The Lions of Barcelona

[gavrenwick]

I truly wish I could write as good as this.

[tenthreeleader]

Gav, you flatter me. I'm glad you enjoy the work and I appreciate your kindness.

___

Unfortunately, though, Heather’s departure for London with Bond and his traveling party dampened my day. They are in pre-production for the movie for two weeks now, with shooting scheduled to begin October 1. That means I won’t see as much of her as I like for quite some time, and that’s a little daunting.

But the papers more than made up for it, with a very nice picture spread of the event on the style pages in London, Glasgow – and surprisingly, Los Angeles.

In fact, the picture of Heather and I sharing our kiss wound up on the inside page of several papers, right alongside the pictures of Heather and Neil together. Under the (for once) tasteful headline Love Story, our discreet smooch wound up posted all over the world.

The accompanying article then explained the event:

"Megastar Neil Bond and his wife Carole Armstrong joined co-star Heather Middleton and studio executives for a ‘get-acquainted’ event in Glasgow Saturday night.

Studio heads met with the stars, and discussed shooting locations in Glasgow, where several scenes will take place. Miss Middleton also found time to slow-dance with her date, Rangers manager Phil Sharp. Reports that their young relationship is on the rocks appear to have been disproved, at least for the time being.

Bond, who will receive a reported £12 million for his dual role as star and director, appeared to get on well with Sharp, who appeared at times bewildered by his surroundings. However, the 37-year old American regained his composure nicely as the evening wore on.

Middleton, who will receive a reported £3.5 million for her role, was resplendent in a red strapless evening dress and cut a dashing figure with co-star Bond. However, tabloid reports linking Middleton’s former lover Nathan Randolph with an attempt to re-establish their fifteen-year relationship will have taken a hit as Middleton only had eyes for her beau.

Shooting on ‘The English Teacher’ is scheduled to begin from October 1 in London.”

This morning, as we shared breakfast before I took her to the airport to meet Bond’s group, I smiled at her.

“You see this, babe?” I asked, holding out the paper. “We aren’t on the rocks anymore. The media says so.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Tonight, though, we got a bit of news that was a little more disquieting.

If there is a “Group of Death” in this year’s Champions League, we’re probably right in the middle of it. The draw was held this afternoon at UEFA headquarters in Geneva, and I got to attend the draw for the first time ever.

The SPL is off this weekend for World Cup qualifiers, and since the guts of my team plays for Scotland that meant there’s precious little to do at Murray Park this week until we prepare for Kilmarnock at Ibrox on the 13th September. So I caught a plane to Switzerland for the draw.

Unfortunately, Heather couldn’t come with me. She had to stay in Glasgow, which was a bit of irony right there.

Rangers’ coefficient is 24th in UEFA, earning the princely sum of 23.382 points for reaching the UEFA Cup finals last year. That ranked us ninth in Europe. Celtic’s rank is 41st, but they also received a third seed for the competition.

I really don’t know how they keep it all organized in this drawing. There are rules they have to follow – no clubs from the same nation in the same group stage, rules about which teams can’t play on the same night for television purposes, and so on. Obviously, I knew going into the draw that we wouldn’t see our great rivals anytime soon.

So we sat back and watched as highlights of each of the 32 group stage teams were played on a big screen at the front of the room. The television production value was wonderful but at the same time it took up time I would rather have spent evaluating our opponents. Ah, the life of a manager.

Then there was also a very nice greeting for Aldair Nascimento dos Santos, known in Rome simply by his first name, who got to pick the actual draw.

Aldair played fourteen years for AS Roma, whose stadium will host the final. He’s still the only player to have his number retired by I Lupi, so the man obviously has a special place in the hearts of supporters there.

However, once Aldair started to actually draw from the little bowls containing those plastic footballs, I started to realize that our path out of the group stages is going to be a very difficult one indeed.

Group A

Real Madrid

FC Porto

FC Girondins de Bordeaux

Standard Liege

Group B

AS Roma

Olympique Lyonnais

Zenit St. Petersburg

Dinamo Moscow

Group C

Arsenal

Werder Bremen

Panathinaikos

CFR Cluj

Group D

Chelsea

Fiorentina

Celtic

PSV Eindhoven

Group E

Liverpool

Bayern Munich

Rangers

Spartak Moscow

Group F

Barcelona

Olympique de Marseille

Schalke 04

Levski

Group G

Inter

Villareal

FC Twente

Basel

Group H

Manchester United

Juventus

Sporting CP

Galatasaray

Out of those groups, H looks like it’s perhaps the most difficult from top to bottom, but ours runs it a close second. We open our campaign with Liverpool at Ibrox on the 17th, four days after Kilmarnock:

Wed 17 Sep – Liverpool

Tue 30 Sep – at Bayern Munich

Tue 21 Oct – Spartak Moscow

Wed 5 Nov – at Spartak Moscow

Tue 25 Nov – at Liverpool

Wed 10 Oct – Bayern Munich

So as the Rangers contingent headed off toward the airport and the flight back to Prestwick, my mind was filled with thoughts of what we’d face at Ibrox in a couple of weeks’ time. It won’t be an easy task, but then the Champions League isn’t supposed to be easy.

# # #

[Kryston]

Wow, Liverpool, Bayern and Spartak, Rangers surely had their hands full for the group stage of the champions league.

But looking at their arch rivals, it was not much easier. Chelsea, PSV and Fiorentina ain't easy meat as well.

I would say Group G would had been an easier destination for Phil and his charges. Nevertheless good luck for the competition.

[dan_simmonds]

Small error there 10-3? Shouldn't it say 'path from the group stages? Either way, fantastic writing as usual!

[minisav]

Tough luck there.

So Home Games:

Draw Liverpool - Win/Draw Bayern - Win Spartak

Away:

Loss Liverpool - Draw Bayern - Win Spartak

9 or 11 points then!

I almost put 9/11 but that's kind of weird!

[tenthreeleader]

Dan, you're quite right ... that'll teach me to proofread Safe to say the group stage will be a challenge!

___

The message boards are alight with talk over the party last night.

I had it right, it seems. Fans don’t like partying when the result of the day isn’t three points – even going to Parkhead and coming up with a draw against our greatest rivals.

It is, of course, up to me to choose the life I live. I love Heather and when I am with her, I don’t always get to be with her in a time and place of my choosing, or our supporters’ for that matter.

In that respect, she was quite right. There is no reason why I should have to gain approval for what I do on my own time, but today brought about several new variables, without putting too fine a point on things.

First, I got a call from my dad. That in itself was both welcome and annoying.

“Couldnae find that second goal, I see,” he said. He was trying to be funny, but I didn’t see the humor.

“Dad, you know damn good and well it’s not that easy,” I began.

“Easy, lad,” he answered. “I know it’s not. But you had the opportunity and your boys didnae seize the day.”

“We went to a tough place to play and got a draw,” I countered. “We played pretty well all things considered. We haven’t been playing the way we can and if I play my cards right with these players, we might use this result to do something useful. That won’t happen if I push them too hard right now.”

“I know,” he answered. “Look, I know ye’ve got a tough job wi’ our club.” His Glaswegian was showing again.

“It’s a tough job,” I shrugged.

“So perhaps it’s a good idea if you put Miss Middleton on the back burner for a wee while.”

I sighed heavily. “Don’t even go there, Dad,” I said. “Really. You always told me about the ‘Sharp temper’ when you were raising me. Well, I’m giving you fair warning – lay off or you’ll hear it over the phone.”

There was a long silence, while my father realized that he had indeed raised his son as a chip off the old block.

“All right then,” he finally said. “Let’s talk about something else. When are you going to invite me to come to Ibrox?”

“Whenever you wish,” I said. “There’s certainly nothing stopping you from coming here and obviously you’d like to see the Rangers play.”

“Aye, I would,” he replied. “Especially when my son is the boss. And if I’ve learned anything at all from this conversation, it’s that you are indeed the boss.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

I have never entertained the thought of being an international manager, and after tonight’s results, I have congratulated myself on a rare burst of intelligence.

George Burley is up against it after the second World Cup Group 9 qualifying match saw the Tartan Army fall 3-2 to Iceland this evening in Reykjavik. Hot upon the heels of Saturday’s 1-1 draw away to Macedonia, it’s safe to say Scotland’s chances are squarely behind the eight ball at the moment.

Folks aren’t real happy. Just for fun, I lurked some of the message boards on The Scotsman’s website. I’m really glad I’m not Burley. I’d have been hemhorraging if some of those things had been written about me.

Wait. They were. After the Old Firm game at Parkhead. Oh, well.

However, it wouldn’t be a real weekend if Rangers players weren’t injured. This time, Kyle Lafferty and Andrius Velicka are out, both with leg injuries, while playing for Norn Ireland and Lithuania respectively.

This hits me right where I live. After the international break, we host Kilmarnock at Ibrox, and then there’s Liverpool coming to play at midweek in our Champions League opener. Next weekend we hose Motherwell, so it’ll be three matches in eight days, thankfully all at home.

Yet, losing two strikers to inury means the list at the club at this point is beyond ridiculous. Some of the injured players are approaching readiness for consideration again such as Adam and even Ferguson, but finding strikers for the week’s matches will be a challenge.

Young Fleck is going to go into the side for the Kilmarnock match, paired with Boyd. If things go like I hope they will, Kris won’t last long in that match either and for all the right reasons. Yet, when you plan for those things in football, you get burned.

I want Miller to pair Boyd for Liverpool if the decision is made to go with two up front – which is by no means assured. Walter took a lot of guff last season for playing ‘ugly football’, which is to say 4-5-1, but I may have no choice due to the bodies on my injury list.

It’s like someone walked through Murray Park with a scythe and just started chopping. It’s that bad.

We learned that Charlie Richmond will take charge of Saturday’s match as well. His claim to fame this season is finding the time to hand out 13 cards in the recent League Cup match between St. Mirren and Partick Thistle. Two of the cards were red, each team finished with ten men, and neither side was terribly pleased with him.

Richmond is the least of my worries at the moment. My dad is mad at me, I’ve got an injury list that’s as long as both my arms, and the supporters are expecting at least two wins out of three this week.

Yet, that’s why I signed up. Aye, ready.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Boyd showed up ready to play, which was very nice for me.

Unfortunately, ten minutes into the match against Kilmarnock, he was standing five yards from goal with his head in his hands after ringing a wide-open shot off Alan Combe’s left goalpost and behind for a goal kick.

The visiting supporters were on him, the home crowd was demanding as they always are, and Boyd simply got on with the job. We were simply all over them, and the wonder of it all was that somehow we didn’t score.

“Damn, Coisty, let’s get you out there,” I moaned as Combe made a spectacular save to rob Miller just ninety seconds later. “If we don’t start to put a couple of these away, it might get darned uncomfortable later on.”

“Not to worry, Phil,” he said, standing up to take a wee walk on the touchline to encourage the troops. “It’ll come right. I feel good about this.”

I’m glad he did. I looked down the bench at McDowall, who just shook his head. Ally’s incurable optimism is usually a good thing but as for me, I like to see a couple of shots stretching the back of the net before I say much myself.

Adam curled a cross in almost straight off the ensuing goal kick as we quickly found we could take whatever route to the Killie goal we wished. Charlie nearly scored, but again Combe had the answer and was playing very well positionally.

Finally, though, we had to break through and thankfully it was Boyd who did the breaking. Picking up a loose ball on the left angle as Combe saw it, his unstoppable shot finally put us on the board on 27 minutes.

The first time Rangers score at Ibrox is often a relief as much as anything else – such is the level of expectation for many of our fans – and it was for me too in this case. I wanted to see our hard work come to something in the first half to avoid the inevitable rise in our opponents’ confidence that can sometimes lead to unwelcome surprises.

We were dominant, and referee Richmond had been into his book three times already to card various Killie players who realized that the only way to slow us down was to trip, impede or otherwise tackle us - and I mean that in the American football sense, not the football we were playing here.

We got to the locker room a goal to the good, and instead of dwelling on the negative, ‘Doctor Phil’ turned to his players with a wide smile.

“That was just lovely,” I said, and Boyd actually scratched his head.

“Hittin’ the bar isn’t lovely,” he answered, with a smile.

“It was the post, not the bar, ya ned,” Whittaker tossed out from across the room. We were relaxed, anyhow.

I got control of the situation. “Enough of that,” I said. “I talk first. Remember? But I want you to know that if you go out there and play like that in the second half you’re going to put a big number on the board. It’s a matter of time. They can’t stop you, they can’t even slow you down. Make them pay for that.”

Amazingly, we did. Novo, who got the start on the right today, made yet another sudden impact on one of our games by watching as Boyd hit the other goalpost four minutes after the restart, and then beating Garry Hay to the rebound to toe-poke past Combe for 2-0.

That was more like it. We were fluid, and this time we were opportunistic as well. The goal opened the floodgates.

