ALTHOUGH he will remain a key figure so long as he remains the major shareholder, Sir David Murray's decision to step down as director and chairman of Rangers seems to finally anticipate his cutting of ties with the Ibrox club after nearly 21 years. His tenure has spanned two generations, and yielded 32 trophies.
Murray was just 36, and some way from being awarded a knighthood, when he told reporters in the Ibrox stadium's Blue Room that he was delighted to have kept the club in Scottish hands. Now 57, this remains his desire, although there are not too many
David Murrays waiting in the wings in Scotland, certainly not those prepared to invest over £100 million in the financially-shot Scottish game. This is the sum Murray estimates he has ploughed into the Ibrox club.
Robert Maxwell had been linked with a bid for Rangers, but in November 1988 Lawrence Marlborough, the Nevada-based Scottish businessman, accepted a near £6 millon offer from Murray, who had previously been frustrated in his efforts to buy Ayr United, his hometown club.
Murray knew the Somerset Park club could not ever compete with Rangers and Celtic, but, he said, he wanted to turn them into a version of Dundee United at least. Suddenly, thanks to a friendship with Graeme Souness, he found himself able to realise a much more inflated ambition, having shaken hands on a deal with Marlborough. Souness, recruited by Rangers as player-manager two years earlier, had indicated to Murray the time was right for him to come on board.
Together they re-shaped Scottish football, although the big-spending which characterised the era had already begun, with David Holmes, Murray's predecessor as chairman, overseeing the original outlay on such distinguished players as Terry Butcher and Chris Woods. But Murray drove through the biggest signing of all just eight months into his tenure. The 20th anniversary of Mo Johnston's arrival at Rangers has recently been marked, and although the intervening years have seen Rangers skippered by a Roman Catholic, it was possible last month to recall the impact made by the striker's capture, and the extreme reaction from some staunch fans.
Not only was Johnston Rangers' first high-profile Catholic signing, but the controversy was sent into the stratosphere due to the player having been poached from Celtic.
A measure of just how seismic this event was is the suspicion that Murray, for all his subsequent successes at Ibrox, will find that his most notable feat is considered to be something which occurred within his first year at the club, and which, to those born since the late Eighties and in a more enlightened era, might appear an unremarkable episode.
But the subsequent years remain a compelling narrative, taking in Souness' departure for Liverpool, and continuing on with Walter Smith towards the sealing of the significant nine-in-a-row title in 1997. Murray called it "the monkey off our backs", since it equalled Celtic's run of successes in the Sixties and Seventies. Souness' departure stung Murray, and though he wanted to remain at Ibrox until the end of the season, the chairman told him to go immediately.
Typically, however, Murray did not let it affect his relationship with Souness, the first of just five managers with whom the owner has worked at Ibrox. He has, in actual fact, only appointed four different men as manager across three decades at the helm, with Souness having already been in place when he arrived. He remains close to them all.
Smith, the current incumbent, has had two spells in charge. He is one reason why Murray is happy to depart now, on the eve of another Champions League adventure.
In between Smith's two reigns have operated Dick Advocaat, Alex McLeish and Paul Le Guen. The first-named's bullish demeanour came to symbolise Murray's notorious pledge to spend double whatever Celtic did on players. This was evidenced by the £12 million fee paid for Tore Andre Flo, just months after Chris Sutton had signed for Celtic for half that sum. It soon became clear who could claim to have got the better deal.
Although this wounded Murray, Le Guen's short Ibrox career remains his greatest disappointment, and perhaps, biggest mistake. The Frenchman came with an undoubted pedigree, but, lamented Murray, did not bring the right tools with him for the job.
By January of his first season, Le Guen was gone, having alienated a hardcore of Ibrox first-team players. His own signing-record was poor, and of those brought into the club by Le Guen, only Sasa Papac remains. "The credentials were there and the CV was good," Murray summed up. "I thought it was a big coup for Scottish football, not only for Rangers. But, when he came, I don't think he prepared himself enough for Scottish football." Despite this criticism, Le Guen, along with his four predecessors, was invited to Murray's Perthshire estate late last year as the owner celebrated his 20th anniversary at Rangers.
The capture of Le Guen was an echo of times when Rangers competed with the best. Murray's determination to make Rangers a force in Europe did not seem so absurd in the early Nineties.
Murray observed an opportunity to make the club's mark on the continent, and although there have been many setbacks in Europe, there have been high-points too, specifically the run in the first-ever Champions League in 1992/93. Smith masterminded a thrilling advance to the equivalent of the semi-final stage now.
The rest of the decade brought little cheer on this front, and is recalled for sobering lessons handed out by the likes of Juventus, and, less forgivably, Grasshopper Zurich and IFK Gothenburg.
