It's Only Teenage Wasteland

[george94]

Quick note on the title: nothing to do with the story whatsoever, I was just listening to Baba O'Riley at the time of starting this story and I couldn't think of a decent title so, being the impulsive person that I am, I decided that a line from the song would make a good title. I now regret that decision.

Who ever said you can't break the Old Firm dominance? Well, I did. That's why I accepted the cushy job at Rangers rather than trying my hand at actual Scottish management. It was a rather strange decision on my part I feel, because at the time, I was leading a comfortable and rather lavish lifestyle. Football is a very lucrative business if you're good at it and, thankfully, I was one of the best. Oddly enough, I had never experienced Scottish football during my playing days and had been at one club my entire career, and that was the club I love: Manchester United. I had no affiliation with Rangers whatsoever, and it still perplexes me as to why, when Walter Smith resigned, that I was called in to take over as manager. But I nonetheless accepted the job and set about my task of bringing the league to the Ibrox for the first time since 2005.

I was given a whistle stop tour of the club, the stadium and it's training facilities. It was all very impressive and I could already see myself at home here. I imagined 50,00 Rangers supporters all packed into the stadium chanting my name, I imagined Old Firm derby day and the kudos a victory brought to you. The next stop was examining the squad in action. The chairman, David Murray, drove me to Murray Park on the outskirts of Glasgow to observe a training session taken by the assistant manager Ally McCoist. All the players were obviously eager to impress their new manager and they gave it their all. From the stands, I sat with a notepad and penciled out my first team and tactics, taking in mind what I could see during training:

GK: Allan McGregor

DR: Steven Whittaker

DL: Sasa Papac

DC: Kirk Broadfoot

DC: Brahim Hemdani

MR: Chris Burke

ML: Charlie Adam

MC: Barry Ferguson

MC: Pedro Mendes

SC: Kris Boyd

SC: Kyle Lafferty

Armed with a meagre £1 million, I couldn’t strengthen the squad particularly well but key areas that did need strengthening were ML and DC. Apart from that, I thought the squad was solid and capable of overthrowing Celtic at the top of the league. And now the challenge really started...