I SNUBBED GERS JOB BECAUSE OF OLD FIRM BIGOTS

I WAS offered the chance to manage Rangers many years ago and with the money I would have made I had to be.

But I did. And I did it because I didn't want my family exposed to the bigots associated with both halves of the Old Firm. My main reason for staying on Tayside was that my family came before money and before success in football.

On two occasions I also had the opportunity to leave Dundee United and go to Tynecastle to manage Hearts.

Again, the financial rewards would have far outweighed what I was earning at Tannadice.

The club had far better potential than United but I body swerved those approaches, too, and it had nothing to do with the pressure of managing bigger clubs than the one was I at.

Hearts also had an element in their support that didn't impress me so I decided to stay where I was.

Yes, in a professional sense it was crazy for me to turn these clubs down but there are more important things in life than work.

People who knew me as a manager will find it hard to believe but I did put my family first.

In the past there have been people who said I bottled going to Ibrox because I couldn't have handled the pressure but that's utter rubbish. No club would ever have put more pressure on me than I would have put on myself.

The fact is all clubs have bigots among their support but the bigger clubs have more of them. That's only natural. But at least, living in Dundee, I know my family grew up far more insulated from bigotry than they would have if I had returned to the west of Scotland.

I have great neighbors and around here bigotry is minimal. I'm not saying there are no bigots in Dundee but it's nothing compared to what goes on elsewhere.

I know what I'm talking about. I come from the Larkhall area and the Catholic-Protestant thing was terrible when I was growing up.

The reason I have stayed in Dundee all these years was to keep away from the religious differences that are so much part of life in Glasgow and in Lanarkshire.

I was delighted UEFA finally appeared to have taken a stance on the songs that are sung at Ibrox - and stunned when a "not guilty" verdict was delivered.

I really hope Rangers fans don't take this as an invitation to carry on singing those songs because they really have no place in society. And neither does the rubbish Celtic fans sing at away grounds every second week. I hate all of it.

When you meet Rangers or Celtic supporters in the street or in the pub they're brilliant. But there are bigots among them. There can be no doubt about that and we have to drive the point home time and again that there is no place for them.

I know it is difficult but the brilliant supporters have to let the bigots know they are killing their clubs and have to shut them up.

I'd say 90 per cent of Rangers and Celtic supporters are decent, honest fans but they have to clamp down on the 10 per cent of idiots who drag their club s through the mud.

As told to david McCarthy

Taken from the Daily Record