RIP Sir Walter

[TASH 70]

R.I.P. Walter

[KaiserJon 12,392]

23 minutes ago, RFC55 said:

Watching back that day at killie.

Wow man 

Will give that a watch maybe tomorrow. Watched the official club obituary. Was in tears. The man made some of the best days of my life. Gone but never to be forgotten. What I am getting from all the tributes is yes Rangers was his passion but aside from that what a decent guy and family man he was.👍

[RFC55 108,733]

1 minute ago, KaiserJon said:

Will give that a watch maybe tomorrow. Watched the official club obituary. Was in tears. The man made some of the best days of my life. Gone but never to be forgotten. What I am getting from all the tributes is yes Rangers was his passion but aside from that what a decent guy and family man he was.👍

Anyone post the STV one?

[Gooseman 889]

Has anyone got a link to the radio Scotland tribute? 

[The Specky Forum Organiser 64,476]

1 hour ago, The Specky Liar said:

 

 

^

1 minute ago, RFC55 said:

Anyone post the STV one?

 

[KaiserJon 12,392]

1 minute ago, RFC55 said:

Anyone post the STV one?

Its a few pages back. Will watch tomorrow or later myself. Only one I have managed in full was the club one.👍

[JimmyCR1 1,502]

[STEPPS BOY 73,805]

Had to phone my old man who isn’t keeping very well himself and tell him the news.

Heartbreaking.

[RFC55 108,733]

1 minute ago, STEPPS BOY said:

Had to phone my old man who isn’t keeping very well himself and tell him the news.

Heartbreaking.

Hope he's ok mate 

[BlueAvenger 10,208]

7 minutes ago, STEPPS BOY said:

Had to phone my old man who isn’t keeping very well himself and tell him the news.

Heartbreaking.

Hope your dad is ok mate 

[keithgersbear 3,225]

49 minutes ago, wully said:

 

Beautiful picture. A man of honour. We should be so thankful he came into all our lives in one form or another. 

[The Specky Forum Organiser 64,476]

10 minutes ago, STEPPS BOY said:

Had to phone my old man who isn’t keeping very well himself and tell him the news.

Heartbreaking.

Hope your Dad gets better soon mate

[RFC55 108,733]

What a sad sad fucking day 

[Dan Deacon 55,133]

 

[LegendofCoop 17,253]

I'm just 2 minutes into this......I'm not going to get to the end. David, that took enormous courage to get this out. Look after yourself! 

 

[Hadron Collider 30,786]

Tears man. Shattered. 

[Sunglasses Ron 2,455]

Walter Smith obituary

Shrewd football manager who helped to revive Rangers and was one of the few to get the best out of Paul Gascoigne

October 26 2021, The Times

Walter Smith was 29 when his manager at Dundee United, Jim McLean, delivered a pithy assessment of his playing abilities: “Let’s face it, Walter, you’re shite.” McLean added more constructively: “I think you’ve got a real talent as a coach, so would you be my assistant?”

Under the tyrannical but innovative McLean, Smith would help to forge Dundee United into an improbable force, winning the Scottish Premier Division in 1983. Smith would go on to guide Rangers to one of the most successful periods in their history, winning seven successive titles up to 1997 and nearly reaching the Champions League final in 1992-93.

In doing so, he unwittingly committed a cardinal sin for a Scot of doing a great favour for the England football team. In 1995 he signed Paul Gascoigne (“Gazza”), the most talented British player of his generation but a troubled prankster with a weakness for alcohol and a body already ravaged by injuries. Smith became the father figure Gazza needed as for three years the player conducted Rangers’ midfield with consistent performances and glimpses of genius. The revived Gazza would go on to play a leading role in England’s excellent showing at Euro 96, and notably destroyed Scotland’s defence with a celebrated goal in their 2-0 victory against the Auld Enemy at Wembley in the group stages.

The strong, quiet type, more in the mould of Sir Matt Busby than the more quotable Scottish managers such as Bill Shankly, Smith was tough and intimidating when he needed to be, though both he and Busby were charismatic in their own way. Sometimes the “Walter Stare” was all that was needed to prevent an impertinent journalist from asking an “inane” question. When the pundit Chick Young ignored the stare and questioned the performance of two of his players in a TV interview, Smith used the F-word 15 times. Luckily the interview was not live.

Walter Smith was born into a working-class family in Glasgow in 1948. His father was a crane operator, while his mother was a homemaker who also played the piano in their local church.

He was steeped in Rangers as a child. His grandfather took him to his first Rangers game when he was five. Smith safely descended the doomed Stairway 13 as a supporter on the day of the Ibrox disaster when 66 people died in a crush at the stadium in January 1971.

He studied at Coatbridge Technical College while playing football with Chapelhall Youth Club in Lanarkshire. He was an apprentice electrician when Dundee United signed him in 1966. He worked by day with Loudon Brothers, the machine toolmakers, in Glasgow, and did his football training at night. During this time he married Ethel, who survives him, along with their sons: Neil works in the media department of Rangers FC and Steven is a businessman.

