Ibrox move has offered McAuley a fresh buzz
AS the team bus pulled into Edmiston Drive, Gareth McAuley felt the years fall away. Just a few weeks short of his 39th birthday, the butterflies dancing in the Rangers defender’s stomach gave him the wide-eyed thrill of a novice half his age.
Having made the briefest of cameos from the bench in Moscow a few nights earlier, the Northern Irishman sensed his first minutes on the Ibrox pitch were there for the taking and Steven Gerrard duly obliged, granting the stopper a 45-minute stroll in the 7-1 victory over 10-man Motherwell.
The calf injury that delayed his debut may have betrayed the high mileage in his legs but McAuley admits he is delighted to find his football career is still capable of gifting excitement and wonder.
West Brom’s relegation left him at a crossroads over the summer but, as a boyhood fan of Rangers, he held out for a move to Glasgow.
‘This was the club I wanted to come to,’ says McAuley. ‘There was a whisper at the end of last season that it might be a possibility and throughout the summer I was knocking things back waiting to see if it could happen. I really wanted to do it.
‘I could have gone to another Premier League club but I would probably have been
involved in another relegation battle. I’d done that for the last seven years at West Brom.
‘We survived six times but what did we actually win? Nothing. When it came to cup games the manager would change the team, so we had no chance.
‘I wanted to come here with the chance to win trophies, to have that different pressure of playing every week to win. Second isn’t good enough here. That’s the draw.
‘Even pulling up in the bus outside Ibrox before the Motherwell game, I felt like an 18-year-old. The buzz I got was unbelievable.
‘I couldn’t think of anywhere better to come and play football. My agents couldn’t really believe it but this is a massive club, a world-famous club and the most successful.
‘My wife comes up, we go out and immediately everyone wants to come over and speak to you.
‘In the Midlands, you can disappear but you can’t do that in Glasgow. Football here is bigger than most things. People are so passionate about it.’
This week McAuley hopes to play in a European tie at Ibrox for the very first time. Having sat through the crescendo of noise that enveloped an earlier Europa League tie against Rapid Vienna, he is braced for an all-consuming experience.
‘I’ve been in the stand for the last few European games and, as spectacles, those games were breathtaking.
‘I had never been to a European game as a fan before, so the atmosphere was incredible. The players were coming off the pitch and saying it’s the best they’d ever played in.
‘My mates travel across regularly to the games and they’ve always talked about it. But to be there to experience it for myself was something special. I’m hungry now to be involved on the pitch and to soak it all up if I can.
‘One of the things I have always taken with me since I played in the Irish Cup final (for Coleraine) is to play the game and not the occasion.
‘I played in a few European qualifiers back then and I think I scored against a team from Andorra. That was a long time ago and this will be completely different, but the basics are the same.’
McAuley was the fourth central defender signed by Gerrard, who hasn’t quite settled on a preferred combination between Connor Goldson, Nikola Katic and Joe Worrall.
His signing had echoes of David Weir’s arrival at the club back in early 2007. At that point, Walter Smith wanted an experienced organiser at the back as he built a team capable of wresting back control from a Celtic side that had won successive titles.
Weir played into his 40s, winning three championships and the Scottish Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year award along the way. ‘That would be a dream,’ beams McAuley, ‘but I’m just going one game at a time. I’ve been signing one-year contracts for the last five or six years with West Brom and that suited me. ‘If I feel physically that I can’t do things to the standards I want, then I’ll know that my time is up. It’s been a tough road getting back to fitness in the last few weeks but the staff here have been brilliant getting me back to a level where I feel I can play in Premiership games.’
A scorer in Northern Ireland’s momentous victory over Ukraine at Euro 2016, McAuley’s big-game nous will be important to Gerrard over the coming weeks.
‘I still remember things that older players would say to help me as I started out,’ he continues. ‘Football is an evolution, so I’m giving something back.
‘The younger players here are intelligent enough to ask you about what it’s like being 38 and still playing. They ask loads and loads of questions from what it’s like to play at 38 and how I keep myself going, and I just feed them bits of information.’
Thursday’s tie against Villarreal has all the makings of a barnstorming match and not just on account of the dramatics of the last meeting of the teams on the first night of the Europa League back in September.
Despite conceding as early as the first minute, Rangers secured a point in a thrilling 2-2 draw at the El Madrigal Stadium.
If Rangers have reserved their most impressive performance for the Europa League stage under Gerrard, Villarreal have used the competition as a welcome distraction from a troubled La Liga campaign.
Javier Calleja’s team have won just twice in the league this season but are top of Group G.
‘Villarreal are obviously a good side but the lads went toe-to-toe with them in Spain,’ adds McAuley. ‘That performance should give everyone confidence.’
I could not think of anywhere I’d rather to go and play football