But Murray was provided with a satisfying, and unexpected, bonus in 2008, when Rangers, under Smith again, made it to the final of the Uefa Cup, where they met Advocaat's Zenit St Petersburg. It ended in defeat, but then Murray has long since understood football's capacity to disillusion, something further proved when the remarkable following Rangers brought with them to Manchester was rendered memorable for less positive reasons. But Murray still regards the march to the final as one of his three finest achievements, along with nine-in-a-row and the construction of the training ground which now bears his name – Murray Park. His legacy is secure.
SuccessorALASTAIR Johnston, the new Rangers chairman, already has made the club friends in high places. He and his client, Arnold Palmer, were on a trip to South Africa many years ago, when they ran into a Scotsman propping up a bar. By the time their new acquaintance was identifying himself as a "bluenose", and offering to buy them drinks for the rest of the night, the legendary golfer hinted that he wouldn't mind owning some shares in the Ibrox club.
Johnston, a lifelong Rangers fan himself, required no further invitation, and promptly bought Palmer a few for his birthday. The man who is succeeding David Murray as the club's chairman is an experienced sports businessman whose influence extends beyond the narrow confines of Scotland, and indeed its national game. There have been times during his 40-year association with IMG, the global sports marketing giant of which he is vice-chairman, when he has been described as the most powerful man in sport.
If the 61-year-old born in Lennoxtown is no longer quite the star in IMG's firmament, his history still makes impressive reading. An accountancy graduate from Strathclyde University, he was stewarding in the 1968 Open Championship at Carnoustie, when he approached IMG founder Mark McCormack, and asked him for a job. After a brief internship, he returned to live in Partick for a few years – when Celtic were on their way to nine in a row – before heading out to make his fortune in the United States.
His first client was Gary Player, but it was in 1977, when he was introduced to Palmer, that his life changed forever. Ever since, he has been a friend and business manager to the first star of sport's television age. "Palmer is the reason I've travelled the world and dined with presidents in the White House," he once admitted.
Johnston, they said, was being groomed as McCormack's long-term successor. The American, whose famous handshake with Palmer launched IMG, saw the chance to make global brands of the athletes his company represented. He harnessed the potential of sport on television, and established it as the commercial phenomenon now taken for granted. When McCormack died in 2003, Johnston was among those trusted with carrying out his responsibilities.
The Scot is a friend and business associate of Tiger Woods. Very early in the latter's career, he predicted that the American would break the record 18 major titles won by Jack Nicklaus. He lives in the same gated community as Woods – the Isleworth estate in Florida – but he also has a home in Pepper Pike, an affluent suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, where his library of 19,000 golf books is the biggest in the world.
None of which has led him to forget his roots. Regulars at the Masters, Wimbledon or any other of the world's biggest sporting events, are used to seeing him milling about in his Rangers tie and suit. The personalised number plates – such RFC1 and 1BROX – are another giveaway. When he is back home, about ten times a year, he stays with his mother on Glasgow's south side.
As well as investing a significant chunk of his own fortune in the club, Johnston smoothed the way for the likes of Dave King – Player's former caddy – and Joe Lewis to do likewise. He became a director on Boxing Day of 2003, the same day as one of his heroes, John Greig. For the last six years, he has been able to offer Rangers' board the benefit of his experience, but as chairman, the challenge will be all his.
Rangers will be hoping that he can bring to his own back yard everything he has learned in his time away. Unlike Murray, whose natural bravado was lost in the teeth of a biting recession , Johnston is a measured, softly spoken man who will quietly go about trying to solve what continues to be the Old Firm's biggest problem: how to get their hands on the television revenue available to Europe's other biggest clubs.
Should Rangers strike their own TV deal, independent of the Scottish Premier League? Is he in favour of joining England's top flight? All these questions, and more, will be asked of Johnston in the weeks and months ahead. If anyone is qualified to answer them, he is.
PAUL FORSYTH Fans' view: 'Radical' changes urgedTHE Rangers Supporters Assembly has paid tribute to Sir David Murray's period as chairman at Ibrox. Andy Kerr, president of the umbrella organisation that represents all Rangers supporters groups around the world, said: "Rangers fans all over the world will be united today in paying tribute to the passion and commitment Sir David has shown for Rangers over the past 20 years.
"Only ten days ago, he was given a resounding cheer when he unfurled the league flag at Ibrox and that's how Rangers fans would like to remember what has been, overall, a very successful chairmanship."
The Rangers Supporters Trust was less enthusiastic about the announcement. Trust chairman Stephen Smith said: "Every Rangers fan recognises the former chairman's commitment and the success that the club has enjoyed since 1988 and we wish Sir David Murray well.
"However, a new face at the top doesn't change the fact that Sir David still owns over 90 per cent of Rangers shares. Nor does it wipe out debts that meant the club was unable to sign a single player on the back of a Double-winning season. Many Rangers supporters still want radical change in the running and ownership of the club."
RONNIE ESPLIN 