Smith spent 12 years in two spells as a player at United. As a senior player he was one of the few who could debate tactics with McLean without getting a clip round the ear. As McLean’s assistant in the early Eighties, he became well acquainted with Alex Ferguson, who was leading his own revolution at Aberdeen. The two clubs, the “New Firm”, shifted the powerbase in Scottish football if only for a few years and formed an intense rivalry as Smith and Ferguson traded expletives from their dugouts.

Smith was recognised as a football thinker by the Scottish Football Association and was named as Ferguson’s assistant with Scotland at the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico. That year Rangers appointed Graeme Souness as manager to revive the club’s ailing fortunes. Souness was celebrated for his achievements as a player with Liverpool but had no experience as a manager nor of Scottish football. Smith became his number two. Over the next decade the club would become arguably the biggest in Britain.

As Souness proceeded to sign top players from English clubs for big fees, Smith’s knowledge and contacts within the Scottish game proved invaluable. The former Rangers striker and now TalkSport pundit Ally McCoist said Smith was Souness’s “best signing”.

Success was instant and led to Souness being appointed Liverpool manager in 1991. He begged his assistant to go with him but Smith could not turn down the chance to take the job he had always longed for as Rangers manager.

The club’s domination under Smith would be total, aided by an investment of £50 million in players during his six and a half years in charge, more than any other club in Britain. Indeed, Smith took Rangers’ ambition up a notch, signing the Dane Brian Laudrup, one of the world’s best players, in 1994.

He had also heard rumours that Gazza was unhappy at Lazio and wanted to return home. In the summer of 1995 Smith turned up at Gazza’s countryside retreat outside Rome. It was a hazardous mission. He had to endure a queasy ride on the back of Gazza’s quad bike and an evening with the player’s chief cohort, Jimmy “Five Bellies” Gardner, but Smith got his man for £4.3 million. Many questioned the wisdom of the signing. Gazza’s lifestyle continued to cause problems but Smith shrewdly got the best out of him. “There were obviously wee foibles, but I knew that when I signed him. He was never actually a great problem for me. He loved playing football. That was what drove him on,” recalled Smith, whose man management of Gascoigne demonstrated an understanding of human nature in the great tradition of managers from the west of Scotland, such as Ferguson, Busby and Jock Stein.

A likeable and modest man, Smith would go on to spend four years as manager of Everton from 1998. Despite never receiving the transfer funds promised, he stabilised the club, which had been in danger of relegation.

He would manage Scotland from 2004, restoring the reputation of the national team. During his three years in charge, Scotland rose 70 places in the Fifa rankings. Smith returned as Rangers manager in 2007 to mop up the mess after the ill-fated reign of Paul Le Guen. In 2008 he led Rangers to the Uefa Cup final (now the Europa League), where they lost 2-0 to Zenit St Petersburg. He would win a further eight trophies there.

In one later interview he regretted the fact that his grandchildren had seen the famous Chick Young interview after the footage went viral on YouTube. He had deftly dealt with many thorny issues in his decades a manager, but for once was lost for words when asked: “Grandpa, why are you swearing at that man on TV?”

Walter Smith, football manager, OBE, was born on February 24 1948. He died of cancer on October 26, 2021, aged 73

 

[beechwood bear 559]

Absolutely heartbreaking. Every time I think about it,I greet. RIP true legend.

[The Specky Forum Organiser 64,476]

“You know, in football we have acquaintances, we don’t have friends."

Everton's most successful ever captain uttered those words six years ago, at the funeral of his much loved team-mate, Andy King.

But Kevin Ratcliffe was wrong.

Because Walter Smith was my friend.

Yes, a football manager, a contact, a man I'd chase for hours on end for updates on injuries, potential transfers - on one bizarre occasion the sale of his centre-forward without his knowledge - but most of all a mate.

 

It is one of football's more endearing traits that I could consider a man I would often have to criticise and take to task in print, a pal.

Because Walter Smith was a special man. He is a 24 carat footballing legend north of the border. His time at Goodison was riven with conflict and unsuccessful.

But he never lost his sense of humour, his blunt but strangely endearing way with people and that beautiful twinkle in his eye.

When news of his passing broke this morning I recalled my first ever meeting with him - hours after he'd been appointed manager of Everton Football Club.

I'd loitered for several hours around the club's Bellefield training ground, waiting for my turn at an introduction when that was acceptable behaviour from a local club correspondent - and I finally bumped into him as he came striding out of the old canteen.

I'll tone down the actual words used, because Walter was fond of little Anglo Saxon.

A summary might have been: "Who are you and what on earth are you doing hanging around up here?"

Then he welcomed me into his office, introduced me to his sidekick Archie and regaled me with an uproarious tale of how he'd just mistaken a peer of the realm, then board member Lord Grantchester, for a Bellefield groundsman.

It always irked me that Walter preferred to present a stern, dour visage to the media - a legacy of his time dealing with the Glasgow goldfish bowl.

Because he was a genuinely funny man.

Paul Joyce, the Times' Northern football correspondent, and myself formed a close working bond with him which developed into a friendship which was never broken.

