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Don’t miss newly-crowned Scottish Sports Columnist of the Year, Gary Keown
IT is hard to know what fresh levels of humiliation may yet lie in wait for Graeme Murty at Rangers. Warming the toilet seat and lighting cigarettes for director of football Mark Allen? Ironing socks and polishing the regulation brown brogues in preparation for Steven Gerrard’s coronation?
The poor guy admits he has had a ‘decade of personal development’ in the seven months since taking over the running of The Big Top from Pedro Caixinha.
At times, he certainly looks as though he has aged ten years in the process. No wonder, given the amount of nonsense thrown at him by those inside the tent.
He was undermined by one of his chairman’s trademark statements — clumsy and damaging as ever, like The Hulk handling filo pastry — just days before the last Old Firm game in the Scottish Cup semi-final.
His own players then showed him even less respect over the course of a shameful afternoon for Rangers at Hampden.
And here we are now. At this day of all days. Murty as the guest of honour at a Parkhead title party as the identities of Rangers’ next coaching team become ever more apparent — with no one inside the club appearing to deem him worthy of an update on what is going on behind the curtain.
There he was on Friday, still out front and taking it all on the chin as always, still talking about proving himself the best man for the job, still maintaining the belief there is some faint hope he might be in charge of the team next season. You feel like telling him to wake up.
One thing his media conference did show, though, was that he is finally ready to stand up for himself. There was no mention of the club and the season being more important than individuals, no suggestion that reflecting on his own situation would be inappropriate.
Murty felt the need to defend his mangled reputation, to explain a little of what he has had to deal with in trying to hold together a club that has about as much order as a bowl of Eton Mess.
If he somehow manages to stop this latest chaotic season ending in the ignominy of being hapless bystanders, to be prodded, laughed at and abused, as Celtic celebrate Seven-In-A-Row in front of their own supporters, he should go a whole lot further — and tell the Ibrox board to shove it.
There seems no real point in him hanging around at Rangers any longer.
If the board have, indeed, identified his replacement, they would be as well bringing him in right now. If that is not possible, Jimmy Nicholl or someone else on the backroom staff can steer the ship for the closing games.
Murty should not allow himself to be disrespected any longer. To paraphrase an old motto banging around Ibrox again after a period in cold storage, He Deserves Better. Of course, he has made mistakes at Rangers. How could you expect anything else from a guy who had been asked to jump from coaching the Under-20s to inheriting the shambles left behind by Caixinha and the senior management team that allowed the Portuguese to spend fortunes on Carlos Pena, Eduardo Herrera, et al? However, he has also been made to serve as a walking, talking flak jacket for chairman Dave King and the board. He has been the public face of the club, fielding questions about things that have nothing to do with him, whilst managing director Stewart Robertson and Allen hid under the covers. As admirably as Murty has handled those demands, the weight of it all has looked close to breaking him at times. It is crystal clear that he is not going to be the manager next season and ridiculous that the Ibrox management are not prepared to be open and transparent with him. It is also almost unthinkable that he could remain at the club.
He came to Rangers as a youth coach and only stepped into the fray to help out after the dismissals of Mark Warburton and Caixinha.
Yet, given what has gone on in the interim period and the bad blood that clearly now exists within elements of the dressing room, it is hard to see how Murty could possibly go back to that position within the set-up at Auchenhowie. He may carry scars from this bruising period for the rest of his career and there could be worse to come should Rangers fail to hold off the challenges of Aberdeen and Hibernian for second place in the Premiership.
He does not need to be around for that. His goose is cooked at Rangers as it is. He can have a holiday, look around for work and carry on his education as a coach in a quieter, more appropriate position elsewhere next term.
Murty has done the best he can in a thankless job he was not qualified to do. He has nothing to be ashamed of. Whether the same can be said about others at the club is open to debate.
He seems the type who would want to do things properly. To fulfil his contract and see the job through until the bitter end.
In his case, though, there is another of those Rangers catchphrases from yesteryear that springs to mind.
For Murty, it time to do walking away. For his sanity and his pride.