IT’S the best-selling football book which Ally McCoist will never write.
Who wouldn’t want to pour over the juicy details of his almost four years in charge of Rangers? Dishing the dirt on Craig Whyte, Charles Green, the Easdales and others who before and after liquidation did untold damage to the club.
McCoist was in the middle of it all. Trying to win games, fight an unwinnable PR war and deal with charlatans and those who backed them. It would be some read.
However, he’ll never do it. Despite the way it ended and the fact supporters, lots of them, turned on their one-time hero, McCoist’s love for Rangers, even now, means no beans will be spilled.
He has never and will never talk badly of a club he supported, played and then managed. Of those who were in charge – in the broadest sense of the word – it’s a different story, but even then his loyalty is such that he can’t bring himself to say it was all a big mistake.
McCoist is now a much sought after pundit and yesterday on talkSport, he’s one of the few on that station with something sensible to say, he couldn’t bring himself to badmouth Rangers.
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Alan Brazil, the former Scotland international, asked if he ever fell out with Rangers even when it seemed to be the rest of Ibrox against a man who just so happened to be the club’s all-time goalscorer.
McCoist said: “No. It’s a great question and it’s an interesting one. Never ever for a minute did I fall out with the club. Not one bit.
“But there was aspects of my time as manager that I fell out with people within the club. Fell out of love with the people running the club
“Not everybody because there was a solid base of people who had been at the club for years and years and years who were fantastic, wonderful people and the club was their life.
“During our time, at that particular time, there was people within the club who shouldn’t have been anywhere near the place.”
McCoist was told by Walter Smith not to take the job when the iconic manager stepped aside in 2010. Smith didn’t envisage administration and liquidation, but could see that things were not as they seemed.
However, Smith’s then assistant believed he had to take it. This was his once chance to become Rangers manager. He wouldn’t be asked twice and he knew it.
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So, he doesn’t look back with an real regrets. Even if some dreadful things took place.
McCoist said: “I had the dream job at the nightmare time. I was the manager of the club that I loved and supported as a boy and played for.
“We were going through an administration and eventual liquidation and effectively we weren’t getting the opportunity to carry out our job as we wanted. I was getting called off the training ground on a regular basis for meetings about administration and staff losing their jobs. People that didn’t deserve to lose them.
“The biggest one of the lot was Laura, my secretary, who eventually lost her job and had been at the club for well over 40 years.
“The first manager she worked for was Willie Waddell and was on the flight to the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1972.
“People like that. Integral and the heartbeat of the club.
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“The most important people, incredibly for a certain period of my time at the club, when I was manager were Carol (Paton) and Steven (Kerr) who helped me with the press. We used to do an imaginary press conference before we did the press conference. That is how crazy it was.
“That is the manager who should be concentrating on set-plays, getting his team doing shape and all that kind of stuff.
“Do I regret it? No I don’t. I really don’t. It’s my club that I have supported and loved and will continue to love for the rest of my life.
“People say you must regret it a little bit, I regret what happened but I don’t regret being in charge at that time.”
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