Glasgow giants are stronger together
Former Ibrox coach Beale says Old Firm must end the friction and collaborate for betterment of SPFL
THREE-and-a-half years in the madhouse of Scottish football with Rangers played out like a passionate, volatile love affair for Michael Beale. Now 500 miles removed as he starts his journey into management with Queens Park Rangers, he is indelibly marked by the experience — and stands ready to defend the game against the sneers of those who would mock it.
Beale left Ibrox eight months ago as Steven Gerrard grasped the opportunity to return to the Premier League with Aston Villa.
What the coach saw in England’s top flight convinced him that the players he left behind had the wherewithal to be competitive in the self-proclaimed greatest league in the world.
Certainly, he believes both they and Celtic would take apart any of the teams in the league he is about to manage in.
‘I fell in love with the Scottish game,’ remarks Beale, before adding a disclaimer. ‘I fell out of love with it halfway through and then fell back in love with it.
‘It’s important not to compare yourselves to the Premier League because that’s ridiculous. But, in my opinion, the two top teams would beat everyone in the Championship out of sight.
‘I spent some time in the Premier League last season and I know where my Rangers team were at compared to the Aston Villa team we inherited and the teams we played against.
‘I would have backed us to be very competitive with the squad we had.’
And yet Beale can’t escape the feeling that for all the progress both Glasgow clubs continue to make under Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Ange Postecoglou, they persistently self-harm due to their attitude towards each other.
It might not be a popular view among the followers of either club but he believes the duo once commonly and uncontroversially known as the Old Firm have the potential to improve each other — and the wider game — by working together.
For some, the constant friction and one-upmanship between Rangers and Celtic is the very thing that makes Scottish football tick. Aggro sells.
Beale wonders if there might be a better, more constructive way forward. One that embraces the intense rivalry of the Glasgow clubs yet also pools their considerable forces in driving positive change.
It might be a pipe dream but, observing Postecoglou and Van Bronckhorst from afar, the former Ibrox coach wonders if the obvious rapport between the two managers might sow the seeds for collaboration.
‘Both clubs do a lot of good things but in the competition of out-scoring each other they are letting each other down,’ he states. ‘I’m not saying they should be best friends but for the betterment of the game there are times when they could work together.
‘Looks at Holland — Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord come together at times. When they wanted to do something about plastic pitches, they acted as one.
‘There is such a good sell about the two teams and the way they play that we need to stop the other bit. The owners can help with that and the managers, too.
‘In the small dealings I have had with both Ange and Gio, I like them
both as men. It’s probably the first time in a long time where the two Old Firm managers get on and are on the same page.
‘It’s positive for Scottish football, they conduct themselves the right way and are good with the media. ‘I wish them both well but I am firmly on the blue side in terms of my support.’
At one stage, the intense, febrile nature of Glasgow football threatened to get the better of Beale himself as he famously lost his cool at the end of his team’s 2-1 win at Celtic Park in December 2019.
Reacting as Alfredo Morelos was shown a second yellow card for diving in stoppage-time, Beale unloaded on referee Kevin Clancy, branding him a cheat and then exchanged unpleasantries with John Kennedy as he too was shown a red card.
‘I loved the cauldron,’ he smiles. ‘I got caught up just the once. And I was in the wrong.
‘I was so calm just minutes before — I don’t know what happened.
‘That’s passion. Fans love that, don’t they? But it mustn’t overspill.’
Just as Beale believes Rangers have called it wrong in adopting a stonewall approach to press relations, he does believe the tendency of the media to pit the two big clubs against each other is unhelpful.
Beyond that issue, he never could properly get his head around the bigotry that poisons the rivalry.
These things combined to dampen his mood during his second season in Scotland.
‘I think that was all perspective and the media plays a big part in that,’ he says. ‘Brendan (Rodgers) had done a really good job at Celtic and before we came in you had pundits saying it would take £100million to catch up. Well it didn’t. It took less than they spent to catch up and go in front.
‘I’m not sure that was written about. Sometimes that can drive you mad.
‘Brendan made Scottish football better and I would like to think we did, too. Ideas are important. Ange has some really bright ideas and you now see it with Gio, too.’
