The rough and tumble of the football world is littered with tales of players returning to their old clubs and proving a point. When Craig Flannigan left Rangers back in 1992, we can safely assume that he didn’t stand on Edmiston Drive, shake his fist at the grand edifice of the Ibrox main stand and defiantly bawl ‘Ah’ll be back so ah will…and it will be in the capacity of health, fitness and sports science.’
Of course, Flannigan had no grudge to bear with the club he had signed for as a teenager. “I think there was a realisation that I wasn’t good enough for the first team,” he admitted after becoming the latest addition to Mark Warburton’s backroom team following the arrival of chief scout, Frank McParland. “I saw my level as bottom end Premier League or top end First Division. I was an internationalist in my age group but, at that time at Rangers, Mo Johnston, Mark Hateley and Ally McCoist were the first-team strikers. Also stifling me were John Spencer and Gary McSwegan, who were only two years ahead of me. They would probably have played in any other team at that time. I had an opportunity to go and play in Clydebank’s first team, so it was really a no brainer. I didn’t envisage that after signing for Rangers in 1989, I’d be back here 26 years later.”
The lavish, all-singing, all-dancing surrounds of the Murray Park training complex are a far cry from the humble facilities Flannigan was used to during those formative footballing forays.
“During my first year at Rangers, the reserves trained on ash at the Albion car park,” he recalled with dewy-eyed nostalgia. “In the second year we were nomads. There was a period when the Club Deck was being built so they used Lochinch as a training base and from there, we were training at the cricket ground and Jordanhill.”
The Rangers set up back then may have been fairly basic but the facilities along the water at Clydebank were about as primitive as a caveman’s potting shed. “At Rangers, we thought we had good facilities because we had Adidas Tangos to train with but at Clydebank, there were only two balls that actually had leather on them; that’s not a word of a lie,” added Flannigan, a former Scotland under-21 cap who would go on to have stints with Queen of the South and Partick Thistle.
Amid this relative hardship, though, there was a good, honest work ethic. Helping to hammer this home was Danny McGrain, the former Celtic great who had a spell as a coach with Clydebank during Flannigan’s time there. He may be all about health, fitness, diet and athletic lifestyle these days, but Flannigan’s approach remains heavily influenced by those qualities of self-discipline, drive and determination.
“Danny was an unbelievable player, a world class full back,” he said. “He always said you can make everything about facilities and the food that you don’t get, but it’s down to your hunger and desire, and putting the hours in — which we did. With the guys who really succeed, sports science, fitness and conditioning all matter, but ultimately it’s about what’s going on in between the ears on a daily basis. The hard work values are how you succeed in life.”
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