Broadfoot was playing with some confidence as well, getting the ball all the way to the byline on 67 minutes and crossing for Boyd. Since he was standing right in front of the goal, hitting a post was nearly a practical impossibility. He was also unmarked, so frankly it was easier to score.

So, he did, finishing up work on his brace to make it 3-0. You could see the shoulders sagging on the visitors’ bench and as importantly, on the park. Jim Jefferies, who isn’t inclined to like me much from what the papers say, now had a job on to save his team from a rout.

Smiling, I simply pushed my hands forward. I know what Jim’s said about me this week, and since his team wasn’t exactly threatening our box, I didn’t see the harm in rubbing a bit of salt into those wounds.

It wasn’t very nice of me, I admit, but then I wasn’t in a giving mood. I had a point to prove – to the fans as well as to my father – and unfortunately for them, Kilmarnock was in the way.

Richmond passed out two more yellows as we surged forward again over the next few minutes, but it hardly mattered. Now it was Novo moving the ball deep and crossing for Boyd, who finished powerfully with his left foot just five minutes after his second goal to complete his hat trick.

That made four by my reckoning, and that was enough. We were in full flow and I was able to pull the hat-trick hero from the pitch early enough to get him rested for Liverpool at mid-week. With the form he’s in, we’re going to need him.

Adam also went off in favour of DaMarcus Beasley, a player I’d love to see get a little more time. However, in the ‘Scotsmen first’ mentality Murray has – assuming he’s still in charge – I felt it prudent to have Adam play in the domestic match while DMB suit up against Liverpool.

Heading into the match for his Rangers debut was one of my more promising youngsters. Chris Craig, who has already scored six times for the reserves, now took the pitch in place of Boyd. He received a nice ovation from the faithful, who settled in to watch the rest of the match.

They were out of their seats almost immediately, as the youngster crumpled to the deck courtesy of a two-footed challenge from Gary Locke. That brought me out of my seat as well, and I elbowed my way past McCoist to head to the fourth official.

“Red for that,” I snapped, and the official simply looked at Richmond, who was having a tough time keeping a lid on things. By that time he had handed out seven yellows to Kilmarnock and now took out the red card for Locke.

Craig got treatment and was able to continue, but the boy had received a very rough introduction to life in the SPL. Beasley lined up our free kick about thirty yards from goal and floated a useful ball into the box.

It found the forehead of Weir, who thundered forward to finish for our fifth goal. The vice-captain doesn’t get many, and his joy at cracking the scoresheet for us was matched only by the satisfaction I felt at the proper response to overly aggressive play.

Down to ten, with hardly a hope of getting forward, Jefferies soon realized that discretion was the better part of valor. For the first time all season, the Rangers beast had been fed. I thought it had come at just the right time.

I managed to shake hands with Jefferies without saying anything, and as we headed back up the tunnel, McCoist grabbed my arm.

“I told you not to worry, Phil,” he said. “You gotta trust me.”

Rangers 5 (Boyd 27, 67, 72; Novo 49, Weir 83)

Kilmarnock 0

A – 50,988, Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow

Man of the Match – Kris Boyd, Rangers (9.4)

# # #

[salkster2102]

Damn you gotta get that smug coisty unbder control 10-3. he will be wanting your job soon . great as always mate KUTGW

[tenthreeleader]

He's a real funny man, eh, Salkster?

___

The post-match write-ups talked about how fortunate we were to play against ten men for the second straight match.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people who miss the point. We scored four goals before they had Locke sent off. The fifth one came on the ensuing free kick when they had all ten men behind the ball. I think we deserve a little credit for that.

Boyd, for his part, was wonderful. He had a hat trick and could have bagged five were it not for his sniper-like accuracy in hitting goalposts. Still, though, it was great stuff from him and our direct passing game really tore their defense to shreds.

We held them to three attempts in the match and none of them were on goal. Five of our nine shots on target found their way home, which was fine with me too.

However, Aberdeen has some real problems. Jimmy Calderwood is officially on the hot seat after the Dons were thrashed 4-1 at Pittodrie by Hamilton Accies. They’ve scored two goals from five matches and have exactly one point to show for their hard work.

Meanwhile, Celtic kept pace with us thanks to Scott McDonald’s hat trick to dismiss Motherwell at Fir Park. The chase is definitely on.

This evening, I sat at home watching the late sports on Sky when my phone rang.

“Phil, it’s Martin Bain,” I heard, and I turned down the television to hear what our managing director had to say.

“Good evening,” I replied, sitting back in my chair. He then surprised me.

“Phil, it’s time I talked with you,” he said. “I’m the one who’s bidding to take over the club and I want to let you know what’s going on.”

I frowned, thankfully unknown to him. “Thank you for the call,” I said. “Where do I stand?” I figured there was nothing like getting to the point.

“You stand where you sit at the moment,” he said, in an odd attempt at humor.

“You’re the manager of Rangers FC. I’ve got a group together that is ready to make a bid on the valuation of the club to Sir David and after that, we hope to be in business. So to speak.”

“I’m not sure your calling is a good idea,” I said, now very unsure of the ground on which I either sat or stood. “After all, the takeover is not yet complete.”

“I have every reason to believe it soon will be,” he replied. “So as the current manager I thought I would do you the courtesy of a call.”

“I do appreciate that,” I replied. “And I thank you. I’ll look forward to the resolution of the issue.”

He then hung up and I wondered how deep a hole I had dug for myself. Like most of the high-profile figures at the club, myself included, he seems to be a love-hate figure among the hardest core of the support.

For my part, though, I just want to manage the club. For as long as whoever runs it lets me, that is.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

It was interesting watching the Champions League on television tonight. As the nerves build inside me for my first managerial experience in the group stages proper, I watched on television as Gordon Strachan showed me that despite experience, he’s got as many wins as I do.

I watched ninety minutes of one-way traffic at Stamford Bridge tonight as Chelsea had twenty-one attempts at goal in a comprehensive 3-1 victory. Celtic had one, and it wound up in the net through Scott McDonald in the fourth minute of injury time.

With about ten minutes to go in the match, my phone rang. It was Heather, asking me if I was watching the Celtic match.

“No, I’m watching the Chelsea match,” I said. “I think only one team is playing tonight.”

“Naughty,” she laughed.

“Nothing against them, it’s just that Chelsea are different class,” I said. “Can anyone argue that honestly?”

“I can’t,” she admitted. “But I’m flying up tomorrow afternoon and I thought I’d see if my boyfriend could get me a ticket to the match. What do you think?”

“I’ll go ask him,” I said, with a smile on my face.

“You were naughty before,” she said. “But that was downright nasty.”

“I’ll make it up to you tomorrow evening,” I said. “It’ll be wonderful to see you.”

# # #

I’ve got two players coming off the injury list just in time for Liverpool, but I don’t expect either of them to play.

Lafferty and Velicka are back in full training after the injuries they suffered on international duty, but at the moment I’ve not got much use for them. Beasley is going to get the start on the left side of midfield because he’s the fastest player I’ve got at that position and my biggest need tomorrow will be width.

Up front, it’s Miller and Boyd, who will hopefully keep his form from the Kilmarnock match. I also have to think about Motherwell’s visit to Ibrox on Sunday, which will end our brief homestand of matches.

They’re in the UEFA Cup – or at least they hope to be – with Italy’s Sampdoria heading in for a qualifying tie on Thursday night. Hopefully, we can catch them with some tired legs as they come to see us.

Velicka and Lafferty probably won’t see the pitch against the Reds, but they sure might against the Well. At this point, with the fixtures coming fast and furious, I’ll take whatever I can get.

Meanwhile, Celtic has to do the road double this time, coming back from London to play at Kilmarnock in the second half of that club’s Old Firm doubleheader. We’ll need to be good against Motherwell since I expect a better performance out of Strachan’s charges this weekend. They’ll have all week to stew over being humiliated in London.

Which brings me back to my team. Liverpool aren’t a half-bad side either. So, I face the possibility of getting my team back up for a home match at the weekend after what’s sure to be a physical and fast-paced match against one of England’s vaunted ‘Big Four’.

I had all these thoughts at about three o’clock in the blessed a.m. Suffice to say, I’m a bit nervous.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

In terms of European football, it’s hard to beat the tradition of Liverpool. Hell, in terms of tradition in English football too, you could say the same thing.

They haven’t won their league as many times as we’ve won ours, but their eighteen titles is an English record. Their record in Europe speaks for itself, though, and since tonight’s match was hardly domestic, we had a bit of concern.

The Ibrox crowd seems to get even louder when a European match is contested, though, which was an equalizer of sorts. For the first time, I led my club onto the pitch for a Champions League group contest and it was almost as loud as for an Old Firm match. Almost, but not quite.

I’ve played on some memorable European nights in this place, and I always loved the atmosphere. I couldn’t tell the difference this evening as the teams stepped onto the pitch and into a blast furnace of noise.

Steven Gerrard led our illustrious visitors onto the pitch alongside Weir, who looked old enough to be his father. Yet our wizened skipper was up for the match, and in excellent physical condition. He was playing even deeper than usual in our scheme this evening since Liverpool had plenty of players who could beat him for pace.

Yet, Davie was in my eleven due to his ability to read the game along with his sound positional sense. That, and I figured I could do worse than start an old Evertonian against the other half of the Merseyside Derby.

Rafa Benitez had had practically nothing to say about us in the runup to the match. I’m sure he’d much rather slag off Sir Alex of Govan in any event. Who’s Phil Sharp to him?

Yet now, we entered the stadium side by side and the coaching staffs exchanged pleasantries while the players performed their traditional pre-match handshakes while the Champions League hymn played around them.

I looked at Benitez and he at me. I found it very hard not to drop my eyes as he gave me a penetrating stare.

I settled for a smile. “Welcome to Ibrox, Rafa,” I said, as we shook hands.

“Thank you,” he answered. “I’m sure you’ll get the same reception at Anfield.”

That wouldn’t bode well for most visiting teams, I surmised, as the match kicked off. Immediately, our visitors moved into the ascendancy, with Gerrard sending Daniel Agger right in on goal – against Bougherra, not Weir – and McGregor bailed him out by rushing to collect bravely at the striker’s feet.

Agger leaped high into the air as the keeper dove and flew over McGregor, tumbling hard just outside our six-yard box, getting up slowly. He trotted back up the pitch trying to regain his senses, having learned an important lesson in the process.

Unfortunately for us, the lesson was in how to time his run. Just five minutes later, Ryan Babel then repeated it, taking another lead from Gerrard and this time burying it to McGregor’s left to put Liverpool into the lead.

Just like that, Ibrox was a bit quieter, and Babel performed the now-popular ‘shushing’ motion by placing his finger to his lips. That made none of us in blue happy, and this time McCoist turned to me.

“That isn’t nice,” he said. “Like to take that out of their hides.”

I couldn’t disagree with him. Gone was the jovial McCoist of the Kilmarnock match. Now he was replaced by a lone wolf, who used the fact that I wasn’t on the touchline to go there himself for a bit of a stroll.

The crowd was a bit amused to see the assistant manager make the first trek to the touchline instead of the manager. They shouldn’t have been surprised – McCoist did that when Walter was here as a matter of habit – but they’re getting used to seeing me out there when the time is right.

Only this time I didn’t feel it was. We were holding them fairly well with the exception of Babel’s moment of brilliance, and there was still plenty of time remaining.

[tenthreeleader]

Unfortunately, that moment came comparatively early in the match, so we were forced to chase the game at home much earlier than I might have hoped. Our overall play was good, though, and the bench wasn’t nearly as jocular as it I have seen it for some SPL matches.

Miller blazed over about ten minutes after Babel’s goal and our first real good chance of the match went begging. Our movement on and off the ball was pretty good, and after the disappointment of Agger’s goal had subsided, we were on a surprising level of parity with them.

We got to halftime still down 1-0 and my talk with the players was surprisingly upbeat. “I like what I’m seeing, in the main,” I began. “They took advantage and made a good play through Babel, but I like how we’re standing up to them. Keep moving the ball and let’s use this crowd for something besides yelling at the officials. You can do it.”

I then headed for my office while McCoist continued to rile up the troops. I did think we could do it, and even though the halftime reporter thought I was nuts for saying so, I held that rare sense of optimism as we took the pitch for the second half.

Our energy level remained good, and another good chance developed six minutes after the restart. Beasley, preferred to Adam on the left due to his blazing pace and natural width, took the ball straight down the touchline and hooked a marvellous early ball into the box for the rampaging Boyd. He brought the ball to ground off his chest, let it bounce once and struck a savage drive at Pepe Reina.

The keeper then robbed Boyd with a reflex save I could only describe as world class. Jamie Carragher then hoofed the ball behind for a corner while the entire Liverpool defense rushed to mob their keeper.

The crowd showed its appreciation of a fine play, but that didn’t help us on the scoreboard. We continued to press, however, and as the match hit 65 minutes the offensive substitutes began to complete their warm-ups in case I selected them for added options.