Walter would regularly reduce himself to tears of laughter telling me "Joycie's been in trying to read things on my desk again. So I've planted something there which will get him excited! I hope he writes it!"

And don't think Joycie ever fell for his plants, but that never stopped Walter trying.

We shared many meals, many evenings out and several pre-season tours together.

The summers spent at Il Ciocco training complex in Tuscany were legendary.

He was a football manager and a contact. My most important contact. But he was a friend. And I never felt compromised saying that.

I've written before about the night his centre-forward was sold to Newcastle. But the story bears repetition.

"Content after a hard fought 1-0 win, Walter, his assistant Archie Knox and their respective wives Ethel and Janice were descending the stairs at Goodison when they bumped into Duncan coming back up.

"The big man murmured: 'I thought you might have stuck up for me gaffer.'

"Puzzled, Walter replied: 'Stuck up for you, how?'

'With the move. I’ve been sold to Newcastle.'

"Walter, capable of incendiary explosions at the merest trifle, was admirably restrained.

" 'What are you talking about? Have you signed anything?' he said.

" 'Well no, gaffer. But I’ve shaken hands on a financial package.'

“ 'Well sign nothing. I need to speak to Jinky (Walter's pet name for chairman Peter Johnson).' ”

"First, though, Walter needed to confer with his trusted aide.

"He and Archie trooped down to the referees’ room in the tunnel – long since vacated – followed by their wives, and started to discuss the shock news.

“What do we do about this then?” Walter asked.

"Archie, for once, was stuck for an answer and Mrs Knox took the opportunity of the pause in the conversation to offer her own take on proceedings.

“Well, Walter. Ethel and I have been listening to the fans in the lounges tonight and if you have got £8million for Duncan Ferguson it sounds like a good deal.”

"Archie had rediscovered his tongue. And how.

“Janice. Shut the f*** up,” he snapped. Ethel jumped in: “Archie, you can’t talk to Janice like that.” And the meeting was postponed."

Cancer claimed Janice in 2006, after a brave and protracted battle with cancer. They were married 38 years.

Now Archie's long-time professional companion has gone. I feel for Archie.

Whatever emotions I'm experiencing will be magnified a thousand times by his trusted aide - and friend.

Frank McAvennie was another friend. And he summed up Walter's character beautifully today in a tweet. "If you met Walter you liked him simple as that."

I still have a message on my phone from Walter. It's the last time we exchanged words on the morning of the last Merseyside derby match.

He wrote: "It's A Grand Old Team!!! Using Celtic song to headline your book. Poor choice."

I replied by telling him his message was an omen. It was Anfield derby day and he had been the last Everton manager to experience victory there, 21 years earlier.

Several hours later goals from Richarlison and Gylfi Sigurdsson made good on the omen.

He was delighted his claim on a small slice of Everton history had finally been passed on.

Almost 20 years after his time as Everton boss had ended he was still thinking about the Blues.

I'll always think about Walter Smith.

A legendary football manager. But more importantly a lovely, dignified, beautiful human being.

Rest in peace mate.

[harlands plater 16,961]

Obviously knew he had been very ill but hoped he had turned the corner, the news came as a shock. I’ve been more upset at this than losing members of my family. 

He was so much more than the Rangers manager, he was a man loved and respected by so many, that’s clear with the tributes being paid today. 

RIP Sir Walter.

 

[JamieD 18,893]

I've had a few drinks now and just want to say thanks to everyone on here for their reminiscences and kind words for Walter today. It made an awful day a little more bearable than it might have been. You're all a good lot and I'm proud to be a part of this support.

[KaiserJon 12,392]

Just listened to David Edgar. Great stuff and a good tribute. Tears again. Hats me done for today with the audio/visual tributes. Been in tears numerous times today. I hope he knows how much he meant to the Rangers family.👍

[RFC55 108,733]

2 minutes ago, JamieD said:

I've had a few drinks now and just want to say thanks to everyone on here for their reminiscences and kind words for Walter today. It made an awful day a little more bearable than it might have been. You're all a good lot and I'm proud to be a part of this support.

Jamie what age are you mate? If you don't mind me asking 

[.Williamson. 82,018]

2 minutes ago, RFC55 said:

Jamie what age are you mate? If you don't mind me asking 

He’s in his 20s, it’s mad 

[Ambrogio 515]

absolutely devastated . Just can’t get Walter out my thoughts at all . After the news came through I went and visited my da , we spoke solely about Walter for nearly an hour . My da is 61 I’m 30 , as we both chatted we spoke about the old days , my old man telling me all his memories as a Rangers man , taking me to my first game , him and his brothers going to the Leeds game , the celebrations he and his mates had after clinching 9 in a row . Then us having a laugh about how my da paid over the odds to get me a uefa cup final ticket as I was skint , me telling him about the killie last day league win the atmosphere in the stadium how it was just all Rangers fans ,the Scottish cup win with 9 men just both sharing stories about our favourite memories as Rangers fans . Walter smith gave us they memories . I’m tearing up writing this . Thank you Walter you gave generations so much joy and happiness.