Rangers: Charles Green ‘among best I worked with’ – Howard Kendall

Howard Kendall has sought to ease the fears of Rangers supporters who remain sceptical about Charles Green’s involvement in their club, describing the former Sheffield United chief executive as one of the best officials he has worked with in football.

He has also assured Ally McCoist that, if the backing he receives from Green is anything like that which he enjoyed, then the Rangers manager “will be a happy man”.

Kendall was hired by United in December 1995 to arrest a slump in form which looked set to deposit the club in English football’s third tier. The task of preserving their status in the old Division One was achieved and Kendall set about building a squad that was strong enough to take the club back into the Premier League, with, he said, Green’s full support.

Kendall made his managerial name with Everton, where he won two First Division titles and a European Cup Winners’ Cup among other honours. He rates Green as up there with Jim Greenwood, the respected secretary/chairman at Goodison Park over three decades in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. “I had a tremendous relationship at Everton with Jim Greenwood,” said Kendall. “And Charles would be up there.”

“I was able to go out with the help of the board and Charles and bring Premier League players to Sheffield United at that particular time,” said Kendall, speaking to The Scotsman yesterday. “He backed me to the hilt. We signed [Michael] Vonk from Manchester City, David White from Manchester City, Andy Walker from Bolton and Jan-Aage Fjortoft from Middlesbrough.”

Many Sheffield United fans do not remember Green quite so fondly, and accuse him of ruthlessly dismantling the team. The season after losing out in the play-off at Wembley against Crystal Palace, for whom Scot David Hopkin scored a late winner, both Deane and Fjortoft were sold on the same day, although Kendall, too, had already left, having been lured back to Everton for a third spell as manager. Nigel Spackman, his successor, resigned in protest at the departure of two of the club’s best players, while chairman Michael McDonald – rumoured to be involved in Green’s consortium at Rangers – resigned shortly afterwards.

Other stories have emerged to reveal a less appealing side to Green, about whom one former Sheffield United player, in conversation with The Scotsman yesterday, said: “Charles is only in it for Charles”. Kendall, however, begs to differ, and described Green as a football man, but who knew how vital it was to balance the books. Green helped to get Sheffield United listed on the stock exchange in 1997.

“Obviously, I had to bring money in at certain times but, as a manager, I really appreciated the work he did,” he said.

“It was a big club going through a bad time, and the first objective was to keep them up. The following season I got the backing of the board to go out and bring in better quality players, and it nearly worked out. I used to find the players, and the money was made available. There were other times, of course, when he said we need to try and sell this one to be able to try and buy that one.

“You don’t go from fear of relegation to a play-off the following season with the same players,” pointed out Kendall. “You don’t do that without the support of your chief executive.”

Kendall dismissed fears that Green, a venture capitalist, is only interested in football to make a fast buck. “He was a football man, he understood the game,” he said. “He is well up with the football.

“He was full-time,” continued Kendall. “He had an office next to mine and naturally we spoke every day. Sheffield United were in trouble when I went there but the board wanted them in the Premier League. And we nearly did it. If not for injuries, we would have done it.” Kendall pinpoints an injury sustained by former Scotland international forward Don Hutchison as having been the critical factor in the club’s failure to make it into what was then known as the FA Premiership.

Informed of Rangers’ fans scepticism, something which has been further encouraged by Green’s refusal to name the other parties in his consortium, Kendall said: “I don’t think you need to know a lot, because what happens is the most important thing. I am sure Ally [McCoist] will get the full backing. If it is anything like the full backing he gave me, then I am sure Ally will be a very happy man.”