I turned to McCoist. “I’m thinking 4-3-3 pretty soon,” I said.

“Not a bad thought,” he said. “DaMarcus is giving them trouble down the wing and having him further forward might make life harder for them.”

As we spoke, Mendes found Boyd on a simple little pass down the right. Boyd cut sharply to the middle and stroked a wonderful shot past Reina to his right to get us level on 68 minutes.

Ibrox went wild with joy at our equalizer and frankly it was nothing less than our play deserved. Finally back on terms, I started to wonder whether we might actually be able to steal three points from the Reds.

Boyd headed back to the center circle with a satisfied expression on his face. His reputation as a player who evaporates in the big games had taken a hit, hopefully replaced by something a little more suited to his considerable talent.

With the momentum firmly on our side, now we swung into attack. Miller and Boyd worked a two-man game about thirty-five yards out from the Liverpool goal and left the proverbial path of destruction in their wake. Miller missed again, though, shooting wide to Reina’s left from the top of the area to the disappointment of our bench, and crowd.

Reina put the ball down for the goal kick and Miller trotted back up the pitch with Daniel Agger. The two exchanged words, and Miller gave Agger an angry expression. Evidently some sort of conversation was being had about finishing ability and Agger had hit a sore spot.

Miller turned sharply to him as the ball was kicked, and Agger turned to head upfield. As he did, he swung his elbow sharply and caught Miller flush in the right cheek.

He fell slowly, grabbing at his face. The crowd went nuts and so did McCoist, who was immediately up and after the fourth official. I had been following the ball and didn’t see the play, but McCoist certainly had.

Referee Jochen Drees had seen it, though, and whistled play dead, allowing our physio staff to enter the field. They arrived to find a bright red mark on Miller’s cheek, which was showing every sign of becoming a bruise. My hope was that the cheekbone wasn't fractured.

Drees called Agger to him, and with hardly a word showed him a straight red card. Once again, we were playing a ten-man opponent and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

[tenthreeleader]

Now it was time for a 4-3-3 and a possibility of stealing some points from the Reds. With twenty minutes still to play, the chance to score a memorable goal was certainly motivating Boyd, who was springing forward with every change of possession.

While his desire was definitely there, his positioning was not. He was whistled for offside three times in the following five minutes as his exuberance was not tempered by simple common sense.

I looked at McCoist. “Ally, we need to have a talk with him,” I said. “I’ve asked him in the past to work on his positioning but it’s not getting through.”

“It ought to,” he said. “You’re the boss.”

“I am,” I replied. “But sometimes being the boss doesn’t matter that much, right?”

His look of frustration in reply showed me that he understood both the problem and Boyd. Great talent – but difficult to harness. Meanwhile, play resumed.

Just then, Boyd burst through on a through ball from Mendes and ripped a shot past Reina on 78 minutes. Again, Ibrox went wild – but the linesman’s flag was up.

Now Boyd was very unhappy and I wasn’t too pleased either. I got up and approached the fourth official to remonstrate.

“The lad finally gets one right and you flag him,” I said, in an attempt at humor. I didn’t think screaming was going to solve anything. “There’s no way that was offside.”

“The decision has been made,” he replied. “The player was offside.”

Short, simple and to the point. Wrong, but short, simple and to the point.

Liverpool had little trouble holding us off from that point. Unfortunately. Still, though, it’s a Champions League point we’ll take. No doubt about that.

Rangers 1 (Boyd 68)

Liverpool 1 (Babel 9)

A - 50,978, Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow

Man of the Match – Ryan Babel, Liverpool

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

It just keeps adding up in terms of injuries.

Miller limped around for fifteen minutes in the second half before I removed him and it turns out he has a twisted knee that is going to keep him out of the lineup for about a month. It just never seems to end.

However, Velicka and Lafferty are ready to return and even Barry Ferguson is starting to train again and will play a reserve match this weekend. The injury list is still too long, though, and that makes playing that all-Scotsmen lineup that much more difficult.

It could be worse, though. Motherwell, our opponent at the weekend at Ibrox, lost this evening to Sampdoria just 72 hours before our match. And, they lost some key players too. Darren Smith and Brian McLean went down with injuries ten minutes apart in the first half, forcing Mark McGhee to use two substitutions in the first half hour. Then his team went on to lose 2-1 and has a real job on if they want to progress in the tournament.

The fixture list is getting hot and heavy for us. After Sunday’s match we’re drawn at home to St. Mirren in the ‘wee cup’, the League Cup, and that’s about the only trophy we contest that the board isn’t expecting me to win this season.

A lot of different players are going to take the pitch for that game, I promise you. That’s because three days after that we’re on the road to Hibs for a game that means a whole lot more in the grand scheme of things.

Celtic still hasn’t lost yet and there’s no other way to say it than this; the first of the Old Firm to drop three points is going to lose a lot of momentum. I’d prefer that it not be us.

The other Champions League match in our group, between Bayern Munich and Spartak Moscow, also ended in a 1-1 draw in Moscow. So we’re all either first or last depending on how you look at it.

Training today was light-hearted. We’re in a pretty good mood and we ought to be – we played a solid match last night and against an opponent of Liverpool’s quality, that’s a good thing. With a key league match coming up, we appear to be hitting on all cylinders for the first time all season.

While watching a replay of Motherwell’s match on DVD this evening, though, I was very surprised to get a knock on my door. Not expecting anyone, I headed to my large front door and swung it open to discover Heather on the other side, carrying two suitcases.

“Hi, honey,” she smiled. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” I answered, standing aside and then taking her cases. “What a pleasant surprise!”

“Neil gave us a couple of days before the shooting starts,” she said, stepping inside and closing the door. “I thought you wouldn’t mind a visit.”

I opened my arms and she slid happily inside. “You thought right,” I said. “I could use a bit of a break.”

“Well, what I have in mind is more than a bit,” she giggled. “I hope you don’t mind.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

She was my guest for lunch today after training and when she had a chance to talk with McCoist I remembered an important fact about him that had previously escaped me.

He’s got acting experience. While we ate lunch in the Murray Park manager’s office he regaled us with tales from the set of 2000’s A Shot at Glory with Robert Duvall and Michael Keaton, where he had one of the lead roles as fading star Jackie McQuillan.

The character – who played at Celtic, of all places – joins Duvall’s fictional Kilnockie team which reaches the Scottish Cup final against Rangers. The scene in the beginning of the movie showing McCoist wearing green had to have been hard for Rangers supporters to take, but not all that hard – it was the Rangers strip of the day colorized to green.

One subplot of the movie is hardly plausible – the team’s new American owner wants to move it to Ireland unless it wins the Cup – but the cup run of the Kilnockie minnows is certainly something that can and does happen in Scottish football. And the jury is still out on the quality of Duvall’s Scottish accent as manager Gordon McCloud.

Owen Coyle, Claudio Reyna, former Dundee United and Falkirk manager Ian McCall and a wall picture of Henrik Larsson also make appearances in the film. I learned all this from Coisty, who was in his glory.

Fans also got to see McCoist play against Rangers in the movie, which happened in real life late in his career with Kilmarnock with a much unhappier result (he broke his leg, in the year before the movie was shot).

And as an actor, he wasn’t half bad. His smoothness with the media is down to a number of factors, one of which is that he is a former presenter himself. He’s made for television.

So, it wasn’t surprising that he got along well with Heather. The fact that Ally has scored about 325 more goals for Rangers than I have, in addition to his acting career, made me a bit jealous as the two shared stories of life on movie sets.

Heather enjoyed his company. That was obvious. I enjoyed her company, which was equally obvious.

“Phil, it’s a great life,” he said, referring to the time on set. “It’s work, yeah, but fun like I’ve never had before.”

“Then you did it right,” Heather said. “You’ve got that part down pat!”

McCoist smiled at her. “Well, I’m doing what I love to do now,” he said. “Television and films are fine as far as they go but I love my football.”

He has had a great life and is a legend in the western part of town forever. Certainly, he could have done a lot worse.

He leaned back in his chair, sighed contentedly after his lunch and the conversation resumed. He had it made.

[tenthreeleader]

I was right about one thing. Motherwell sure didn’t look up for the match at Ibrox.

After their midweek exertions in the UEFA Cup qualifiers, the side that showed up to play us seemed to have survival in mind as much as anything else.

And it really didn’t matter how that survival was obtained. The fans spent much of the first half on their feet and screaming at referee Chris Riley as Well’s players seemed to make a habit of playing defense with their arms and hands.

“This is embarrassing,” McDowall said to me as Chris Riley went into the book for hauling back Adam midway through the half. “That’s your kind of football, Phil.”

“Mine?” I asked.

“Well, American,” he smiled.

“Don’t hang that on me,” I said. “Really, if he were playing American football, that’d be pretty shoddy tackling.”

Despite playing with ten men behind the ball in a 4-5-1 formation that featured midfielders lined up across the park like a maroon-and-gold picket fence, our ability to move the ball through the center of the park was virtually unhindered. Our movement off the ball was excellent and as a result we were able to get into attacking positions virtually of our choosing.

All well and good, but once we got the ball where it was supposed to go, we did everything but score. Lafferty, restored to the eleven today as I gave Boyd a rest, stung Graeme Smith’s hands from just outside the box twenty minutes into the match, but Adam then contrived to hit the side netting from just outside the six yard box a few minutes later that had everyone in blue burying his or her head in their hands.

I turned to McCoist. “Jackie McQuillan wouldn’t have missed that,” I said, and my assistant just smiled.

“Not a chance,” he agreed. “Hell, Phil, you wouldn’t have missed that.”

While that was a bit unfair to Adam, the frustration on our bench was starting to show. We needed a spark, and fortunately for us it wasn’t all that long in coming.

It came through Lafferty, who picked up the ball on 37 minutes and beat Smith to his left post with a wonderful curling effort on the fly from the edge of the box to the keeper’s right.

“That’s more like it,” McCoist exclaimed as the ball rebounded out of the Motherwell goal and back onto the pitch. The crowd, just short of a sellout, roared its appreciation for a fine play and we got to the dressing room at half a goal to the good.

We also got there nursing a few bumps and bruises courtesy of Motherwell studs, elbows and knees. That wasn’t so much fun to think about – and the physios were busy as I gave the team talk.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

The stat sheet really did tell the story as we took the pitch for the second half. We had nine attempts at goal in the first half with two on target. They had three, with none on target.

Had I known the extent to which the offense would sputter in the second half, I may well have gone to the Chairman’s Club for an early start on my post-match McEwan’s. It was the same as the first half – movement on and off the ball excellent, passing good, finishing abysmal.

Clearly we were suffering some letdown in the second half. The trick was to make sure that letdown wasn’t fatal.

I looked at McCoist while the second half seemed to drag on interminably. “I think I know what the Chinese Water Torture is like now,” I said, but he just smiled.

“You need all Scotsmen in there,” he said, jerking my attention back to a part of my job I hadn’t really considered for the last few weeks. While the issue surrounding the attempted takeover of the club is still in doubt, I haven’t had to worry about Sir David’s goal to make Rangers ‘Scotland’s Eleven’.

Unfortunately, thinking about it right in the middle of a SPL match was probably not optimal. I had to shake those thoughts out of my head while the match dragged on.

And on. And on.

The one thing Motherwell could do well was foul. We would blow past them like they weren’t even there when we had the ball and as a result, a parade of Motherwell players found their way into Scott McDonald’s book. It was getting embarrassing.

Riley mixed it up with Adam again right near the hour mark and McDonald looked at him with an expression that bordered on pity. He showed him a second yellow card – meaning we had yet another opportunity to play against ten men.

The howls from the Motherwell bench were amusing – but their charge of bias toward Rangers was something that rankled.

“Try stopping us without using your arms,” I thought. “That’d be a neat trick”.

But even playing against ten men didn’t help us find the range again. Fifteen of our seventeen attempts at goal were off the mark. Clearly not good enough. The three points were nice, but the way we earned them most certainly was not.

Rangers 1 (Lafferty 37)

Motherwell 0

A – 48,984, Ibrox Stadium

Man of the Match - Kyle Lafferty, Rangers

# # #

[salkster2102]

A win is a win as they say. Excellent as always 10-3 KUTGW

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks, Salkster! It's odd ... not playing very well at the moment but finding a way to get results.

___

Not surprisingly, the talk after the match centered around two key points. First, there was the matter of our victory and the dominance we enjoyed everywhere except in front of goal.

Second, there was the matter of another opponent being reduced to ten men. Some of the Glasgow press were sceptical.

David MacMurray, my friend from the Scotland on Sunday piece about the all-Scottish eleven, now started in. “Phil, this is the fourth match in a row where you’ve gotten to play against ten men,” he said. “Are you pleased with the officials so far?”

I frowned. “That’s a loaded question,” I said. “I think if you look at the stat sheet you’ll see what happened today. They had 32 fouls. We had three. We had eleven corners. They didn’t have any. We had 56 percent possession. There comes a time when one team has so much of the play that the other team has to foul to stop them. That ought to speak for itself.”

