SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS
Martin warns Diallo: Rangers is no place for the faint-hearted
TRANSFER deadline day is approaching and the recently appointed Rangers manager wants to add an exciting young winger to his attacking options. He picks up the phone and gives his approval to a loan deal for a 19-year-old tipped for greatness at Manchester United…
This could be the tale of Giovanni van Bronckhorst and last week’s eye-catching deal to land Amad Diallo. Or we could be back in 2006 recounting Paul le Guen’s decision to bring Lee Martin to Ibrox.
Almost 16 years on, Martin describes his few months in Glasgow as the best days of his career. It’s quite the proclamation given that his stint here coincided with Le Guen’s fraught and miserable reign.
He had form issues and a knee ligament injury to deal with, while a non-existent challenge for the title fuelled the build-up to a full-on dressing-room mutiny.
With hindsight Martin regards it as a coming-of-age chapter in an adventure that is still ongoing at non-league Ebbsfleet United.
It was Sir Alex Ferguson who pushed Martin towards moving to his old club and he had fellow Old Trafford prospect Phil Bardsley for company.
Almost 35 and eyeing a coaching career alongside his role as club captain at Ebbsfleet, Martin took some time out to chat to the Mail on Sunday about his brief but unforgettable spell in Scotland.
‘Rangers was a fantastic experience,’ said Martin, who played 10 times for the Ibrox side. ‘I had been used to firstteam football out in Belgium but not to that magnitude.
‘I was 19 and I hadn’t had many bumps in the road to that point. I had been fast-tracked at Man
United, made my debut and won numerous trophies with the youth and reserve teams. ‘I went to Antwerp on loan and got player of the season out there. All I knew was the way up.
‘I began well at Rangers, started the opening game but then I got injured and it was hard to regain my fitness and my rhythm. I did my medial before a UEFA Cup game and it kept me out for six weeks. I just couldn’t get back to the same level. ‘As a youngster you can lose your way. I wasn’t so mature at that age, I didn’t have my family round me and it was the first time I had lost form and faced criticism.
‘That’s the thing about Rangers — you are going to get told when you are not doing well. The biggest thing I learned was that the expectation is huge. You have to be up for that task.
‘I remember my very first day. I had just checked into the Menzies Hotel in Glasgow and went out to get some snacks and a bottle of water.
‘There were people beeping me in the street. I was like “wow, this is big”. I’d never been recognised like that before. ‘I knew then it was a massive club. That I was under the lens.’ Given the resources ploughed into youth development and player welfare, Martin suspects that Diallo will have a better support network during his stint in Glasgow. However, no number of soothing phone calls or comforting home deliveries will prepare him for the heat of the battle ahead.
With hindsight, Martin admits he struggled to live up to the billing attached to his emergence from a fabled academy that had produced Beckham, Scholes et al in the previous decade.
Diallo also arrives with a huge price tag. United are understood to have paid £19million up front for the Ivory Coast winger, a figure that could double in time.
Martin continues: ‘That tag of being a United player can follow you around for the best part of your career. It certainly did for me. You either live up to it or you don’t.
‘Rangers was the best experience I had in football and to play in front of a packed Ibrox against Hearts on my full debut was fantastic.
‘It’s probably the biggest achievement to date. I always say that to people. There are so many lows in football. I was fortunate to have that rise from 16 to 18 without any failings. Criticism, loss of form can knock you for six.
‘But my debut for Rangers has stuck with me through my life. It was such a big eye-opener. I don’t think anyone can explain it. You have to experience it first hand.
‘And there was the Old Firm game. Crazy.’
Having scored on his debut at Ross County yesterday, Diallo now faces a trip across Glasgow where he will face one of the most partisan atmospheres in football.
Martin’s solitary derby experience, a 2-0 defeat at Celtic Park, is not one that is remembered fondly by Rangers fans.
Martin’s team was already a goal down to a strike from Thomas Gravesen when he was brought off the bench to replace Chris Burke with 25 minutes remaining.
Ten minutes later, Kenny Miller had doubled the advantage.
He continues: ‘I remember warming up and the passion and the rivalry hitting me. I don’t think you get that anywhere really, that sort of rivalry.
‘It’s literally boiling point. It was fantastic to be a part of that.
‘Maybe at 19 you don’t realise that playing in that, with that sort of pressure is one of the biggest achievements.
‘I played at Old Trafford and a few derbies but in terms of the tension and passion that was a helluva fixture. I grew up watching the Old Firm on telly, then at 19 I was playing in one.’
A circumspect manager who had made his name during a successful spell at Lyon, Le Guen never appeared fully at ease in Glasgow.
‘He didn’t really speak much to me, he struggled with the language barrier,’ says Martin. ‘I was fortunate to have so many good people in the dressing room to help guide me.
‘Barry Ferguson helped me out massively. Fergie was tremendous. He sort of ran the club and was so important to all of us.’
Martin retains a playing link to today’s Rangers squad, courtesy of goalkeeper Allan McGregor who will tomorrow celebrate his 40th birthday.
‘Greegsy was fantastic,’ he says. ‘We had quite a young group. We ended up all playing against each other down south. Burkey moved to Cardiff as did Gavin Rae. Fergie was down south, Stevie Smith to Norwich, Kris Boyd moved to Middlesbrough, Alan Hutton was at Forest for a bit. And Greegsy came down the road, too.
‘We’ve all spent the majority of our careers playing against each other. It didn’t stop there.’
Ferguson famously struggled with the Frenchman’s authority and was stripped of the captaincy shortly before matters came to a head.
Recalled to Old Trafford and sent out on a new loan, this time to Championship side Stoke City, Martin missed the spectacular fall-out, one that paved the way for Walter Smith’s second spell in charge at Ibrox.
‘I’m not sure what happened after I left but it was a different culture at Rangers,’ he muses. ‘It’s difficult
‘EXPECTATIONS AT RANGERS ARE HUGE. YOU WILL BE TOLD IF YOU ARE NOT PLAYING WELL ENOUGH’
to grasp the history behind Rangers and maybe that was the toughest thing for Paul le Guen.
‘It was a transitional period for Rangers. The new manager came in with his own ways. When it’s not going well, that becomes an issue, there is a demand for success.
‘But of all my loan spells I learned so much.’
Martin would eventually earn a permanent move to Ipswich Town, where Roy Keane forked out £1.5m to take him to Portman Road but he never quite scaled the heights expected in his teens.
He was not the last much-hyped winger to struggle following a high-profile loan move to Glasgow.
Nathan Oduwa’s move from Spurs under Mark Warburton yielded a few nifty tricks and flicks but little else. Sheyi Ojo followed Steven Gerrard from Liverpool but is best remembered for his boasts of how much better Rangers were than a Celtic team racking up a quadruple treble.
And across at Parkhead, Brendan Rodgers’ golden boy Charly Musonda succeeded only in making a mockery of his manager’s predictions of greatness after moving on loan from Chelsea.
Martin believes the key to success for Diallo will be in understanding and embracing the context of his new surroundings.
‘He just needs to be prepared for how big Rangers is. United is big but Rangers is life isn’t it? Football is everything up there.
‘The youngsters now are more prepped than we were and people are a bit more patient with young players. They have loan managers too to provide a shoulder.
‘Back in 2006 the manager had wanted me to go somewhere he knew and somewhere I would be looked after. The alternative was to play a cameo role at another Premier League club.
‘United felt my development would be better aided at Rangers and they obviously feel the same way about Diallo.
‘He just needs to realise that this is one big football club with a lot of history and expectation. I’m sure it will be one of the best experiences of his life.’