EACH city has its football rivalry, and today's meeting between Rangers and Celtic is just an extension of the tribalism Walter Smith and Gordon Strachan tasted when living in the same suburb of Dundee.
The Old Firm managers first met in their days playing for the Dundee clubs in the mid-Seventies, while both were at different stages of their careers. Smith, of Dundee United, was in his late twenties, and already moving into coaching at both his clu
b and with the Scotland Under 19 side. Dundee's Strachan was an impulsive livewire in the Dens Park team, hailed as a future great by, among others, Alan Ball, and given to falling into bad company – specifically the club's drinking brigade.
On occasions, however, he would also mix with those from the emerging club across the street, and earlier this season Strachan recalled these first meetings with Smith, who even then possessed a bearing that anticipated his rapid ascent of the managerial ladder. According to the Celtic manager, Smith's lack of pace meant he had to "think" his way around the pitch. Aberdeen defender Willie Miller, he said, was the same.
"Walter and I would occasionally chat back then, when he was at United and I was at Dundee," Strachan said. "We used to meet each other in certain establishments in the city at the time, though I don't think Jim McLean (below) liked his players meeting with the Dundee players like that."
Whether Strachan heeded Smith's thoughts on the game during these brief communions is another question. Even Alex Ferguson would later struggle to impose his will on the headstrong Strachan, at both Aberdeen and Manchester United. But Smith, like almost everyone, was aware of Strachan's promise, and was not surprised when he left Dundee, then in the First Division, for Aberdeen. The Rangers manager been a no-nonsense defender during a playing career with both Dumbarton and United, and admired the fleet-footed, precocious Strachan who was then developing his raw talent at Dens.
"I can remember Gordon at Dundee," he said yesterday. "We lived in Broughty Ferry, which was the same area. I remember him there before he moved to Aberdeen. You could see right away that he'd do well. You have to say that he looked as though he was going to be a really good player. It took its time to settle at Aberdeen and Gordon started to play in the manner which would influence games. But, from Aberdeen days, he just flourished into an exceptionally good player."
Their paths crossed again when Strachan was a player and Smith was Alex Ferguson's assistant with Scotland at the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico.
"I got to know him better in the lead-up to the World Cup in Mexico," recalled Smith yesterday. "It was the first time I was really involved with him. I was involved on the coaching side rather than the playing side, so we didn't have that close a relationship. But through (former Aberdeen assistant manager] Archie Knox, once we moved to England, we got to know each other better." Even as recently as when they managed south of the Border – Smith at Everton, Strachan at Southampton – Smith would surely never have imagined them sitting in opposite dug-outs at an Old Firm fixture. His own ambitions for himself might have led to seemingly fanciful thoughts of a return to Ibrox, the scene of his greatest triumphs, but few reckoned that Strachan, an east-coast native with a Celtic-baiting history when a player, would ever beat a path to Parkhead.
Yet today brings just the latest episode in a footballing relationship which burrows back almost 30 years. Smith returned the compliments paid by Strachan on the eve of the Co-operative Insurance Cup final earlier this year, when the Celtic manager spoke of his admiration for Smith, and the empathy shared by a pair whose work brings them together as well as sets them apart.
"Sometimes in England you got real rivalries on a managerial basis," said Smith. "But in Scotland the boys have a respect for the problems we have overall. It's been the same with all the Old Firm managers and certainly is the case now. It brings a bit of respect. It is the same in terms of achievement.
"I have been lucky enough to achieve a few things as manager. If someone else does it at Celtic then you can look at that and admire what he has achieved. You know it is not as easy as some people think."
The full article contains 774 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