“What about the other games?” he asked.

“I’m not going to sit here and discuss those,” I said. “It isn’t fair to my players, who have done quite well for themselves. And I think it’s reasonable to assume that when a team has 32 fouls in a match, someone on the other team is going to commit more than one. What did Riley have, seven, eight fouls? Sooner or later a referee has to take some action. They were doing everything including tackling us with their arms to slow us down and you’re sitting here telling me about referee bias?”

“It’s easier to win when you play against ten,” MacMurray said. “Surely you can’t deny that.”

“When our play forces the other team into persistent fouling, you ought to play against ten,” I said. “Our movement on and off the ball has been very good the last few games and the fact that Motherwell packed everyone behind the ball today is just evidence of that.”

“So you aren’t saying anything else.”

“That’s four questions on that line,” I snapped. “And that’s at least three more than it deserves. I’m moving on.”

With that, I directed the questioning elsewhere and it immediately shifted to Celtic’s 3-0 win over Kilmarnock. They’re staying right with us.

This wasn’t going the way I had hoped it would. We had talked about everything but my team, so it was time to leave.

And I did.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

The eleven looked quite different all of a sudden.

Looking at the Rangers eleven that took the pitch at Ibrox for the League Cup match against St. Mirren, it would have been easy for the casual observer to ask if I had lost my mind.

This is perhaps the only competition we enter that the board doesn’t expect us to win. So, given our fixture congestion elsewhere, it was a simple decision for me to completely revamp the squad.

As a result, Alexander got a start in goal in place of McGregor, our very promising 16-year old youth acquisition Tom Lynch got his first appearance in the shirt at left fullback, and players like Christian Dailly, Lee McCulloch and Aaron Niguez got starts, players who don’t often get the chance to perform with the first team.

Maurice Edu, Chris Craig and Jean-Claude Darcheville, all reserve performers, were in the squad as well. St. Mirren, in response, started a full strength team so it was an excellent test for my second eleven.

The place was about half full for the match, as it seems like in England the League Cup isn’t the most popular of tournaments. No matter – I had players who needed games and this was as good a chance as any.

From the kickoff, we were dominant. Like Motherwell before them, the only way St. Mirren could slow us down was to foul. This was especially true in the case of young Craig, who really looked like he wanted to be out there.

Unfortunately, we suffered from the same difficulty we had against Motherwell. Our guys couldn’t hit water if they had fallen out of a boat. It was that bad.

To call the first half anticlimactic would have been kind. To call it exciting would have been perjury. The game soon devolved into a rather distressing pattern. We would make a play, put a useful ball into space, a trailing Saints player would grab onto the blue shirt chasing the ball, referee David Somers would whistle for a foul, and we’d do absolutely nothing with the resulting set piece.

There’s only so much of that you can watch without recalling the movie Groundhog Day, which has nothing to do with Heather but everything to do with the situation in which we now found ourselves. Frankly, it was ugly football, and we were seeing it over and over again.

I turned to McCoist. “Coisty, if you didn’t have to be here right now, would you be asleep?”

He looked at me ruefully. “Phil, I might fall asleep even though I’m supposed to be here.” That was the answer I expected, since I felt the same way. He’s the club’s all-time leading goal scorer. I am the all-time leader at nothing. Yet, we both know poor finishing when we see it.

McDowall was just as frustrated as I was. “Lack of match practice, obviously,” he cautioned.

“We spent a crapload of money to build Murray Park so these players could train to be ready for their chance,” I countered. “Don’t defend them. You know better.”

Just then Darcheville broke through on goal, rounded the keeper – and dragged a shot wide of the left post with the entire goal yawning in front of him.

The Frenchman knew the size of his mistake. Wanting to get back into the first team, he just can’t miss chances like that if he wants to play and he knows it. It was just a shocking, ugly miss and the expression on his face matched our play for the rest of the half.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

A reminder of whose shirt they wore figured to wake up the players at the start of the second half. So did the early dismissal of Steven Robb by Somers, for his seventh foul of the match. Persistent fouling will often do it, and since Robb had been whistled more than our entire team to that point in the match, it was understandable that Somers’ patience would run out.

Yet, it didn’t help. It gave me an excuse to switch to 4-3-3 with thirty minutes to play, though, in an effort to find a winner.

Darcheville was thus the lone striker, and with him struggling to find his match fitness, I wasn’t sure that was really the best move to make. Yet, make it I did. I wanted to find a winner and wanted to see how these players would react to pressure I placed on them.

Unfortunately, the answer was ‘not very well’. It’s not like St. Mirren really bothered us – down to ten away from home against the Old Firm, more than one Scottish club has been known to close up shop and put ten behind the ball – but the only thing we had going for us was that despite a packed in defense, St. Mirren still couldn’t catch up to us.

The parade of fouls continued, as Craig was dragged down at the edge of the box by Dan Murray, who was the new favourite of referee Somers. He stopped play and called the Saints’ defender over to him. I wondered if we were going to be the beneficiary of still more largesse from the match officials but Somers settled for a long talking-to of the player.

That was fine – all I wanted for was for Murray not to break Craig’s legs – and naturally the ensuing free kick went whistling harmlessly over the bar.

Then, it happened. They started play from a goal kick, and we took the ball straight back up the middle. Davis swung it wide left for Lynch, and the young man took it straight to the byline.

Once there, he disappeared under a blazing challenge from Murray, and Somers had seen enough. The purpose in his walk told me all I needed to know, and I was already motioning for the defensive line to come higher. Saints were down to nine with fifteen minutes to play and I saw no reason we couldn’t prosper from it.

Except we were impotent. That was the worst of all. Not only didn’t we put a shot on target for the remainder of the ninety minutes, we didn’t even have an attempt. This despite a backbone of supposedly-SPL calibre players playing at home against nine men.

Somers blew to end the ninety minutes. It was a mercy of sorts, but the whistles I was hearing from the stands told me that even though Ibrox was half-full, it still expected better. So did I.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Naturally, there’s no full break after ninety minutes of a cup tie, so I gave an impromptu team talk in my technical area. After introducing Steven Davis in the second half to no effect, I gathered my players around me at ninety minutes and ventured into a bit of hubris.

“See that shirt?” I said, pointing to Darcheville. “It’s got a crest on it that right now you aren’t honouring. There are eleven of you here. There are nine of them over there. I will be d**ned if I’m going to pull two of you off at the end of the match to make penalties fair because we didn’t win. I absolutely expect a winner out of you players within the next half an hour, or the results won’t be pleasant.”

Both Davis and Dailly shot daggers at me, but I looked first at the Ulsterman and then at the Scotsman.

“Either of you have anything to add?” I asked icily. “Come on, then. I’m listening.”

I locked eyes with Davis, and he said nothing in reply. “All right,” I said. “Get this job done. It should have been done long ago.”

With that, the players stepped back onto the pitch and resumbed their slumber. It was really maddening. I was strongly considering a blowup on the touchline to get my point across. I was extremely displeased with how we were faring, especially against a nine-man opponent that had absolutely no interest in doing anything besides manning the pumps and playing for an upset in penalties.

It went from bad to worse, as Aaron Niguez took a hard challenge by trying to skip over it soon after the restart. He feel awkwardly, with an audible pop I heard easily, as the challenge came right in front of our bench.

It was clearly a fair challenge. Aaron had tried to skip over it and now he was rolling on the ground in agony, clutching his right hamstring. I wheeled for Pip Yeates on the bench and found the chief physio already springing into action, waiting for referee Somers to stop play. We put the ball into touch and the boy got the attention he needed.

Unfortunately, he was stretchered off, which gave all of the players some rest, but I was far more concerned about the young man’s health right at the moment.

“Hamstring went, Phil,” Yeates told me as he accompanied the stretcher off the pitch. “It’s torn for sure.”

That was awful news from the perspective of the player’s career as much as anything else. Aaron’s a good kid, a hard worker, and now he’s going to have a real job on to get healthy again. If Yeates’ diagnosis is right, it’ll be months.

The rest of the first half of extra time thankfully seemed to go quickly, even as the result was getting more and more maddening by the moment. We switched ends, for the final opportunity to avoid some real blushes. Even though the board doesn’t care about the League Cup, I care about Rangers and I expect us to prevail in situations like these.

Finally, Darcheville seemed to get the message. He weaved his way through traffic and worked a wall pass with Davis to get himself some space in the Saints’ area. Down two men, they couldn’t mark the open players, and Jean-Claude powered home on 113 minutes.

This time, his trademark bow to the fans had a hint of embarrassment in it. Those remaining in the crowd showed their relief as much as their satisfaction at finally seeing their team dent the twine, so at least that bit of pressure was off.

I turned to McCoist and McDowall. “If they equalize, I’m gonna strangle somebody,” I snarled.

“Easy, Phil,” McCoist responded.

“Yeah, it would be,” I answered. “Just grab them around the neck and squeeze.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” McCoist replied, with a smile.

“I did,” I replied. Still not happy, I waited for the final whistle. When it came, it was a relief to get off the touchline. Lesson learned about this eleven. If that’s harsh, so be it.

Rangers 1 (Darcheville 113)

St. Mirren 0

A – 30,378, Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow

Man of the Match – Jean-Claude Darcheville, Rangers

# # #

[minisav]

At least you got the win. Fantastic stuff here. I loved the strangle bit at the end. Very funny

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks, minisav ... Phil can be pretty direct at times. Not sure that is always a good thing.

___

“Boss, see you for a minute?”

It was Ferguson, sticking his head into my Murray Park office the day after the Cup match.

“No problem, Bazza, have a seat,” I said, waving him to a spot opposite my suddenly messy desk. The scouting reports for Sunday’s match against Hibs were scattered all over it, as well as the paperwork I needed to sign to cancel Aaron’s loan deal.

That was too bad. Yeates’ fears had been confirmed, and the boy faces a minimum of six months on the sidelines with a ruptured right hamstring. Under those circumstances, it’s better for us to send him home to Spain and let his regular club doctors help. My call this morning was apologetic, but unfortunately as they say in this business, ‘that’s football’.

So I was in a bad mood. Ferguson was about to add to it.

“Dailly and Davis aren’t happy,” he said. “They’re bumpin’ their gums about what you said to the press after the match.”

“They are, are they?” I asked. “And they hid behind the captain to say they’re unhappy?”

“Boss, you know it’s my job to carry the concerns of the players,” he said. “And I have to tell you, I think they have a gripe.”

I had communicated my displeasure in the same manner as I had done after the ninety minutes, to the press, and the two players didn’t care for it. Evidently, they also didn’t care who knew it.

“You cannae just put on the shirt and expect to win, and you know that,” Ferguson said. “You cannae put that kind of pressure on the boys.”

I heard him out. He was gentle, but he did his job by conveying the concerns of the players. When he was done, I nodded.

“Okay, Bazza,” I said. “Bring the boys in here. When you do, stay behind.”

He nodded and went to get the players, who had to know what was coming. Finally, the four of us were in the office and I shut the door behind all of us. Three against one. The odds were therefore even.

“Barry has told me of your thoughts,” I said. “Now, fellows, I appreciate the effort you put out there last night. We did win the match and we did advance in the Cup. That’s great. But as for the sentiment you advanced, and evidently told to the other players, I do have something to say.”

Dailly looked at me, and then at Davis. My face betrayed no emotion.

“Simply put, I’m going to say what I have to say,” I told them. “I hear you didn’t like my comments. My answer to that is simple.”

I locked eyes with them. “Too. Bloody. Bad,” I said, clipping off every word.

“You want to change the words the media gets? Play like you deserve to wear the badge. You two are veteran players who have done things in football, just as I did things in football as a player before you. I absolutely expect you to lead the younger players when you’re out there and last night it didn’t get done until the death of the match – against nine men. How am I supposed to sit here and say that’s acceptable? How am I supposed to face the press and the supporters and say that this sort of thing is acceptable?”

No one said a word.

“It’s bad enough that I have to deal with this sort of crap--“ I waved this morning’s copy of The Scotsman in the air, containing yet another article about how yet another crap Rangers team had benefited from yet another turn of a friendly official’s card – “and then I deal with you two.”

“I don’t want to yell and scream at you guys – I did that last night,” I said. “But what you have to understand is that if you want to stop that kind of talk, do the business! Get out there and do what you’re supposed to do as professionals! Why is that so hard to figure out?”

Davis spoke. “We were trying our best, boss,” he said. “So were they. They’re professionals too. We don’t think you understand that.”

“I did understand that last night and I understand it now,” I said. “But again, what am I supposed to say? What if, God forbid, you had lost the match against nine men? Nothing I could have said would have spared your blushes and I’d have been the guy lined up against the wall to take the bullet for you. Because it sure wouldn’t have been you.”

