I grew up a Glasgow Rangers fan although I'm what you'd call a lapsed supporter nowadays, but nevertheless was keen to watch this BBC tribute to the recently deceased manager of the club Walter Smith. Besides managing his boyhood team to great success, Smith had a distinguished if not exceptional playing career at Dundee United, served as assistant manager to three other remarkable Scottish managers, Jim McLean at Dundee United, Graeme Souness at Rangers and briefly Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, he also had a spell as manager of the Scotland national team, reviving the nation's fortunes after a disastrous spell under German manager Bertie Vogts.
Condensing such a long and successful career into an hour-long programme couldn't have been easy and could I thought have been extended a little more to perhaps show a little more of the life, never mind the career of the man, as we learn nothing of his life outside football. I appreciate that's the name of the programme but still felt a little light could have been shone on his family life. I'd also have appreciated a bit more time being spent on his relationships with the afore-mentioned managers as well as his renowned way of managing complex players like Andy Goram, Ally McCoist and of course, the enigmatic Paul Gascoigne.
There were many interviewees paying tribute to Smith's integrity, unflappable persona and everyman demeanour, including Ferguson and Souness, his long-time assistant Archie Knox, past star players Brian Laudrup, David Weir and Richard Gough and from his difficult time at Everton, star England player Wayne Rooney. Unusually there were no vox-pops from the likes of McCoist or Gascoigne, but I guess you can't include everyone in just a one hour edit. The programme boldly showed the uncut hilarious video clip of Smith's expletive-filled take-down of the BBC's hapless journalist Chick Young in the Ibrox tunnel which went viral and there was moving testimony from the son of the late Tommy Burns, in his time as much a Celtic man just as Smith was a Rangers man, but who Smith chose as his assistant for the national team and for whom he acted as a pall-bearer at hisfuneral when Burns died at a comparatively young age.
Excerpts from a relatively recent interview with Smith himself are interspersed throughout the piece and confirm him as a modest, affable but considerable man who knew how to select, organise, man-manage and motivate football teams to a very high level.
R. I. P. Mr Smith.
