Fond farewell as David Weir takes his final bow at Rangers

HE HAS won six trophies in a prolonged Indian summer with Rangers and distinguished himself to the extent that he was named footballer of the year on the eve of his 40th birthday.

However, you suspect that today will require the greatest effort.

It is time for farewells, and David Weir is not the type to do farewells. He doesn’t do retirement either. His goodbye to the Ibrox fans this afternoon, at half-time of the clash with Aberdeen, should not be interpreted as Weir signing-off from his playing career. The defender is determined to continue playing in England at whatever level he can. “I am not a snob in that respect – I have played in the lower leagues and enjoyed it,” he said yesterday. “I enjoy football.

“The reason I have come to this decision is because it is the right thing to do,” he continued. “I came to an agreement with Walter [Smith] that if I wasn’t playing I would walk away. It has transpired that I am not playing and the time is right to walk away. But I have not yet thought about what will be next. I hope that at some point the phone will ring and I’ll get an offer that suits me and excites me.

“I might not get that offer but all that concerns me is just now is doing the right thing and being a man of my word.”

Weir did not want to be a further drain on the club’s financial resources by sticking around at Ibrox, nor did he wish risking becoming a peripheral figure after being such a central pillar of the club’s success during Smith’s second spell in charge.

“It would have been the easiest thing in the world to stay here for the rest of the season,” he said. “I love it here and I enjoy coming into work everyday. But I wasn’t comfortable with it as it became obvious that I wasn’t playing. I am sure that wage can be utilised somewhere else. I think it is the right thing to do.

“It’s the manager’s choice if he wants to bring in someone else,” he added. “But I just wanted to be fair to the club. I didn’t want to wait until February and then hold my hand up and say I wanted to go.”

Even in his departure Weir has continued to display the qualities highlighted by Ally McCoist yesterday. “He’s got class,” Smith’s successor said. “Sometimes in the modern game, you shake your head at some of the things that go on. But Davie’s refreshing. Old school class, dignity, everything you’d expect from a top player.”

The elephant in the room was that it has been McCoist’s reluctance to play Weir which has hastened the player’s departure, although there have been no complaints from the veteran defender. Weir has also been badly-served by injury. A hamstring strain, picked up in the opening game of the season against Malmo, handed Carlos Bocanegra and Dorin Goian the opportunity to establish themselves as first-choice picks at centre-half. Weir has not played a competitive fixture since the Champions League qualifying clash with Malmo, although he did post a commanding performance in a friendly against Liveprool, when Andy Carroll, the £37 million man, was contained by his 41 year-old marker.

The obvious question is whether Weir regrets signing an extra year’s deal. A departure last season, at the same time as his mentor Smith, would have seemed so much more satisfactory, given that it came at the end of another championship-winning season - Weir’s third in a row as captain. But it isn’t the player’s style to select the time when he would be guaranteed maximum personal glory. It would have been too easy to walk away then, hosannas ringing in his ears. “Possibly I could have left at the end of last season, but I felt I could play on,” he said. “I didn’t want to just throw the towel in. I think it’s always better to have a go. I picked up an injury, which was unusual, and that set me back. Circumstances have dictated it hasn’t worked out how I would have liked. But I have been lucky, so I can’t complain.”

In his recently published autobiography, Extra Time, Weir details the motivation which keeps him keeping on, and it is, he writes, the fear of what lies on the other side after he finishes playing. He is also, he notes, addicted to winning. When he arrived at Rangers he found others who shared this mentality. “He [Smith] installed it, because it definitely wasn’t here prior to him coming here,” said Weir. He answered the then manager’s SOS in January 2007 on what was originally meant to be a short-term basis, and as Rangers sought to recover from a difficult period of transition under Paul Le Guen. “As soon as you walk through the door here you realise the expectations,” added Weir.

When asked to pick out a special game from the 229 he played for the Ibrox club, Weir dismissed the suggestion that it might be the Uefa Cup final against Zenit St Petersburg in 2008. “No way,” he answered, firmly. “The highlight is winning things.” Instead, he opted for the match against Dundee United at Tannadice which saw Rangers lift a first title for four years in 2009. Weir also mentioned the Co-Operative Insurance Cup final when nine-man Rangers defeated St Mirren 1-0 in 2010.

This is the kind of attitude which has kept him from knocking on the manager’s door this season. He accepts that the priority is results and Rangers, certainly in the early part of the season, were getting them. McCoist briefly considered putting Weir on the bench today, in the hope that he might be able to make one final appearance as substitute. But then professionalism took over. “Davie knows as well as I do that the most important thing is that we win the game,” said McCoist. Aberdeen would have feasted on such evidence that today’s match was being treated as in any way processional by their opponents.

“He’s never been a minute’s bother to anybody, never fallen out with anybody,” continued McCoist. “Even when he’s not been playing he’s got his head down and done his work.”

Asked where he stands in the pantheon of Rangers captains, McCoist replied: “Right up there”. By that he meant Weir deserved to be spoken of in the same breath as the likes of John Greig and Richard Gough. Given the way Greig recently left the club, the Rangers PR department could ill afford another low-profile exit from a fine servant. That is, however, how Weir would have preferred it. Typically, he was keen for no-one to make a fuss. The farewells he said yesterday at Murray Park would, ideally, have been it, before a final journey between Auchenhowie and Lancashire, where a wife and four children are looking forward to seeing slightly more of their father. Instead, however, one further challenge must be met at half-time this afternoon.

“I am not looking forward to it,” Weir admitted yesterday, as he struggled to contain his emotions. “I just wanted to sneak out today after training, but I was talked out of it.”