WALTER Smith was named Scotland's manager of the year for the sixth time yesterday and believes the latest award is more significant than any of those he collected during his first spell at the helm of Rangers.
After succeeding Graeme Souness at Ibrox in 1991, Smith won the national managerial prize in five of his first six full seasons in charge from 1992 to 1997, the sequence only broken by Jimmy Nicholl at Raith Rovers in 1995.
Smith will receive th
is season's honour at the Scottish Football Writers' Association's annual awards dinner in Glasgow tomorrow night in the midst of a frenetic conclusion to a campaign which sees the club he has revitalised still in with a chance of winning four trophies at home and in Europe.
Given the circumstances in which he returned to Rangers in January 2007, the former Scotland manager feels more appreciative of the individual honour than he was in the past.
"It's always nice to get an award like this," said Smith. "I've managed to win it before, but it probably means a bit more now. I don't mean that I took it lightly previously, but regardless of what happens between now and the end of the season, this will have been a notable one for us. When you do get recognition for that, it's nice."
It is customary when accepting such awards to pay tribute to those who have assisted you, but there was more than just lip service from Smith as he outlined the supporting roles his assistants Ally McCoist and Kenny McDowall, along with sports scientist Adam Owen, have played at Rangers this season.
"Not only did we bring a lot of new players to the club, we also have an almost entirely new backroom staff," added Smith.
"Both Alistair and Kenny have worked extremely hard to create a good atmosphere on the training ground. They have made it enjoyable and that helps a great deal in how we handle our current situation. There is a good feeling in our camp overall, and that's due to them and the work they do.
"This season, they have taken all the training. I do the team shape and team talks, anything like that, but they do the vast majority of the work on the training ground.
"They, more than myself, have created an environment where people want to come in and work. That's been reflected in the way the team have handled the games over the season. It's quite remarkable they have done that in such a short space of time.
"We have been finishing games very strongly recently and that's a testimony to the work Adam has put in, especially in the early part of the season. We have had to cut back on the amount of training we do recently, but the work Adam did at the start has had a fantastic effect.
"Sports science is a new thing to me, but Kenny had worked with Adam before and had no hesitation in recommending him. It's been interesting from my own point of view to look at how they do it, compared to how it was a few years ago.
"For example, they go on shorter runs in pre-season and tell me it has the same benefit as the long distance ones we used to do. Jock Wallace would turn in his grave, and I don't think Jim McLean would be too impressed by it! I was sceptical myself at the start, but you can see from how the team are at this stage of the season that it is working."
Rangers' relentless and controversial schedule continues at lunchtime today with the visit of Dundee United to Ibrox. Victory for Smith's team would see them cut the gap on Celtic at the top of the table to one point with a game in hand and place additional onus on the reigning champions to defeat Hibs at Parkhead tomorrow.
"There is pressure on every game we play at the moment," said Smith. "It doesn't matter who plays first, the pressure is there to win the game. At this stage of the season, you have to show you can handle it.
"Never mind the schedule we have still to come, this will be our fourth game in nine days since the Uefa Cup semi-final in Florence. From a managerial point of view, I obviously have homework to do on the Uefa Cup final, but that has to be left until after the Dundee United match. Our concentration has to be fully on that. Dundee United have played very well against us this season, we know the problems we will face in trying to overcome them."
The prospect of the title race coming down to goal difference cannot be discounted, with Rangers currently seven goals behind Celtic on that front, but it is not a factor with which Smith is overly concerned.
"Winning the games is the only issue for us at the moment," he insisted. "Yes, it may come down to goal difference, but you can't go into games saying you will try to improve the goal difference. We can't lose the focus of just trying to win the games. We know if we continue to win, then we can be champions. It's easy saying it, it's another thing actually doing it."
Smith will resist any temptation to rest players ahead of the Uefa Cup final, but the fit-again pair of Lee McCulloch and DaMarcus Beasley are both in contention to feature at some stage this afternoon.
The full article contains 936 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