Although winning the league in 2021 will forever stand as the biggest achievement of Gerrard’s reign, Beale is perhaps proudest of the European legacy left by his management team.
Gerrard quit during last season’s Europa League group stage campaign but Van Bronckhorst picked up the baton and took the team all the way to the final in Seville where they were defeated by Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties.
It was Postecoglou’s Celtic who would lift the league trophy but Beale despairs of the tendency to focus on the teams’ respective shortcomings.
‘I think the game is dealt a harsh hand at times,’ he continues. ‘It was not too long ago that Celtic were beating Lazio and Rangers have beaten a host of teams in recent seasons. But we turn our noses up at that and say well they’re not doing it domestically!
‘Ange came in, adopted a style
They both do a lot of good things but the out-scoring of each other just lets them down
and stuck with it through difficult days. He recruited for it and there is now this lovely Asian connection with Celtic that no one would have envisaged a year ago.
‘And I can’t tell you difficult it is for a Scottish team to get to a Europa League final. But even when Rangers were beating Dortmund and Leipzig, people were questioning the manager. Wow. We are too easy to knock our own.
‘Ange is not breathing easy because he won the league, is he? Gio cant either. That’s in the water and it’s great but…
‘I suppose I fell out of love with it because we weren’t educating the next generation of coaches and fans. They won, so they’re good. And they lost, so they’re crap.
‘And, aside from the tit for tat and the rivalry, I’m not massive on the sectarian thing. I didn’t want to be cast as anything. I didn’t want my children to be cast as anything.
‘I wanted to be independent as a coach working in the country.’
To say Beale (right) has a manifesto for the game might be an overstatement. Yet, with a longanticipated review of the game by Deloitte due any time now, there are some basics he believes would help make the game a more competitive and attractive proposition.
For starters, he’d expand the top flight to 18 clubs, thus pitting teams against each other just twice and naturally drawing some of the friction out the game in the process.
He’d also outlaw the use of plastic pitches, currently in use at the Premiership grounds of Livingston and Kilmarnock.
‘You can’t compare the Scottish Premiership to the Premier League,’ he continues. ‘But you can compare it to the Eredivisie, or the leagues in Belgium, Sweden or Denmark.
‘It’s a good league but there are some things that hold it back.
‘I am not so keen on the 3G pitches. Not unless they are going to be kept at the elite standard. Are they like the ones in Holland or are you
paying lip service to that? The game could do with a financial boost and could be managed a bit better in terms of sponsorship. I would also like to see the league extended so teams don’t play each other four times.
‘I know the argument is that you need the four Old Firm games to sell the television deals but there are ways round that. You could maybe a have a community shieldtype game every year — what a curtain-raiser that would be.
‘I would be in favour of a 34-game league season and putting the League Cup back in the season.
‘The TV money is not there to help bridge the gap to the top two. In England, that money has allowed clubs to develop facilities — the infrastructure at training grounds, staffing in academies to bring the coaching ratios down.
‘The fact a club can now get Europa Conference League group stage football is great. That will only make the game stronger.
‘But it needs to be sold better. It’s a small country with two gigantic clubs but Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen are the same size as most Championship clubs. Dundee United have had a bit of a resurgence, too.
‘It’s a great little league. And it’s a great place for management. ‘Regardless of style, you have to respect what guys like Derek McInnes has done at Aberdeen, Robbie Neilson at Hearts and Jim Goodwin at St Mirren.
‘These guys are not spending £30-40m. They are managing. You really have to earn your corn in Scotland and that’s why you have produced such good managers.
‘I feel really enriched by the experience of being there.’
And that’s why he will be back — quite possibly in a professional sense but most definitely to live. Whether he does so as Rangers manager or possibly another SPFL side is a story yet to be written.
‘When it comes to football, Scotland is a glass-half-empty nation but not in daily life,’ adds Beale.
‘I love it. Every weekend, we have friends down from Scotland. My wife would happily be living in Scotland now.
‘We are in the process of buying another house there, which gives you an idea of how we feel about the place.’