Murray Saved Gers But Celts Owe Him Too

Nov 16 2008 Gordon Waddell

20 Years At Ibrox

NEVER judge a man's worth by what he does in the here and now. Judge him by what would have happened if he hadn't arrived.

The sliding doors argument.

So 20 years ago come next weekend, if Sir David Murray hadn't caught that Rangers train where would we have been?

Would Gers have been better off without him? Would Celtic be where they are? Would Scottish football have thrived or died?

Haul yourself back to November 23, 1988, and think where they all were then. Where they are now. And all the good and bad that has happened in between.

The only conclusion you can reach is that his arrival and his ambitions were responsible for most of it. The man changed the face of our game forever.

Not always for the good but always on his own terms. He took risks and often reaped the rewards.

Sure, the Rangers revolution had already been started by David Holmes and Lawrence Marlborough before he bought the place for just over £6million.

Graeme Souness was already in situ, the bulk of Ibrox was already up to scratch, it was all ready and waiting for him to take it to another level.

And he did. In two decades his stewardship has brought home 13 league titles, eight Scottish Cups, nine League Cups. Thirty trophies from 60 available - that's an astonishing one and a half a season.

Murray built them a training facility that remains the envy of most.

He enhanced the stadium, filled in the corners, popped the club deck on top of the main stand. Both could have been better but it was still an improvement.

And the same could be said for the team. Some of the money he flushed down the pan on pitiful players was ludicrous and profligate.

Without him though, would Rangers fans have seen a Brian Laudrup, a Paul Gascoigne, a Giovanni van Bronckhorst?

Would they have had Dick Advocaat in the dugout? Would they have had nine in a row? Not a chance.

The great irony is that Murray hauled Celtic up by the bootstraps as well.

When he took over, Celtic may have been reigning SPL champs but they were still living on biscuit tin rations.

They plunged headlong into the worst era in their history just as Rangers were entering their best.

Now? You wonder if Murray hadn't been so headstrong, and Celtic so weak, would the fuel needed to light the fire under Celtic's boardroom revolution have been there? Would Fergus McCann ever have received the call in 1994 that turned them upside down?

But there's no point in painting all Murray's achievements like some heroic mural to an all-conquering hero.

Because let's face it, he presided over some dark days. His blind ambition nearly drove his club over a cliff.

Debt-ridden, he had hidden the ugly truth of his need for glory and to have his ego fed behind the size of the cheques he handed to Advocaat.

He showed sentiment and senselessness that he would never have shown in any other branch of his empire.

Lunacy like the £12m fee for Tore Andre Flo didn't hit home until the balance sheet glowed like plutonium on the doormat of the club's shareholders.

The £80m-worth of debt harboured at one point beggared belief.

And not only did he push his own club to the brink of financial ruin, he sucked other clubs into the vortex as well.

The whole "You spend a fiver, I'll spend a tenner" routine may have been aimed at keeping Celtic in their place but it suckered other clubs into believing they had to burst the bank as well.

Hearts, Motherwell, Aberdeen, Dundee United. Like it or not, Sir David started that spending spiral and we all sat and watched as its victims started circling the gurgler towards oblivion.

But Murray stuck around to scoop up his own mess. He didn't bail out on his club, didn't hide from his responsibility.

And not just in a financial sense. Look at his bravery in tackling the taboo.

Smashing the signing policy that, unwritten or not, had held them back for decades.

He was the man who signed a Catholic - not the club's first, contrary to the myth, just the one who truly broke the mould. He was the man who appointed a Catholic manager and who oversaw the appointment of a Catholic captain.

Who had the balls to tell his fans their years of "F*** The Pope" should be at an end. He took their club out of the 17th and into the 20th century.

That took a big set and he showed his were made of the steel he built his empire on. Could he have done more? Of course he could, same as Celtic. But at least he set the ball rolling. Sadly Murray is still waiting for a lot of the fans to catch up.

Regrets? He'll have a few. The fact Paul Le Guen was a disaster for starters.

It should have been a proud moment, reeling in a big fish coach with a stellar reputation. There wouldn't have been a club presidente anywhere, including Real Madrid, who'd have been given a hard time for hiring a guy with the Frenchman's CV.

Europe will be another. The top step always eluded him. No matter who he signed, no matter what he spent, it was never enough to climb his Everest.

Ironically, the closest he came was with arguably one of the poorest sides of his generation. Even then, the ultimate regret about his first UEFA Cup Final will be the way Gers' reputation was dragged through Manchester's gutters.

Maybe Murray will even regret there's a tranche of fans he'll never win over.

The ones who thought he never was, and never will be a "Rangers" man.

The ones who want to be left in peace to sing their songs and stick like limpets to their "traditions". They're a tiny minority though.

And when Murray finally does head off into the sunset? Critics will be overrun in the rush to thank Murray for what he has done.