Profile: Walter Smith

KEVIN Gallacher recently gave an instructive glimpse into the character of Rangers manager Walter Smith. The former Dundee United striker was an apprentice at Tannadice when Jim McLean was the club's famously hard-bitten boss and Smith his sidekick. Outsiders supposed that the pair had a good cop, bad cop routine, but they were wrong: if McLean was the bad cop, Smith was his even badder lieutenant.

"Walter got me in the Tannadice boot room and gave me what for," says Gallacher of the time Smith accused the teenager of not cleaning the first team's boots properly. "I was lucky because the room was small and he could only jab you there. If you were really unfortunate, Walter would get you in the gym and there was enough room there for full-blooded punches to be thrown. He was absolutely ferocious when he was angry and the players feared him even more than they did McLean."

It is a fascinating insight into the modest figure Craig Brown described as "a real gentleman" when he was brought in to steady the ship as Scotland manager after the departure of Berti Vogts. Now 60, Smith is said to have mellowed significantly. He's big on decorum and self-discipline, and there are few lapses that hint at his inner steel.

Yet for a man who was in charge of Rangers for six and a half years of their nine-in-a-row era, who single-handedly restored Scotland's credibility, and who is today within touching distance of leading the Govan outfit to an unprecedented quadruple (League Cup, Scottish Cup, SPL title and Uefa Cup), surprisingly little attention is paid to Smith the man.

This is partly because he is a highly private man, and partly because he is immersed in football. Many of his close friends are in the game, such as Sir Alex Ferguson, with whom he shares the odd glass of fine wine over a discussion of their shared love of Italy in general and Italian football in particular. Another great friend is the theatre impresario Bill Kenwright – whose first act on taking over at Everton in 2002 was to fire his friend.

In fact, when he was sacked from Goodison Park, Smith did try to take up golf and even dabbled in DIY – a woeful fate he cites as one of the reasons he accepted first the Scotland manager's job in 2004, then a return to Ibrox last year. Although it is said his wife Ethel doubted the wisdom of the latter, Rangers is in Smith's blood.

That devotion could have cost Smith his life: even as a young Dundee United player, he often visited Ibrox as a paying punter and was at the top of Staircase 13 when it collapsed on January 2 1971, killing 66 fans just feet below him.

Smith's loyalty is renowned. He remains close to the Rangers owner Sir David Murray and was revered in his role of sidekick by the three legendary managers to whom he has been assistant – McLean at Dundee United, Ferguson at Manchester United and Graeme Souness at Rangers. Like all three, he is rooted in the old school, but with enough imagination to absorb changes in the game.

The only time Smith's loyalty has ever been questioned was when he left the job as Scotland manager mid-campaign to take over at Rangers after the abject failure of the Paul Le Guen experiment. There was, for a short time, a stand-off in which the SFA refused to accept his resignation, yet for a dyed-in-the-wool Rangers man like Smith, who had supported the club as a youngster growing up in Carmyle, there could only be one outcome, and last January he was unveiled at Ibrox almost a decade after his first triumphant spell as the club's manager had drawn to an end.

Smith has never been under any illusions about what it means to be an Old Firm manager, once quipping that you're only ever two defeats away from the sack at Ibrox. After years spent playing football part-time while also holding down a job as an electrician, he has a rare sense of proportion.

"People are always on about pressure in football, but it is the wrong word," he once said. "A manager copes with responsibility – towards players, fans, directors, staff – but not pressure. People who have pressure are those who live in poverty, or people with incurable illnesses."

As a fan himself, Smith understands the impossibility of meeting the expectations of the fans, who expect a constant diet of silverware. He knows how fickle the supporters are: his assistant Archie Knox says that during the nine-in-a-row phase Smith would time the first abusive yell of the season, which always came within the first 20 minutes of the opening fixture.

Yet if Smith is a Rangers man, that doesn't extend to ignoring the sectarian antics of the club's sizeable lunatic fringe. Smith was Souness's assistant when he signed Mo Johnston, and he also put himself at the forefront of the club's attempts to tackle sectarianism. Ever the pragmatist, he appealed to fans to stop sectarian chanting on the basis that Fifa would come down so hard against such bile that failing to tackle the problem could threaten the club's future. Rangers' future has rarely looked brighter, however. After a period in which they have been comfortably eclipsed by Celtic, they now have the whip-hand. They are still favourites to win the SPL, face minnows Queen of the South in the Scottish Cup final and Russia's Zenit St Petersburg for the Uefa Cup.

Beating Dundee United on penalties to take the League Cup last month was a Smith special. All cussed grit and determination, it typified a man who was a journeyman defender with United and Dumbarton, but who has become a top manager. So far in the Uefa Cup, Rangers have failed to score in five of their eight games and have won just two: they have advanced against more-fancied sides by sheer force of personality, often via penalty shoot-outs or on away goals. They have been accused of playing "anti-football", but they have also displayed all the scary intensity that sets Smith apart.

In reaching the Uefa Cup final, Smith has the chance to lay several ghosts to rest. His European record is his managerial Achilles' heel: apart from coming within a game of the Champions League final in 1993, his record in European competitions has been surprisingly poor.

So poor, in fact, that when his successor as Rangers manager Dick Advocaat left Ibrox he openly boasted that he had turned the Glasgow club into a credible force in Europe rather than the laughing stock he inherited.

Those are words that may come back to haunt Advocaat in Manchester on May 14 when his Zenit side meet Rangers. His opponent will be Walter Smith and, as he's shown so far, when it comes to his beloved Rangers, winning ugly is not a problem as long as he's winning.

You've been Googled

• Smith's first game at Ibrox was against Rangers' Scottish Cup final opponents Queen of the South. Smith, then five, says he remembers Rangers scoring "half-a-dozen goals".

• Smith started on the management ladder when he was invited to join the Dundee United coaching staff by Jim McLean when, at the age of 29, a pelvic injury threatened his playing career.

• Smith tasted early success as a coach in 1982, when he led the Scotland Under-18 team to winning the European Youth Championship.

• One of the biggest hits on YouTube is footage of Smith being interviewed by a hapless Chick Young. Asked if Rangers have bought some duff players, the Rangers boss provides a withering, four-lettered response.

• Sir Alex Ferguson on Walter Smith: "There are few people in the game with his experience, knowledge and technical ability."

• Ally McCoist, now Rangers' assistant boss, said that a youthful looking Walter Smith arrived at Ibrox in 1991 looking like Sasha Distel, but left seven years later "looking like Steve Martin".