“Well, it doesn’t work that way. I put you out there because I put you out there. When you’re out there, you have to perform. If that sounds harsh, I’m sorry. But it’s how this game works. Surely you all know that.”

Now it was Dailly’s turn. “We understand,” he said. “But again, boss, have a heart.”

“I’ve got one, and so do you,” I said. “But Christian, this team has had plenty of heart in recent seasons and it hasn’t won anything. My job is to change that. I can guarantee you that playing nice-nice only works when you’re winning. Let’s win some, and we’ll see what happens.”

“The beatings will continue until morale improves?” Dailly.

“I’m going to keep riding you until you become the footballer we brought you here to be,” I said sharply. “Look, I know you guys try. I never said you didn’t. What I expect from you is better than what I saw last night and that expectation is obviously and completely my right as the manager of this club. If that doesn’t suit you, let me know. I’ll send you someplace where you can run the asylum. Fair?”

Dailly knows that if Rangers cuts him loose, his top-flight days at good-sized clubs are probably over.

Davis, though, who is Rangers born and bred, looked at me with wider eyes. “That isn’t what I want,” he said.

“Then don’t try to run the club,” I said. “Simple. Barry, anything to add?”

“No.” He didn’t look happy but now, with the players in question in front of me, he had said his piece. He had also been overruled.

“Okay, then,” I said. “Get to training and we’ll talk again at the end of the day. Dismissed.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

I mixed myself a rum drink, and handed a second to Heather. She was curled up prettily on the couch in my sitting room, with the television on in the background.

“And then what happened?” she asked.

“They grumbled, but they stopped talking,” I said. “I don’t like to have to operate like that, but really, what can I do?”

Heather is a fan. That’s all well and good, and I love her dearly, but when I ask a question about man-management to her, I usually mean it rhetorically. She didn’t take it that way.

“You could ease up,” she said. I looked at her.

“Could. Might lose the squad as well,” I replied. The drink tasted good.

“Look, I’ve been around people who have had to motivate big egos on movie sets,” she said. “Believe it or not, Hollywood people do tend to like themselves. Almost as much as some footballers.”

“You’re kidding,” I said dryly.

“Honest truth,” she said, holding up the palm of one hand. “Look, Phil, you gave them the stick before you gave them the carrot. Sometimes that works with movie stars too, but don’t forget the balance.”

I looked into her green eyes shining up at me, and she winked.

“Remind me of what I was saying again,” I said, trying not to spill my drink down the front of my shirt.

“You were telling me how you wanted to snuggle up to me on this huge couch,” she said. “Wasn’t that what you were saying?”

I laughed and sat down next to her. “The mind is the first thing to go,” I mused. “Obviously, in your case, I’d better fix that. I’d have to be insane to forget anything about you.”

I leaned over toward Heather and prepared to kiss her. As I did, the phone rang. That was annoying.

I answered. “One-nil against nine? What are you playin’ at, lad?”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Did you make the lads play with boots on the wrong feet? What happened?”

“We weren’t very good,” I said, as Heather leaned back on the couch in sweet frustration.

“Good thing we cannae see the Cup ties on television over here,” he said. “I’d have been throwin’ things from the match report I read.”

“We still have work to do,” I admitted. “We have Hibs next and then we fly to Munich for the Champions League. You’ll be able to see that match on television.”

“I hope it’s worthwhile, lad,” he said. “For your sake as well as the Rangers.”

“It’s nowhere near that,” I said. “And we advanced in the Cup. These players just have to learn that they can’t take a day off on the pitch if they want to go places. Once I get that thought into their heads, we’re going to be fine.”

I looked over at my girlfriend, who sat with her eyes closed, head leaned back into the pillows of the couch. She didn’t look happy, so I needed to fix that as well.

“Dad, I was in the middle of something when you called,” I said. That finally brought a smile to Heather’s face. “Mind if I call you back tomorrow?”

# # #

[gavrenwick]

Terrific writing as ever tenthree. And I must admit, I have been in Phil's situation there a fair few times

[viperk1]

Can't help but smirk at the last couple of lines - I'm waiting to hear about a pregnancy after that.

Another brilliant piece of writing, 10-3

[tenthreeleader]

Gentlemen, you're both very naughty boys!

___

27 September 2008

Hibs v Rangers – Scottish Premier League

Bazza made the trip to the capital with us today to watch from the stand. He’s ready to resume full training after his ankle surgery, which gives me a selection dilemma in the center of the park.

Mendes has done well in central midfield and Kevin Thomson has yet to realize the amazing potential he shows. Yet, he is still preferred to Davis, now for more than one reason.

Today, though, he wasn’t quite ready, so I returned to the pairing of Thomson and Mendes for the match at Easter Road. As a former Hibee, Thomson was fired up as a matter of course. Since the only good thing that had happened from the St. Mirren match other than finally scraping out an extra-time win was that much of the first team got some rest, my preferred midfield was ready to go.

Referee Stevie O’Reilly was under some pressure as the teams took the pitch today. I had to address the officiating issue against yesterday – our streak of playing against ten-man opposition is now at five – and if it happens again today against one of the capital teams it needs to be an absolute stonewall offense to avoid more criticism of the officiating.

The thing that bothers me is that officiating, in my experience, is cyclical. Sooner or later, the shoe is going to be on our foot, and as a member of the Old Firm we’re going to have to be especially careful when the turnaround happens – and it will.

That was the main point I made to the players before the match. “People are saying we’re due for some of what we’ve given to the recent opposition,” I said. “With the pace we’ve shown the last few matches, though, I don’t see us getting into trouble. But be mindful. There are plenty of people here who can’t wait to scream for your heads if you get stuck into a challenge. Use your heads.”

The visit of the table-toppers against the fourth-placed team in the league heightened interest, especially among fans of the other clubs in Glasgow and Edinburgh. At the same time as us, Celtic kicked off at home against tail-end Aberdeen and Hearts were presumably watching on television prior to their match on the morrow at Tannadice.

By the time the first chance was created in our match, Celtic had already scored twice against Jimmy Calderwood’s beleaguered Dons. That little factoid was running through the stands early on in the match, causing concern from our point of view but certainly not anything like panic.

Aberdeen has been simply awful from the start of the season. Naturally, we can’t control that, which is why we simply got down to business.

The troika of coaches sat at one end of the Easter Road visitors’ dugout area, watching the SPL go by in front of us. If there was one thing I could say for certain, it was that the first eleven had heeded the manager’s words to the media after the Cup tie. These players came out strong and ready to fight for the shirt.

Especially Thomson, who seemed to be everywhere. We’ve been waiting for him to show the kind of form he was giving us in the first half all season long, and now that it was there, it was time to sit back and enjoy it.

He was dominant, the unquestioned boss of the midfield. Steven Fletcher found that out when he tried to cut across the middle with the ball and found himself in a heap right in the middle of the center circle courtesy of a crunching tackle that deflected the ball directly to Novo for an immediate counterattack.

Fletcher got up slowly and looked around for a call, with the fans screaming in derision at their former star, Thomson. Kevin paid them no mind, referee O’Reilly paid them no mind, and Novo just wanted to attack. That pretty much accounted for everybody.

“Lad wants to play,” McCoist observed.

“Today, especially, he ought to,” McDowall said, beating me to the Captain Obvious Moment Of The Match. I didn’t mind that.

There was zip in our step, pace in our play, and even a goal in our gun – and it was Thomson who scored it, which was what his play deserved. Boyd was the provider, his lead ball finding Thomson’s run past the unfortunately Louis Stevenson. His finish past Andrew McNeil was clinical, and we were in the lead after 21 minutes.

The crowd reacted with the sort of ambivalence you’d expect from a performance by a former player. Some folks evidently thought Thommo shouldn’t have been sold to us and they were the ones who weren’t booing. Others thought he should never have left, and were voicing their displeasure.

Meanwhile, our support was pretty much unanimous. They liked the goal just fine.

In fact, so did I. We settled in very nicely after the goal so the players were telling me they had learned a lesson from St. Mirren. That in itself meant a lot.

So, I sat back in the dugout and watched to see how we would handle ongoing prosperity. Thomson continued his imperious play which certainly made me smile. Clearly, it was his best game in my charge and I wanted to make sure to let him know it at halftime.

Finally, I heard McCoist’s voice to my left on the bench. “Phil, I don’t dare look at you,” he said. “When I do, something bad happens.”

His joking notwithstanding, I looked at my watch to see it was three minutes until halftime. “Not bad at all,” I said, as Weir took a high entry ball on his forehead and nodded it to safety.

Or, so I thought. Actually, he put it far too close to Chris Hogg’s boot, and he responded with a bullet that gave McGregor no chance from fully twenty yards. Just like that all the work had been erased and we were back to blank paper.

I leaned back in my chair and tried not to look at McCoist. We both felt the same way.

“Bloody hell,” I heard from my left. “Phil, you know what I’m thinking too.”

“Of course, Ally,” I answered, using his first name instead of his nickname. “Let’s figure out how to get the boys back on track at halftime. Screaming won’t do any good this time.”

Rare enough for me, anyway.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Ally tried his best. The squad was down in the dumps as we all sat for halftime and my thought to them was that we had done a hell of a job for 41 minutes.

That wasn’t really what they wanted to hear, though. I think they were expecting the hair dryer, but really I thought we had been good enough, especially on the road. Celtic was running roughshod over Aberdeen – 4-nil at halftime – so we did need a result and my thought was that piling it on the players wasn’t going to get it for us.

So, I built them up. So did McCoist.

That was why it was maddening to see McGregor kicking the ball out of his goal in frustration within the first minute of the second half, courtesy of a powerful strike from Fletcher. He had gotten revenge against Thomson by forcing his way past the midfielder and letting fly from just inside the area. No one had come to close him, and Thomson was thus left to try to do everything himself.

The majority of Easter Road was now united in two things – they were darned happy and could have cared less about Thomson. Knowing the television cameras were on us, I tried not to let my blood pressure spray out my ears.

Sometimes the other guy just makes a good play, and that was what had happened in this case. Thommo couldn’t do it all by himself and as we regrouped for the kickoff, the look in his eyes told me he was somehow blaming himself.

It was getting to the point where he wanted to win almost too much, and it showed again in his play. Now he was bordering on reckless, racing hither and yon to win balls that weren’t in his area of responsibility and nearly running over Novo on the right in a counterattack Broadfoot’s challenge had won us right on the hour.

On the whole, we were still controlling the play. We just weren’t getting the result and with Celtic now five up at home to Aberdeen and pouring it on, the need was getting a little more urgent.

On came the ex-Jambo, Velicka, looking for one more moment of magic against an old rival. On came Davis, looking for redemption. And on came Hemdani for the crocked Whittaker as we moved to three at the back in an effort to get men forward and find some pressure.

Two of the substitutes I brought on had every reason to try to impress me. Neither of them did. The moments ticked away and as O’Reilly sounded the full-time whistle and the Hibbees celebrated, McCoist looked at me again. The cheers of the fans, and their associated insults to Rangers, were now ringing in my ears.

“And now it’s off to Munich,” he said.

Hibernian 2 (Chris Hogg 42, Steven Fletcher 46)

Rangers 1 (Thomson 21)

A – 17,377, Easter Road, Edinburgh

Man of the Match – Chris Hogg, Hibernian

# # #

I stepped to the front of the room, with the players who had also taken part against St. Mirren waiting for an explosion.

McCoist looked at me nervously. McDowall did the same. Walking back and forth across the room searching for words, I finally found them.

“The plane for Munich leaves at 9:00 tomorrow morning,” I said. “Those of you who will be on it have some thinking to do. It goes without saying that this result shouldn’t have happened. Now we’re going to a place where we’re going to have to be better than we’ve been the last couple of matches, or we’re going to get laughed right out of the Champions League. It’s up to you. Let’s get out of here.”

Davis, particularly, looked like he had somehow been granted a stay of execution. I went off to face the media and did the duty for the first time as Rangers manager. It wasn’t pleasant.

“Statistics aside, we just didn’t do what we needed to do to get a point,” I said. “There is just no way around that. Now we have to go to Germany and we need to play better. We have an opportunity against one of the great sides of Europe to right our ship. Better play needs to come quickly.”

“A little harder when you have to play against eleven, isn’t it?” some wag asked.

“I won’t dignify that with a response,” I said. The mood was coming back and frankly I didn’t want to have to indulge it. However, if was to be left with no choice, so be it.

The press could tell I was waiting for the question. However, like everything else that had happened today, I didn’t get the final satisfaction.

Figures.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

We left Edinburgh in second place. Calderwood at least found a way to hold Celtic to half a dozen, and their win vaulted them over us into first place with a goal difference that is going to be difficult to overcome in the short term.

The result was obviously good for Hibs, too, who vaulted arch-rival Hearts into third place. As the coach rolled back to Glasgow, though, I had some real thinking to do. I called the first team coaches over to me for a strategy session on the relatively short trip home.

