Rangers boss Derek McInnes recalls Walter Smith's can of beer with father and reveals Sir Alex Ferguson chat

There were two men uppermost in Rangers boss Derek McInnes’ thoughts as he reacquainted himself with Ibrox.

Thirty-one years ago, McInnes was signed by Walter Smith as a fresh-faced midfielder, with his father Duncan proud as punch as he watched his son sign a contract for his boyhood heroes. They both played a massive role in McInnes’ life but with both having since passed away, it was understandable that they were at the forefront of his mind after fulfilling an ambition to take the Rangers reins.

A trip to the manager’s office - a room McInnes can now call his own - brought it all back for him on a proud day as the 54-year-old was unveiled at Ibrox.

Derek McInnes joined Rangers as a player in 1995. | SNS Group 0141 221 3602

“It was the gaffer's room at the top of the stairs and you were only ever in that when you signed, or if you were a bad boy,” said McInnes of his trip down memory lane, before exclaiming: “No, not me!

“But it's only the second time I've actually been in it, the day I signed. When I'd done my medical I was away for an hour and a half. I didn't do my medical very well because I was always injured. And I came up the stairs and the gaffer was sitting with my dad, with a can of beer, and the two of them were just chewing the fat.

“And I remember going to my dad ‘Are you alright, aye? Check you out’. He's like ‘ Aye, it’s just Walter’. I went ‘did you go to school with Walter, aye?’ But I think probably the sense in it was the fact that I think the gaffer clearly knew it was a special day all round, probably even more so for my dad, and I think he was determined to make that day as good as he could for him.

“So it kind of meant a lot, although it was a bit of a shock when I came up the stairs. So that office, it's only the second time I've ever been in it, and that was the day. And you can feel the, it kind of flipped back to that day, and you can feel the history there as well.

“I think today just doing all this sort of stuff is… You know, you get duties to do, but there's no doubt that I've thought about both a lot today, and I'm sure both would be delighted for me. I got a nice message from the Smith family as well, both at the end of the season, with the way it played out at an end in the last couple of days.”

McInnes will have been inundated with well-wishers since making the switch from Hearts and he revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson, an admirer of his work at Tynecastle, had also been in touch.

“I spoke to him the other day actually, he was delighted,” said McInnes. “He enjoyed coming to see our stuff at Hearts last season, and he thought we had a special thing going. But he understood why I'm here, and we had a good chat the other day, and he sounded in good form. Obviously he's not been in the best of health, so I'm delighted to have that chat with him.”

Different Rangers now for McInnes

This moment could have come sooner for McInnes. It has been well-documented that he turned down the Rangers job in 2017 when in charge of Aberdeen. He admitted to some fears that the chance may never arise again.

“But I always hoped that it would come round,” he continued. “I did say it would probably have to be a different set of circumstances, different owners, and people who would, there wasn't that sort of history maybe at the time. I don't really want to go into why it didn't happen the first time around, but I felt as though I arrived at the right decision then.

“The two people that I spoke to obviously Walter and Sir Alex at that time, and Sir Alex reminded me of the conversations we had back then, and both were adamant that I made the right call, and supported me on that, and advised me based on the circumstances then.

“I do feel there's a confidence with the ownership here. I think there's a real togetherness, and a real idea of what we're trying to be off the pitch and on the pitch, and it's up to me to try and deliver the on-pitch stuff as best I can. But I do think that the intention is to try and be a successful Rangers, because it's not enjoyable here if you're not winning, and we've seen that in recent years, whether it's managers, players, board members, all the rest of it.

“We all worked so hard at the job, so going back to the whole emotional thing and everything else, my dad and the gaffer and stuff like that, but underneath it all is, I feel the weight of responsibility, and it's a responsibility that I'm well aware of, that we need to do our job well here.”

McInnes can draw upon the experience of five years as a Rangers player, even if that spell was punctuated by injuries and loan spells with Stockport County and Toulouse.

“When I first went in, there was this clear message,” said McInnes. “I had other options and financially better options to go down south, and there was six or seven international players ahead of me for the position, but it was the conversations with the gaffer really, that he felt I could have a role to play here, and obviously I felt really confident walking into the Rangers dressing room.

“My time here was impacted severely with injuries, but I still felt, being in and around a club every day, that I seen the character that was needed, the personality that was needed, the determination that was needed day in, day out. But also what you needed was that real togetherness in the dressing room, you can only do so much as an individual, but together you can do a hell of a lot more, and togetherness and forging strong relationships, and building a real bond with your team is key for this, because it's going to be, at times, us against everybody.

“The heat and the criticism comes at a club like Rangers when things aren't going well, and it's in those periods that you need to, for all footballers and everybody involved in football, that you need to stick together and have that response, because football isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Anybody could do the job if that was the case.

“So I saw what spirit and team togetherness and being proper people, and we had a dressing room full of proper good people, and it's important that we have something close to that this time around.”