RANGERS' prospects of securing promotion to the SPFL Premiership were rocked again last night when caretaker manager Kenny McDowall tendered his resignation for personal reasons.
McDowall will continue to take charge of the team as he begins a 12-month notice period but further upheaval is inevitable.
McDowall has managed Rangers for only three-and-a-bit games, having stepped in when his friend, Ally McCoist, was placed on gardening leave last month. After a crushing 4-0 defeat in his first game in charge at Hibs, his team then beat Dumbarton and Alloa before last Friday's game against Hearts was abandoned during the first half because of snow at Ibrox.
He had been a deeply reluctant recruit to the position of Rangers manager. The vacancy he filled was unwelcome, he said, because it had come to him only because of the departure of his friend. "It's tainted, isn't it," he said at the time of his appointment. "What can you do? I have got to try to make the best of a bad situation that has happened." McDowall was told by new Rangers chief executive Derek Llambias that he would have to tell Ian Durrant that he was being demoted from first team duties to take charge of the under-20s.
McDowall has often looked forlorn and unhappy in the role. He apologised to supporters for that abject performance against Hibs and has never seemed comfortable as a figurehead for the club, especially given the circumstances in which the job came to him. The difficulty now is that Rangers are already 13 points behind unbeaten leaders Hearts in The Championship and will face a stiff challenge from Hibs, Queen of the South and Falkirk before and during the play-offs. Teams regularly lose morale, confidence and form when playing under a manager who has already announced his intention to leave. Rangers' rivals will draw encouragement from the fact the Ibrox squad is being managed by a caretaker boss who intends to leave, along with a caretaker assistant manager, Gordon Durie, and player/coach Lee McCulloch.
A former Partick Thistle and St Mirren player, McDowall, 51, became a youth and reserve team coach at Celtic and spent a decade on the Parkhead coaching staff before accepting the offer to become Rangers' team coach when Walter Smith took over as manager in 2007. He then became assistant manager to McCoist in 2011.
His resignation was confirmed in a warmly-worded statement issued by the club shortly before 10pm: "Kenny McDowall has tendered his resignation as caretaker manager of Rangers Football Club, citing personal reasons for stepping down. Kenny, who has been a fantastic servant of the club, will serve his 12-month notice period, during which time he will remain 100 per cent committed to his normal duties. The club respects Kenny's decision and he will continue to have the full support of everybody at Rangers."
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192240 GMT JAN 15
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