“We’re going to have to come up with something,” McDowall said. “We didn’t get our lines cleared on their first goal and on the second we just got beat by a good play. I didn’t think our play was that bad, but we need something to get these lads bucked up.”

“A couple of moments of madness beat us,” McCoist claimed. “So we need to find a way to get them back on track.”

“It will take total commitment for ninety minutes to get the job done,” I said. “I see no reason for us to change our outlook in terms of our formation, but tactically we’re going to have to improve quite a bit. Their talent is going to be a real handful to deal with and we have to account for Ribery at all times.”

A look at my Blackberry showed that Bayern had had an easy time this afternoon against Energie Cottbus at home, winning in a 3-0 stroll that the stat sheet showed wasn’t as close as the score. Two things stood out aside from the score: first, referee Michael Weiner had handed out eleven cards in the match, seven to the visitors. So there might be some discipline issues, especially if we can stay with them early in the match.

Second, we won’t face Luca Toni, who strained knee ligaments in the first half and will be out a minimum of six weeks. That’ll just leave us with Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski to deal with. It’s sort of like choosing death by hanging or death by firing squad.

To make matters worse, Heather is flying out tomorrow too, back to London for the start of shooting in her movie. I’m really not sure when I’ll get to see her again, and we were both keenly aware of that after I got home this evening.

“I’m only a phone call away,” she said, in response to my frustration.

“I know, but I’d prefer having you an arm’s length away,” I replied.

“We’ll see how it goes,” she said. “If shooting is going well I can come and go as I please.”

“You know what my vote will be,” I said.

She laughed. “Steady, big fella,” she teased. “It’ll be all right.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Our plane landed at Munich International Airport and my thoughts were now officially, completely on Bayern.

There’s history between Rangers and Bayern – after their first year in the Bundesliga, they met Rangers in the 1967 European Cup-Winner’s Cup final, and beat us 1-0 thanks to an extra time goal from Franz “The Bull” Roth.

Rangers had defeated Glentoran, Dortmund, Zaragoza and Slavia Sofia to reach the final, but fell one goal short. But as I’ve mentioned earlier in this narrative, the 1972 Rangers championship side beat perhaps the best Bayern Munich side ever assembled on the way to that win by three goals to one on aggregate. A good portion of that Munich team went on to help West Germany win the World Cup in 1974.

So the sentimentalists have something to write about as the teams prepare for the match. I have other things on my mind – such as trying to help my team play better in the present. If I don’t, all the tradition in the world won’t help us.

We were greeted by several members of the German footballing press as we walked through the concourse, something I guess I’m going to have to get used to as we play at various places in Europe. Obviously, our qualifying matches didn’t have this kind of scrutiny, but at one of the greatest venues in European football, we’re going to have to bring our “A” game as soon as we get off the airplane.

I do speak German, of course, from my days in Hamburg, so I scored a few style points with the press by having a normal conversation auf Deutsch as we walked.

Yes, it was good to be back in Munich. Yes, it was even more special being there as the manager of the club I left Hamburg to join. Yes, I respect Bayern and if we don’t get our act together they’re going to beat us into the middle of next week. All pretty standard stuff.

The television cameras got the obligatory shots of us all walking through the concourse to the coach, while our bags followed carried by porters. Just about every manager I know of has a fairly strict dress code for teams when they’re in airports, and I’m certainly no exception.

I have one dress code rule that doesn’t have anything to do with what you wear. It’s how you tie your tie.

I understand these guys are footballers but the one thing I won’t abide is the ‘Tie Knot As Big As Your Head’ that’s popular today thanks to people who don’t know or care how to correctly tie a necktie. They just throw a four-in-hand together and don’t really care how it looks as long as it’s around their necks and under their shirt collars.

In my own case, I tie a reverse half-Windsor and I don’t leave my house for the road until I know it’s perfect. I’m just that way – but it comes with the desire to look like a professional when I’m representing my club in public. Footballers aren’t always like that – but those who play for me will be.

But I digress. Sartorially perfect or no, we piled onto the team coach for the trip to our hotel. On the way, we passed the Allianz Arena and it was lit blue on the outside.

That meant 1860 was playing there. The stadium’s color scheme is blue when 1860 has a home match and when we play later this week, the stadium will be lit in Bayern red. I don’t know how they do it, but when you spend that much money on a stadium, I suppose you can get it to look just about any way you want.

We rolled past it on the way to our destination and I thought back to my office at Ibrox. I thought that if Bill Struth would have seen his old house decked out in blue lights he’d have probably had heart failure. There’s something to be said for having tradition in the house, so to speak, and Ibrox definitely has that.

Bayern has a brand-new stadium and ways to make lots of money that we don’t have. That’s the other side of the equation. But as we pulled into the hotel parking lot, I was left to think that it doesn’t matter how much money they’ve got – if they don’t put the little round thing into the net against us they won’t win. That’s the beauty of the game for me.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

I’ll get home just in time to see Heather off to London for the start of shooting on her movie. I have the feeling that if we take gas against Bayern too, it’s going to be a really rotten week.

On a more positive note, we’re going to get another shot at St. Mirren coming up, this time at Love Street, and I hope they get to play with eleven this time. We’ve got some things to prove after our German excursion and my hope is that we can do it with some style. I spoke with the squad this morning after breakfast about falling out of the top spot in the SPL and they reacted well. Not to falling out of first place, mind you, but rather to how we intend to react to the news.

A little ill humour on the pitch would serve us well, I think. What has been lacking in our play of late hasn’t necessarily been application – the fact that fouls have done dramatically in our favour in the league should be some indication that we’ve had plenty of the ball as one example. What has been lacking has been passion.

Where we’re going, we’re going to need it. We had a training session today on the pitch at the Allianz Arena and though the players are used to big stadia from our home matches, this place has a whole different look to it.

The German press wanted more answers from me after the workout, and it does appear as though we’re going to see a full-strength Bayern side with the exception of the injured Toni. So, they had questions.

“You have to be prepared for whatever the opposition throws at you,” I conceded. “They have a very deep squad and we’ll have to be ready for any of a number of different looks and different formations. They have a lot of weapons. We’re going to stick to what we do well and see where that takes us.”

# # #

30 September 2008

Bayern Munich v Rangers – Champions League Group Match #2

Last night, I had a one-word team talk for the players after our dinner at the hotel.

“Relax,” I told them. As I was limited to one word, McCoist did the rest.

“There’s enough pressure on everyone now as it is,” he said. “Relax tonight, and when you go out tomorrow, enjoy the atmosphere. Play within yourselves, as our friends from across the Atlantic say, and above all just do the things that have made you successful.”

Playing Bayern here is all about absorbing pressure, and as a result the first person I wanted to see today at breakfast was McGregor. It seems he’ll be doing most of the absorbing.

I sat next to the keeper at breakfast, while trying not to break his routine. I had a message I wanted him to hear.

“Allan, I believe in you,” I told him, and his eyes narrowed in response.

“Come again?” he asked.

“I said, I believe in you,” I repeated. “If I could pick any keeper in Scotland to get us through tonight, I’m telling you I’m looking at him right now. Relax tonight.”

He thought it over, as he munched on a piece of fruit. “Obliged, gaffer,” he smiled. There are those in our camp who wouldn’t mind seeing Alexander get a few more chances to play but while McGregor battles to wear Scotland’s number one as well as Rangers’, I’m sure his confidence will take whatever boost I’m willing to provide.

Just watching him this morning, I wondered if I was on to something. I’ve been pretty tough on the squad in recent weeks so a good old-fashioned morale boost seemed in McGregor’s case to be just what the doctor ordered.

He had a different look about him. So, I decided to try the same tactic with a few other members of the squad.

I started with Davis, who frankly looked like he could use it. After our meeting following the St. Mirren match, he’s obviously been preoccupied and I could understand that. I was pretty strident in calling him out, so he’s been trying to provide what the manager says he needs to show.

One by one, I took senior squad players aside throughout the day and gave them the same message. Before long, I was even starting to believe it myself.

# # #

[minisav]

"if we take the gas against Bayern"

I think you're missing an "off"

[tenthreeleader]

Minisav, I hate to rain on your parade, but I'm not. 'Taking gas' is an American euphemism for inglorious defeat.

___

Tonight, the Allianz-Arena was red.

It’s a bit odd to see a new stadium where the stands seem so close to the pitch as they are here. Perhaps that impression is magnified from where Bayern used to play, in the old Olympiastadion from the 1972 Games. I played on that pitch a few times so to see their shiny new digs full of fans for the first time was an interesting experience. The old place had more space between the fans and the pitch, since an athletics track was there.

I watched the players prepare for the match and paid special attention to the warmup. I saw a very confident, relaxed group of players – but not overconfident. That seemed to me remarkable, especially considering the quality of their play against Hibs just a few days before.

The pre-match team talk was the same as during the day. I reminded the players – but not too forcefully – that I believed in them.

“What’s the worst that can happen?” I asked an incredulous McCoist as we took our places on the visitors’ bench.

Croatian referee Edo Trivkovic put the ball on the center spot for us to put into play, and the match began. It was time to see if the players’ optimism could be translated into effective action.

From the point of view of possession, the answer was a surprising ‘yes’. We controlled the ball for most of the first five minutes, and it wasn’t with ball-control passes. Unfortunately, we aren’t yet the kind of team that can control for long stretches of play in Europe by passing the ball on the floor. That’s regrettable as hell, but it’s a fact. To win in Europe, we have to put pressure on by being direct.

That means Miller. So, he was on his horse from the beginning of the match. Those who have accused us of playing ‘anti-football’ in the past due to Smith’s defensive approach of last season were going to be disappointed – but now they’d simply shift their comments to accusations of us hoofing the ball up the park.

You can’t win with some people, but I have to win with what I’ve got. That means playing to your strengths. For us, that meant attacking with pace and a direct approach. For the first half hour, it worked like a charm.

We didn’t score, but we looked like we belonged. Before long, our pace turned into a little possession as well, as the Bayern defenders tired. I wondered if conditioning would be a factor – we had done ours, and the home players seemed to be getting more of a workout than they were used to seeing.

When Bayern got the ball from us they were quite dangerous and even more direct than we were, trying to force Route One and take advantage of Weir’s older legs at the back.

The player they chose to perform this task was Podolski, who looked like a lightning in a bottle compared to my 38-year old center half. However, Weir did have one distinct advantage, and it kept him viable in the match.

That would be a superior sense of positioning and a hard-earned ability to read the game. It takes time to learn at this level but Weir has learned how to do it. I had the same skill late in my career and it did help me squeeze a couple of extra starts out of my body when my legs started to go.

So Davie played Podolski to a standstill, and the battle was one that probably ninety percent of the fans in the stands would never have appreciated. For my part, though, I liked it just fine.

So did McGregor, who could thus turn his attention to Klose. He did so by making a marvellous save on a rising effort from Bayern’s other striker on thirty-three minutes, punching over for a corner.

“Go to the head of the class, Allan McGregor,” I smiled, and McDowall just shook his head in admiration at the quality of the shot-stopping on offer. We controlled the corner and headed back up the pitch, this time more careful in our buildup.

The ‘wee man’, Nacho Novo, was now in possession and was forced wide by Philipp Lahm down the right. So down the right he went, hooking a useful ball into the box at the end of his journey.

And there was Boyd, rising to smash a header home to put us into the lead. At one stroke, Boyd had broken his hoodoo against top calibre competition, we had put together a buildup worthy of Total Football, and we were ahead on the road.

It was a sudden strike but our bench reacted like we knew it was coming. McCoist was up and jumping around as soon as the ball found the twine, as is his wont. Some of his own goal celebrations were the stuff of legend themselves, so to see him tearing around the touchline after Boyd’s success was just like turning back the clock.

# # #

[minisav]

You learn something new every day

Sounds like a good goal!

[salkster2102]

"What's the worst that can happen?"

Let's hope you don't regret asking that

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, gentlemen ... let's see how things turned out!

___

“Bloody marvellous,” McCoist whispered as we took the pitch for the second half. The players had retained their motivation and looked like they were really up for things as they tried to hold their hard-earned lead. If my deputy’s emotion was any indication of the squad’s, we’d be hard to break down.

I switched formations from the 4-1-3-2 I had used to start the match to our more traditional 4-4-2. The players were more comfortable in that formation in any event, which was important while trying to hold a lead before an announced crowd of 69,496.

The crowd had maintained a semblance of calm through the first half, but falling behind late in the session had changed the dynamic a bit inside the Allianz-Arena. It was now up to us to put all hands to the pump and see how long we could hold them off.

The dynamic of the match seemed familiar to me somehow. Then I put my finger on it. I had been in a similar situation before. For just a few moments, I let myself disappear into a flight of fancy.

It was April 6, 1994, and I played for Hamburg. The opponent that night was Manchester United, and it was a European Cup match. It was also the only time in my career I played against United after leaving them.

