from every manager, name-checking as coaches Donald Park, the veteran who influenced so many players, particularly in his roles at the SFA, and Neil Bailey, who was the youth team coach when Rankin was at Manchester United.
Rankin admits he has chosen a tough profession, with the coaching world overpopulated and success uncertain. But he is positive about his aims.
‘People talk about surviving in the game’ he says. ‘I don’t want to survive. I want to achieve. I am at Hearts to discover what I can be good at.’
Of coaching an under-age team, he adds: ‘Ultimately, my job is not to win leagues. It’s to get players ready to play in the first team and not just for a fleeting appearance. The academy ethos is that you must produce good people and then you produce good players.’
The love of the game has endured from the sidelines of Airdrie amateur pitches, through the directors’ box at Old Trafford, and even to Sao Paulo and the less glamorous outings with Clyde.
‘I love being on the pitch,’ he declares. ‘I love seeing players becoming better but then I can also see myself improving.’
He is in a good place under the lights at the Oriam or out on the open pitches. ‘I am not worried about myself,’ he says. ‘It is more about what I can give others.’
It is the biggest lesson from a life in football. It has more value than any medal.