Stuart McCall: Rangers job not a blemish on my CV

With the exception of '20 minutes against Motherwell' McCall believes his team couldn't have done any more. Picture: PA

The former Ibrox midfielder was asked to pick up the pieces in March as Gers’ promotion bid crumbled under caretaker boss Kenny McDowall.

While McCall managed to steer the club into the play-offs, he failed to give the Light Blues the last push they needed to reclaim a place in the Labrokes Premiership when his old Motherwell side dished out a 6-1 aggregate thumping in final.

That humiliating defeat killed off any hopes he had of being handed the Rangers job on permanent terms as chairman Dave King decided to go with former Brentford boss Mark Warburton.

But McCall - who is still involved with Gordon Strachan’s Scotland set-up - has not written off resuming dug-out duties elsewhere and says he wants to get back involved in management “as soon as possible”.

Asked if he feared his Ibrox stint had tarnished his reputation, McCall told Sky Sports News: “Not at all. I relished it really.

“As a player you want to play for the best teams in front of the biggest audiences and to walk out at Ibrox with 45,000 to 50,000 there was brilliant.

“Until the last games against Motherwell we couldn’t have done anymore.

“We had gotten to a point where most people didn’t think we could reach and then a 20-minute spell against Motherwell at home cost us promotion really.

“You can look back in life but I prefer to look forward.

“I had a great time there, even if it was short and sweet. But I certainly wouldn’t have thought it would have tarnished my reputation.”

And McCall proved there were no hard feelings as he wished Warburton and his assistant - former Gers skipper David Weir - luck ahead of the new campaign.

“I think they will do really well,” he said. “This season is going to be a head-to-head with Hibs. Alan Stubbs has done really well there.

“Queen of the South were up there last season but have lost three or four of their better players and I don’t think St Mirren coming down will be anywhere as near as strong as Hearts were last year.

“It’s a great time for Mark. It’s a clean slate and he’s bringing a lot of his own players in.

“Allied with the good players who are still at the club, I think they will be strong favourites to win the league. I wish them all the very best.”

Meanwhile, Ian Black has become the latest former player to criticise King’s board for the way their departures were handled.

Rangers released 11 members of last season’s squad, with King insisting they had “failed miserably”.

Kris Boyd, Jon Daly and Richard Foster have all reacted negatively to that criticism, with the latter claiming on Wednesday nobody had officially told the group they were no longer required.

And Black added: “We had to read in the papers we had all been released, which was obviously disappointing.

“The boys that were there achieved two promotions then had a bad season last season but to not get a thank you or a phone call just to say thanks... You’d probably respect that more. None of us have received it.”

Meanwhile, the kick-off time for Rangers’ Petrofac Training Cup first-round tie with Hibernian on July 25 has been moved to 12.30pm.

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