I hadn’t been playing much in the first team, and it had already been announced that I was leaving for Rangers during the coming close season. As a result, I was nailed to the end of the bench – on those occasions where I dressed for the match at all. That’s not unusual for unwanted players who are finishing out a contract.

What was unusual was that I got on the pitch in the first place. We had lost both our first-choice central defenders in a bizarre training-ground accident two days previously – they had gone up for the same header in a drill and given each other concussions – so they dipped down to the bottom of the barrel and pulled up one P. Sharp.

“Well, at least I’m not cup-tied, ” I mused to the German press at the time, causing a mild controversy. But they really didn’t have anyone else.

Sensing weakness at the center of our defense, United pushed extremely hard. We scored first in the first half and then collapsed back, trying to hold the lead at Old Trafford before 65,000 fans.

They were trying to overwhelm us. I was trying to settle an old score. We held firm, we held firm, we held firm – until the 86th minute, when Andrei Kanchelskis burst into the box and went to ground under a strong challenge. The next thing I remember was the great Denis Irwin breaking my heart from the penalty spot. We didn’t lose – we drew 1-1 and then lost the second leg at home a week later – but I wanted that win more than any in my football career to that point.

Watching Irwin on the penalty spot brought back memories as I jerked my attention back to the match at hand. What I was seeing was a bit different from that night in Manchester.

United wouldn’t let us have the ball in the second half that night. This evening, we were doing our level best to keep the ball for ourselves.

The spark for that came from Mendes and Thomson, who were very good in the center of midfield. Mendes acted as the anchor for Thommo, who continued his fine play from the Hibs match at a time when we needed it most.

I also noticed that for the time being, we still led the match. We were keeping the ball from them for longer and longer stretches of time and the crowd was getting more and more restless. Consequently, the smile on my face was getting bigger and bigger.

Quietly, that is. When Bayern would wrest the ball from our possession they would rush into attack and flail away at our goal without purpose. The shots were numerous as a result, and from very long range as they pushed the panic button – hard – whenever they had the ball.

More than once I stole a look at McCoist, who by this time I had stapled to the bench so I could pace the touchline like the nervous Nellie I was fast becoming. Smiling, mind you, but still nervous.

The return expression he gave me was one of apprehension. He couldn’t figure Bayern out either. However, my defenders certainly could.

Trivkovic blew his whistle. The second half had seemed to speed by. I only needed one substitution – and a confident Rangers team had managed to hold off mighty Bayern Munich with almost ridiculous ease.

We shook hands with the Bayern staff, and I listened to some wags in the visiting support singing “Ten German Bombers” at the tops of their lungs. Well, the 'RAF from England' had done a real job tonight – none of the Germans had found the target, and our Champions League hopes had received the most profound boost I could imagine.

Bayern Munich 0

Rangers 1 (Boyd 36)

A – 69,496, Allianz-Arena, München

Man of the Match – Allan McGregor, Rangers

# # #

[gavrenwick]

Massive win for Phil and the boys.

[Dickie12]

Great writing 10-3. Fantastic win!!! Be nice to see young Johnny Fleck get a bit more into it to see how he does!!

[tenthreeleader]

Gentlemen, I appreciate the kind comments! Great win, yes ... but there is still work to be done!

___

The talk of the message boards from the green side of Glasgow wasn’t that we had won in Munich. It was that Phil Sharp had a team that could win at the Allianz-Arena but couldn’t win at Celtic Park. Or Easter Road.

Yes, it is the second-place Rangers who will return to action in the league against St. Mirren at the weekend. The first team squad had a very easy day after we returned home early in the morning, as we prepare for a rematch against the team that had given us so much trouble in the League Cup.

The other match in our Champions League group last night showed Liverpool’s power. They crushed Spartak Moscow 4-0 at Anfield and they have the Group E lead over us on goal difference with each team on a win and a draw.

We won’t have Bougherra for our next match in the Champions League, as he picked up a late card against Bayern. So he sits for a match and I stew about it.

Spartak is next for us in the Champions League, in the first of consecutive matches. They come to Ibrox on the 21st of October and we go to Moscow eight days later as the group schedule flips around. Our last two matches – Liverpool at Anfield and finally Bayern at Ibrox – are going to be a real test. The three points we earned in Munich are therefore huge. I figure three more points from our last four matches should be enough to continue European football of some sort, even if we aren’t able to make it out of our group.

Yet, there are always some for whom the league is more important. There, Celtic still hasn’t lost yet, and they have a tidy advantage in goal difference on us due to Aberdeen’s generosity on their visit to Parkhead. We have a job on to do what every Ranger supporter wants and expects – to overhaul Strachan’s men and take back the league.

So the message boards are reminding one and all who is in first place in the SPL. And it isn’t me.

# # #

Yet in the Champions League, it’s a bit of a different story.

Our rivals hosted PSV this evening and didn’t come out with three points although virtually everyone who saw the match – myself included through the miracle of television – thinks they should have.

Vennegoor of Hesselink opened the scoring just six minutes into the match only to see PSV’s Danko Lazovic equalize against the run of play just before the hour. Referee Stefano Farina then awarded Celtic a penalty seven minutes from time and with 60,000 green-clad fans screaming him on, Paul Hartley pushed his effort wide to the left. Just like that, the 1-1 draw was virtually assured.

Celtic is at the bottom of its group now, with one draw from two matches and even though it’s still relatively early days, they can really use three points. With the trouble they have had on the road in Europe, they need to figure out a way sooner rather than later.

Still, though, they’re first. We’re not. So in the eyes of the fans on the other side of Glasgow, hope springs eternal.

# # #

It was difficult to see Heather off to the airport this morning but she told me a wonderful thing before she left for the start of shooting on her movie.

She wants to take regular breaks to see me in Glasgow and Bond doesn’t mind. That thought alone gives me great optimism on making it through the next couple of months.

Paulina was never willing to do that when she was away on a shoot. When we lived in Manchester, she was insistent that her career came before coming home to me, and I guess I was okay with that. I didn’t want to stand in her way while she built her reputation.

It wasn’t until later that I discovered the reason she wouldn’t come home sometimes was because she was sleeping with anything with two legs and a low voice. That was obviously very disappointing, especially since I wanted to marry her at the time.

But those were all things far in the past. Thankfully.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

“Yes, Sir David, what can I do for you?”

“Come to the Blue Room, Phil. We need to talk.”

I did as my chairman asked, and moments later he and I were in one of the most noteworthy rooms at Ibrox. In the old days, the club would hold media events and receptions here and from time to time it is still used for that purpose. Bill Struth’s old piano still sits in one corner of the room – tuned, it can be played by anyone with enough guts to make the attempt in this place – and the rustic atmosphere of the place is really striking.

I entered the room to find the chairman waiting for me. We weren’t alone – there was an artist working on one side of the room.

When you enter the Blue Room, your attention is naturally drawn to three striking murals along the far wall. The left mural attracted the interest of the artist.

The three murals are, from left to right, the club’s managers, the club’s chairmen and the club’s

captains in various game poses.

The artist was inserting a line drawing of me for a painter to finish. For the first time, tangible evidence of Phil Sharp’s presence at Ibrox was becoming a permanent part of this grand place. I smiled in spite of myself.

“Good feeling, isn’t it?” Sir David asked.

“None better,” I admitted. I had captained Rangers six times during my career due to injuries to other players, so my playing picture would never show up on the right hand mural, but watching the artist work meant a lot.

But now Sir David turned to the artist. “Would you please excuse us for a minute? We need to talk,” he said, and the artist took a quick break.

He closed in and we spoke quietly.

“Phil, first congratulations on the win in Munich. It was excellent work and smartly done.”

“Thank you. But why are we here?”

“I wanted to tell you in person, the takeover from Martin has fallen through and won’t happen.”

That was news to me. Martin had approached me, but not too closely, during the negotiations.

“All right,” I said. “Will this affect me?”

“It will,” he said. “You should know that the finances have improved a bit as well, and since we’re in the Champions League they will be good for the rest of the season. That means you’ll have more money.”

My eyebrows went up. “How much more?” I asked.

“I’m adding eight million pounds to the transfer budget and you can split that with payroll as you see fit,” he said. “This happens on two conditions.”

“Name them.”

“First, word does not reach the general public. The time to address this will be when you start buying players.”

“Easily done, Sir David,” I said.

“Second,” he added, locking eyes with me, “every quid gets spent on Scotsmen. I haven’t pressed this with you because of the takeover negotiations, but now that I’m staying in charge I’m going to insist on it. You bought the lad Tom Lynch for the youth team and good on you for that, but now you’ll have money to spend on senior players. You’ve got some flexibility now, Phil. So use it.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Today also was a “disappointing day” of sorts on a personal front as well.

It’s my ‘anniversary’, and it’s also Paulina’s birthday. The anniversary is hardly positive – it’s the anniversary of losing Paulina. When the BBC made mention of her birthday in their celebrity birthday section of the style news, it brought back all kinds of memories – some pleasant, others not.

Being in a much better situation now, seeing Paulina with her child didn’t hurt nearly as much as it might have in another year. But I shook my head as the presenter talked about Paulina’s happy home life.

No one that I know of has asked her how she feels about my relationship with Heather, and frankly I’m not sure I care. But I suppose the question is inevitable. And Paulina has already told Heather exactly what she still thinks of me, so when the question is asked to Paulina I am not optimistic about the answer she’ll give.

And even as much as I love and adore Heather, what happened at the end with Paulina hurts to remember. I loved her very much and now that she has a child nearly ten years old, I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like had we been married.

The thought of fatherhood used to frighten me. It does not any more, and had Paulina and I married I’m sure I would have come to that conclusion long before.

But then the events of October 1 happened. We were preparing to be married and then the roof caved in.

To this day, I am of the opinion I was set up by someone. I would have a hard time proving it and now that things are going so well with Heather I really have no desire to try to prove it, but I do think it’s true.

Paulina was traveling and received a package at her hotel. It contained a letter and a picture of me with an old girlfriend named Joy Smithson, whom I dated when I was playing at Portsmouth. The point of the letter, if it had one, was that I was being unfaithful to Paulina by shacking up with an old flame when United played on the south coast.

Now if you know anything about Manchester United, you could certainly guess this: Sir Alex Ferguson did not and does not allow anything that might get in the way of a result, especially on the road. At home, I would of course have been free to do what I liked as long as it wasn’t on match day, but on the road the team travels, eats, meets and stays together – and the gaffer is the absolute ruler of the roost.

What she described to the press just couldn’t have happened, but I wasn’t about to ask Sir Alex for his blessing in the press. That sort of thing isn’t done either – those sorts of things happen on the training ground and in the manager’s office if they happen at all.

The match against Benfica I mentioned earlier in this narrative was two nights later. Before that match arrived I received my own package in the post and what I saw shocked me.

I opened it to see a letter very similar to the letter Paulina had shown me. But this one was a little different.

The worst feeling a man can have is to know his girlfriend, fiancée or wife is sleeping with another man. That feeling becomes even worse when there’s evidence.

This letter had a picture that, to put it bluntly, was evidence. The picture showed Paulina wearing my engagement ring, plain as day, in a liplock with a man wearing my replica United shirt – and unfortunately, not a heck of a lot else.

There have only been a few times in my life where I’ve been angry enough to see a red haze. This was one of them. After absorbing Paulina’s blast about infidelity the night before, my phone call to her was short and sweet.

“Tell the guy you’re with to wear something besides a United shirt next time,” I said. “He can disgrace you, not me. I’ve seen the pictures, and we’re through.”

And just like that, we were.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Heather stepped onto the set in London for her first day of shooting and on the one day where the Hollywood press was allowed onto the set, she did so into a blaze of flashbulbs.

The first day of shooting meant, naturally, that they were on schedule. Of course, the English weather will have a lot to do with how certain scenes are shot, which means that schedule could be wrecked in a big hurry if a stretch of bad fall weather comes through. Right now the crews are very busy getting their exterior shots, with the fall colors across England blazing and beautiful.

While that was being done, she smiled and looked into the cameras for as long as she could before tastefully turning her head to get the flashbulbs out of her eyes. Photographers from Europe and the States were present and it was really quite a media horde. It was certainly far bigger than any group I have to contend with each day.

Bond, as director, was naturally on the set as well so the two of them posed for some photos. He was not in costume for these shots – they were scene-setters, of Heather seated at her desk in front of the traditional English schoolroom.

Child actor Richard Norwood was on set too – he is to play Bond’s character’s son Troy in the film and part of the subplot deals with how the youngster fits into Heather’s class both before and after the two main characters fall in love.

The three of them posed for pictures, the best of which came when the seven-year old Norwood climbed into Heather’s lap. Seemingly from nowhere he produced an apple, handing it to her to the delight of the assembled.

Heather’s face lit up with laughter and she smiled at the boy. “I think we’ll get along just fine,” she said, and young Richard did what more than a few men around the world would love to do. He hugged my girlfriend.

