By All Means Remember Walter, But, A Bit Of Perspective, Please

I WOULD never argue that Walter Smith, who died earlier this week after a period of illness was not a Scottish Footballing Great. He is deservedly in the Scottish Football Hall of Fame, he is one of only 23 men who have managed the national side, and he certainly won a barrow-load of trophies during his tenure as Rangers' manager.

Of course, it was sad to record his passing, 73 is, given today's expectations of longevity, no age at all at which to be checking-out. I am older, and I hope to be around for a wee while yet. However, I just feel, it was symptomatic of the mind-set in the Glasgow-dominated Scottish media, that his passing should have generated so much newsprint. The Scottish written press, even the so-called “heavy” broadsheet papers, nowadays seemed wedded to the principle of wooing the Old Firm fans, and this showed in the hagiography of some of the tributes.

Walter's record of 21 domestic trophies won as manager has to be recognised as very-good. However, Bill Struth led Rangers to 30, so to overlook that fact and dub Walter: “Rangers Greatest Manager,” for me that is over-gilding the lily.

Given the quality of player David Murray's “financial doping” of the club put at Walter's use, he ought to have won those trophies. But, by the same measure, he should perhaps have done far-better in Europe than one UEFA Cup Final appearance, as a consolation prize after being eliminated from the Champions League.

It may not be one which the modern club wishes to shout about too-loudly, but, Struth, and his successor, Scot Symon, left more of a legacy at the club than did Smith. Also, I saw one media outlet lauded Smith's guidance of Scotland to success in the Kirin Cup in 2006 as him having led us to: “Scotland's only international trophy win.” Don't our 41 wins in the Home International Championship, and in particular, in the context of trophies won, the 16 times we won the Jubilee Trophy, from its inception in 1936, in that competition, count?

As a young coach and assistant manager, Walter learned from Jim McLean, his early successes were with Scotland age group teams – winning a competition in the Canary Islands for instance. But, once he got the big job at Ibrox, he seemed reluctant to promote young players, preferring to spend Murray's millions on tried and tested mature players – I feel, looking at the bigger picture, this did Rangers no favours.

To be honest, I had few face-to-face meetings with him, I tended to cover second tier senior football and was never a member of what we lesser scribes dubbed: “The A Team,” that small corps of the leading football writers, who trod the Celtic Park-Ibrox-Hampden beat. Walter was at ease with these writers, guys like Chic Young, he had little time for the rest of us, with whom he could be off-hand and came across as arrogant.

One of my pals, given a rare excursion into A Team territory as holiday cover, received a withering put-down from Smith, when he dared to ask a perfectly-civil question which Smith didn't like. Civility costs nothing.

I tend to think, he would have been happier to continue as the Number Two to Graeme Souness, but, Souness opted to commit career suicide by leaving Rangers for Liverpool. It would be churlish to suggest that Smith didn't fully take the chance this offered him. Had Souness stayed, I am sure greater success would have followed and Smith's star would be little less dimmed.

His tenure as Scotland manager has also been highly-praised. He succeeded Berti Vogts, whose tenure is generally seen as uninspiring to downright catastrophic, so yes, he lifted the nation. But, he failed to get us to a major finals and his wins ration, at 43.75% is just a tad over the median for a Scotland boss of 42.2% wins. So, yes, he made a fair go of what is often seen as an impossible job, but, steady the Buffs with the hymns of praise please.

He was a Rangers Man to his core, that club and its followers have every right to remember him with fondness. The rest of us, we can admire his successes, we feel some of the pain of his family, we can send our condolences, but, while I have no wish to denegrate Walter Smith and his memory, some of the stuff from the Scottish media was well over the top; and I think that needs to be said.

STILL ON a Rangers thread; these is apparently something of an ongoing stushie around the Ibrox side's equalising goal against Aberdeen last night.

I didn't see the game live. I haven't even seen any of the many clips of the incident which are apparently circulating, but, I will say, it's by no means the first soft penalty to have been awarded to Rangers, either at Ibrox or elsewhere in Scotland.

The Ibrox club may well have benefitted more from “honest mistakes,' by Scottish referees over the years, but, another Glasgow-based club also gets the benefit of such decisions on a regular basis.

That is why, in my humble opinion, we will not see VAR applied in Scottish Football, until FIFA and UEFA insist on the SFA and the SPFL bringing this technology in. I am sure VAR, if applied properly, would soon wipe “honest mistakes' from the face of the game up here – provided, of course, we could recruit and train the independent-minded officials to operate the system fairly.

Now, there's the rub.

CONTINUING on this thread of big clubs getting a hard time in the media, on a media Facebook site this week, I commented on the current discussion as to whether or not Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's days as manager of Manchester United are numbered.

I observed, the English hacks really don't know how to fan the flames of controversy – had OGS been manager at Ibrox or Celtic Park, The Hun and the Daily Ranger would have deployed the ever-ready cracked crest graphics on Monday morning.

I also liked a couple of Facebook posts which I saw. The first said simply: “Steve Bruce is available – he's still a better centre-half than Harry Maguire': while another was a supposed screenshot of Jurgen Klopp's half-time talek to his Liverpool team.

This had Klopp saying: “OK, Mo Salah, you get your hat-trick, the rest of you, take it easy, no more goals, we want Ole to stay in place.”

Cruel, really cruel.