In the thick of it

IT WAS the sheer thick-headed stupidity of it that was so maddening, so utterly galling, for Walter Smith. It wasn't as if Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor hadn't been well warned. They had been told to ride out the storm of last Sunday morning's marathon on the sauce and do nothing more to bring attention to themselves. If they had done that, if they had done what they were told, they would still have the lives they love. They would still have futures as Rangers men.

In some respects, we put the wrong questions to Smith at his latest media briefing at Murray Park. Smith was asked at length about a drinking culture among Scottish and specifically Rangers footballers. Actually, if there can be such a thing, it was a stupidity culture that undid his captain and goalkeeper. Stupidity and arrogance. Smith was far from impressed with their bevvying at the Scotland camp at Cameron House Hotel but he could live with it so long as they did nothing else to heap embarrassment on themselves and, by extension, him and Rangers.

But there was. When they rubbed two fingers against their faces in a classroom V-sign gesture on the Hampden substitutes' bench, it wasn't meant as an "up yours" to supporters or the SFA or the country in general. Instead, it was a contemptuous gesture to the photographers and cameramen a few yards away who were pointing lenses in their faces. But the ignorance and naivety were breathtaking: the images soon flashed around the country and the very people Ferguson and McGregor tried to insult were suddenly gifted some of the easiest and biggest pictures of their careers. As they transmitted the digital images back to their newspapers, the photographers were playing their part in the downfall of Ibrox's Dastardly and Muttley. As soon as Smith saw those images, the pair were finished.
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Reputations ruined by schoolboy hand gestures. Even by the standards of witless footballers this was a new one. What next? Lighting their own farts? Smith was once willing to indulge the gormlessness of Paul Gascoigne at Rangers but he is older now and, besides, Ferguson is no Gascoigne. Age and tired form have made him dispensable. A player whose reputation veers from Mr Rangers to that of a corrosive influence in the Ibrox dressing room had finally exhausted the patience of another manger: first Paul le Guen, then George Burley, now Smith.

Le Guen left Rangers and muttered about Ferguson's negative influence and a drinking culture. When Rangers played Lyon in the 2007/8 Champions League, their president Jean-Michel Aulas made knowing, sarcastic remarks before the tie about plying Ferguson with whisky before the game.

A couple of months later, the former Rangers striker Daniel Cousin said: "The Scottish players like a good drink. What's more, they put their beer in big glasses here. It's as if they need it to recharge the machine. There are also chips and pizzas in the dressing room at the end of the match, plus Coca-Cola and ketchup." It was even said that the Rangers players devoured packets of Monster Munch.

Right or wrong, fair or unfair, that has been the perception of a dressing room in which Ferguson has held court for years, collecting younger, impressionable acolytes such as McGregor, Kris Boyd and Alan Hutton among others. In the current Rangers News, John Fleck is quoted about what an influence Ferguson is on him. When he has performed press duties as captain of his club or country, Ferguson is always quiet, thoughtful and introspective. He doesn't have the physical bearing of a natural alpha male, yet that is the status he has enjoyed in the Ibrox dressing room and there have been growing concerns about how he wields that influence. It seems that when he goes to the bar two or three others routinely trot along behind.

Famous, fussed over and fabulously wealthy, Ferguson has been part of a generation of footballers who have been cosseted from the stresses of ordinary life. "Footballers have gone away from supporters in a financial sense," said Smith. "When I was first at Rangers, they got £17,000 a year. Now they're getting paid that a week. Footballers have taken on more of a responsibility in society. It used to be common 30 or 40 years ago for footballers to mix with supporters who had been at the game. You don't get that now. But I don't think what happened on Sunday is a regular occurrence."

Smith is permanently saddled by Richard Gough's memorable line about players from the nine-in-a-row era proving that "a team that drinks together wins together". It seems a faintly stupid and embarrassing remark these days, outdated and full of machismo. Some Rangers supporters maintain that if the 1992/93 team had done a bit less carrying on it might have added the European Cup to the domestic treble it landed that season. Not so, said Smith: "The boys in the nine-in-a-row team often exaggerate things themselves. They wouldn't have won nine-in-a-row if they'd done all the things they said they did. If they were doing that, what were the rest of them the other clubs doing at that period of time?

I don't think that was a proper reflection of them. The boys that we've got at the club now? I've never had a problem since I came back.

"I'm not missing anything: we do regular fitness checks. I don't think we have a problem with that in Scotland. I hope that the other night doesn't make people think it's a regular thing although nobody can be blamed for thinking that.

"Players are more aware of their responsibilities. The work they do on their fitness and diet is terrific, including the lads in our place that were involved at Cameron House. They've all got more responsibility for that side of it which makes it disappointing that they portrayed that image when they were there. The drinking part wasn't a major factor for me. It was obviously a factor I was disappointed in as we had players involved in that, but it was the reaction on the bench and the images portrayed which are not ones you would feel were right for players to do." Did they express remorse for the V-signs? "They didn't get an opportunity."

Smith and Rangers chief executive Martin Bain are about the only people in this entire sorry episode who came out of it well. The players' behaviour in the bar and then the substitutes' bench was pitiful (and in the course of the week, all their Scotland squad mates circled the wagons - there was not a single line of criticism for them from any of the others), while at the SFA George Burley dithered, chief executive Gordon Smith was vague and then George Peat undermined the pair of them by re-opening a "closed" matter and imposing life bans on the two who had been the last men standing in the pub.

Only Smith and Bain were firm and single-minded about how to react. "I'm not trying to make a moral stance," said Smith. "I just felt it was something we had to act on. We would have been weak ourselves if we hadn't have acted. It leaves us disappointed that it's had to come to this. Nobody will have wanted this to happen and I'm disappointed both for the club and the players involved, but I just felt it was something as a club we had to act on."

Scott Brown, Gary Teale, Hutton and Rangers defender Steven Whittaker were also said to have been in the booze crew at Cameron House, albeit they bailed out before Ferguson and McGregor. Would Smith take action against a third member of his squad? "That will be between Steven Whittaker and I"

Smith's reputation has been enhanced by his handling of the past few days but Rangers have lost two highly-talented footballers in a crucial period of the title run-in. How would it affect the others when they face Falkirk this afternoon? "They'll be no problem with that.

Football players are resilient boys. They'll get on it, as we have to do."

This is day one in terms of finding out whether le Guen and now Smith are right, that Rangers are better without Barry.

Taken from the Sunday Herald