Bond talked with the reporters for a few moments before the photo opportunity ended. It was time to get down to business. The sun was out and in the right position in the sky for one of the establishing shots Bond wanted, so the press was escorted off the set and the work began.

Bond called for the shot he wanted, and Heather assumed her place. The sun cast Heather’s face in a golden hue and that was the effect he wanted.

A clapboard held by one of the young grips soon appeared before the camera’s eye. “Scene 3A, take one,” the young man read, and he clipped the board as you’ve seen thousands of times both in and out of the movies.

Bond called for action and Heather sat at the desk, grading papers. The camera started at a high angle, dropped lower, and picked up the sun’s rays as they shone across her perfect face. On cue, she then looked up and out the window toward the early afternoon sun. She held her pose, Bond cut the shot and after review, he moved on. Heather’s work had begun.

# # #

[Sammy Kay]

Oh, for the Theatre, brings back memories...your writings do draw one into the lives of the characters. KUTGW!

[tenthreeleader]

Sammy, you are very kind thank you!

___

Sometimes we watch the results of media polls with a bit of bemusement.

Today was one of those days. They announced the October awards today and the manager of the month has gone to a man who may soon be out of a job.

Not due to results, mind you, but to politics. Mixu Paatelainen of Hibs got the award for overhauling Hearts during September and getting his club into third place. However, the other big story of the day regards what might happen to one of the capital’s two big clubs.

Businessman Gregg Snodgrass is in negotiations with current chairman Rod Petrie to take over the club, and is reported by The Scotsman to favour Billy Davies for the hot seat at Easter Road. So, Mixu goes out there, manages as best he can, and it still may not be enough.

We didn’t win anything in the monthly awards, and that didn’t come as a great surprise especially since Mixu had won his honor in part for beating us on his home patch. That’s how it goes sometimes.

We are concentrating fully on St. Mirren this weekend at Love Street. We’ll be at something approaching full health, for a change. Ferguson is in full training now and will soon need his run-out, especially as my captain.

Still flying high from the triumph in Munich, I face a double whammy this week in the preparation department. First, we’re playing on the road after playing a European match on the road. Second, we have to be on our guard against letdown.

Not so much with Boyd – I think he’d have a stroke if I left him out of the eleven for Sunday – but it’s natural to have a bit of a letdown after such a massive win away from home. We’re well pleased, naturally, but we don’t want to be fat and rest on our laurels.

The fact that we’re looking up at Celtic in the table ought to cure a measure of that. The rest is up to the players.

Most of those players will be Scottish. I’ve got seven pencilled into the team sheet for St. Mirren (okay, six if you don’t count McNovo), and I’m mindful of Murray’s charge to me now that the takeover bid has fallen through.

That made the papers today as well and the reaction from fans has been mixed. There is a segment of our support who firmly believes that there is nothing Sir David can do that is good enough unless it involved mortgaging his entire business empire to buy new players.

There is also a segment of our support who believes that there is nothing any Rangers manager can do that is good enough in terms of his team selection. It’s a demanding group, sort of a Newcastle of the North. Those are the people who are asking who the next manager will be now that we’re second.

I have to tune those people out, even as I try to do what I agreed to do when I took the reins of the club. I have a task ahead of me and I wouldn’t mind being successful for obvious reasons. I’d like to see this team be an all-Scottish endeavour if possible, but that would mean saying goodbye to some pretty good footballers.

One of them is Lafferty, who I plan to pair with Boyd this weekend. I realize there isn’t much pace there, so don’t even bother to laugh. But with Miller injured, Kyle is one of those who has to step up. He’s going to be a targetman, which means Boyd will really have to work to create chances.

Boyd is used to having others do his running for him, in the eyes of his critics. So now he’s got a chance to shut some people up.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

I’m not used to seeing defenders pulled from a match within the first half hour, but Gus MacPherson was fit to be tied.

The St. Mirren manager was almost literally hopping mad as Nacho Novo celebrated our opening goal at Love Street. On-loan defender Scott Cuthbert was the target of his gaffer’s ire.

The match had opened with some sharp play from us. The lineup looked a bit different in places from the eleven that had played in Munich. Maurice Edu got the start in the holding position for us and Boyd was indeed paired with Lafferty. Sitll, though, the players meshed well with each other and our catalyst was actually Adam, who had a very strong start to his match.

However, we couldn’t find a way past Chris Smith in the Saints goal. He rose to the occasion on each and every test as the home team tried to atone for the Cup debacle at Ibrox, where they had been reduced to nine men.

As a result, they defended tenaciously, and that was where Cuthbert came in. Boyd had taken the challenge to run hard very well indeed, and his industry with Adam paid some dividends.

The two worked a little 1-2 ball at the right side of the Saints area as Smith looked at it, and Cuthbert was at sixes and sevens trying to deal with Boyd. It was a bit ironic in a way – two players who get the most stick from our supporters for being leaden-footed made something happen with good, quick play.

Cuthbert lunged at Boyd as he zipped past the defender, trying to tackle the ball but instead managing to wedge his leg between Boyd’s feet. There was nowhere for my striker to go but to the deck and referee Craig MacKay whistled for a foul just outside the box.

Boyd made a brief protest because he thought he was inside the area, but there really wasn’t anything to the claim, and Adam prepared to take the kick. Cuthbert heard it from his touchline, as MacPherson screamed for him to mind his positioning.

Cuthbert was part of a small wall the Saints set up to the right of the area to defend the free kick. Or, so he thought. Now the bench was screaming for him to watch Novo, who was the short option.

Cuthbert literally walked back into the wall and then out of it again, with Adam taking advantage of the confusion after the referee had blown his whistle. He went short to Novo and the defender was lost.

Nacho went right past him and cut to the middle, drilling a low shot past Smith and home on 27 minutes.

Poor Gus. If I were him I’d have been just as mad, but Cuthbert just stood there looking lost. Immediately, MacPherson motioned to midfielder Stephen O’Donnell and just like that, he was in the game.

It was a very long walk for the loanee, and I’m sure he realized just how far he was from his would-be home of Parkhead when he took it. It’s not the best way to get along with a loan player, to be sure, but Gus had steam coming out of his ears.

We had the momentum. That was obviously what Gus was trying to avoid, and five minutes later Smith was again picking the ball out of his goal. Again, Adam was the provider and this this his cross from deep picked out the head of Lafferty, who was several inches above Richard Hastings in the battle for the ball.

Lafferty’s looping header found its way over the outstretched arm of Smith to complete a five-minute double salvo that really had us looking good. Just after the half hour we were already two to the good side of the ledger and that had even old Phil Sharp smiling.

“I wonder where we get this sort of play from,” I said to McCoist. “This is the kind of stuff we need to bottle. Period.”

“We had it for most of the match in Munich,” McCoist said. “Didn’t you see it?”

“Yes, I did,” I replied. “But this stuff, where we take it a notch up, is really the stuff I’m talking about. This is just great.”

McDowall looked at me with a smile. “Phil, did I just hear you praise this club?” he said, his face assuming an exaggerated deadpan expression immediately afterward.

“Yes, you did,” I said, allowing myself a smile at the same time.

Naturally, that smile got wiped off my face in first half injury time, as we gave Jim Hamilton enough space for him to smash a twenty-yard effort past McGregor right as referee MacKay had his whistle to his lips to blow for halftime.

“I just can’t believe it,” I sighed. “If they’d just write a law against injury time we’d never concede.”

“We’ve had the better of the play,” McDowall said as the teams headed to the boot room. “Take it easy on them, Phil.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

I do think part of every manager’s job is to be a professional worry-wart.

It’s part of our nature. Some of us aren’t truly happy unless we’re unhappy, and I suppose today, itching for a struggle of some sort, I was the same way.

By the hardest, I had decided to listen to McDowall’s advice and didn’t light into the players for conceding so late in the half. And, we were winning away from home, so there was no sense in playing hardball.

I suppose it could have been worse – they could have listened to MacPherson’s presumed treatment of Cuthbert after pulling him from the match.

The player didn’t even return to the bench for the second half. MacPherson had really torn a strip off of him and I supposed Cuthbert wasn’t in much mood to stand and stare at the back of his manager for the second half.

My concern was to stay strong for the first ten minutes of the half and absorb any momentum shift Hamilton’s goal generated for the home team. The players, that is. Not me. Thankfully, they were able to do this with comparative ease, which made my part in the whole matter somewhat less consequential.

I was starting to think about my substitution pattern for later on in the match after St. Mirren went fifteen minutes without scoring. The mood on the bench was good but still nervous. Another lapse could quite obviously prove disastrous, so the moves I had planned were defensive in nature to keep the wolves away from our door.

I was largely satisfied with the play of our back four, though, with the exception of the moment of madness between Weir and Bougherra that had allowed Hamilton to get free at the end of the first half.

Weir has too much common sense to allow that to happen, and Bougherra is a talented central defender. Unfortunately, they don’t yet have the understanding between them that I’d like to see – whereas Weir and Broadfoot have been together for a whole season longer.

That was the pairing I wanted to see, and I prepared to move Bougherra up to the position of holding midfielder in place of the tiring Maurice Edu, as part of a plethora of position moves.

I looked at McCoist and explained it. “Magic up for Edu, Broadfoot from right fullback to center half for Magic, Whittaker from left fullback to right for Broadfoot and Papac on at left fullback as the substitute.”

He looked at me with a smile. “Nice to have a versatile squad, eh, Phil?” he said.

“Couldn’t agree more,” I answered, summoning Papac to me. He had played in Munich and taken a bit of a knock that held him back from full training in the run-in to this match. Now, though, we needed him and he could certainly give me a solid half-hour.

As he finished his warmup, though, we got a break. A nice early ball into the box from Davis found Lafferty with a bit of space on the right edge of the box. He cut toward the middle, and disappeared under a heap of Will Haining, who made perhaps the clumsiest challenge I’ll see all season in an effort to keep our wafer-thin striker away from an attempt at completing his brace.

Lafferty didn’t have much choice but to fall over, and the penalty was awarded. Instead of Lafferty, it was Novo who finished his own brace on 63 minutes to salt the game away.

St. Mirren’s moment of magic had made a game of it for awhile, but not for as long as they needed to take something from the match. The match we had to win was won. Munich was nice, but Love Street was necessary.

St. Mirren 1 (Hamilton 45+1)

Rangers 3 (Novo 27, pen 63; Lafferty 32)

A – 10,833, Love Street, Paisley

Man of the Match – Nacho Novo, Rangers

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Heather was very active on the set. They are definitely off and running now.

Her character, named Jill Barnaby, is a widow. Her scenes today regarded Jill’s “backstory”, the types of flashback and memory scenes that are sometimes used to define a character.

She reported to the set made up as a big-haired vision of beauty from the mid 1990s for her scenes, which involved English character actor Blake Hopkins as Jill’s first husband, Ted. They were the kinds of scenes you would expect from a pleasant memory – holding hands walking through a park, a wedding scene, riverside moments, a quiet scene by a fireplace. However, the memory turns quite sad indeed – the last shot is Jill’s tear-streaked face looking down on a point of view shot as the lid of Ted’s casket is closed.

The scenes are scheduled to run about twenty minutes into the movie, when young Richard Norwood, detained after class for an indiscretion, sees his teacher gazing wistfully at a photograph of her dearly departed Ted. That scene had been shot on Monday and for the uninitiated, the idea that a movie wouldn’t necessarily be shot in sequence is sometimes surprising to learn.

Yet that’s the case here - Bond wanted exactly the right shade of sunlight on the first day of shooting for scenes that would be interspersed throughout the picture. So they were shot when the weather and lighting permitted.

Heather laughed as some of the scenes were shot, saying she hadn’t had hair that “big” since her movie debut. She really looked wonderful – in fact, I think I love her with longer hair even more than I do when it’s short – and she seemed to enjoy the experience of being outside in the outdoor scenes. This was even though each one involved a complete costume change and sometimes a hair and makeup change as well.

As a result, the five scenes shot took all day, beginning at 7:00 in the morning and moving outdoors when the lighting was correct. Every day in production was going to be handled according to a strict schedule and there was only one man in charge of it.

Heather enjoys that kind of professionalism. In her career, she has been involved with excellent directors and others who were more, shall we say, permissive, and had to deal with situations that did not rise to her level of professionalism.

Neil Bond has been completely different. In short, he is all business despite the fact that his pictures are often huge projects with lavish budgets because studios know they’ll make big money whenever he appears.

He stood near the camera while Heather and Hopkins walked along a tree-lined path. He directed them gently but firmly, telling exactly what he wanted in the shot.

“I want the dreamy look,” he said, after he cut the shot, “but I want it from Heather and not so much from Blake. They love each other but what I want to portray is that Ted is the center of Jill’s world. Give me that look and we’ll be right on the mark.”

They took the scene again and Heather gave Hopkins a look of wide-eyed adoration that she usually reserves for me. Bond loved it and as the two talked quietly between themselves while they walked, he knew he had the shot he wanted.

# # #