Rangers in exile: legend's lonely 130-day vigil to end - but Ibrox steeped in uncertainty and in Celtic's shadow

The crisp Autumn leaves lining the kerbs along Edmiston Drive are telling evidence of the time of year. Summer is in the rear-view mirror. A rare blue supermoon has been spotted in the sky above Ibrox this week illuminating a large bronze figure with arms held aloft. It’s been a long and lonely old vigil for Walter Smith.

The legendary Rangers manager did, however, have some company on Monday. A long-haired sculptor returned for the first time since what some have described as his meisterwerk was unveiled prior to the Scottish Cup final against Celtic on May 25.

Douglas Jennings didn't imagine for a moment that he would be back giving the statue its first ‘service’ before Rangers had put their boots on in Govan again. 

Few would have believed it could be so. It turns out it’s easier getting bronze to Ibrox than steel.

Not that transporting the replica of Smith from a foundry in Surrey to Glasgow was a straightforward task. One-and-a-half times actual life size, the statue - including plinth – weighs nearly five tonnes. It is 4.25 metres high to the hands, which are raised above Smith’s head in acknowledgement of the supporters after his last home game in charge of Rangers in 2011. 

The Walter Smith statue was unveiled on May 25 earlier this year. | SNS Group

“It was the time when he was saying goodbye,” explains Jennings, who instantly knew this was the pose he wanted to immortalise – and the Smith family agreed.  

“He was walking around the pitch,” continues Jennings. “It was quite an emotional goodbye for him. So it is not a celebrating, arms-in-the-air moment. It’s really goodbye and thank you. I thought that would be apt for the piece. Hopefully that comes across for the fans.”

Of course, the devil's often in the detail - and no one should have any concerns on that front. The candy stripe Rangers FC tie, the buttons and the blazer and, most importantly of all, the facial features. It's Smith, to the soles of his brogues.

The electrician from Carmyle in Glasgow’s east end would appreciate the high level of craftsmanship involved. The likeness is extraordinarily good.

The expression Smith wears emits gratitude. Gratitude to Rangers and the fans for giving him the best years of his career. The feeling is mutual of course. 

As football statues go, it’s one of the best, with Jennings now onto his latest commission, someone else with Ibrox connections: Birmingham City legend Trevor Francis. 

Sculptor Douglas Jennings puts the finishing touches to the Smith statue. | Complimentary

The celebrated sculptor accepts all the compliments he has received with grace, including on Monday when a group of Rangers fans had the fortune to visit the statue at the same time as Jennings was giving it a polish having travelled from his north London base. 

He ended up in an arms-around-the-shoulders group photo. One of the lads. "You're the sculptor, really?!" his new friends trilled. "Wow, it's fantastic!"  

And it is. But one wonders, for accuracy’s sake, if there shouldn't be a trace of bewilderment etched across Smith’s face – not the what-the-hell-are-you-on-about bemusement conveyed while Chick Young was doubting Basile Boli's credentials during that famous Ibrox tunnel interview. More one that says: Hey, where is everyone?

Smith has been prominently placed at a football stadium where there doesn’t appear to be any football being played anymore. The clank of construction work has replaced the roar of the crowd as Smith's team - and this wasn't said too often - have been posted missing.

Well, that changes as of this weekend. Rangers are coming home for their Premier Sports quarter-final clash against Dundee, the very team they played on their last Ibrox outing on May 14.   

That was 130 days ago, making this Rangers’ longest exile from their own stadium since the first ‘new Ibrox’ was opened in 1899. Not even two world wars brought longer interruptions.

Rangers last played at Ibrox against this weekend's opponents Dundee. | SNS Group

Even during Covid times the absence from Ibrox was only two days longer – 132 days spanned the match against Bayer Leverkusen, with all football being suspended two days later, and the friendly against Motherwell in July. It feels truly momentous. 

“The way I phrase it, you go away for a long holiday and while it’s nice for a while, you are longing to get back home again,” says Rangers historian David Mason, who has written a piece marking the 125th anniversary of the current Ibrox for next weekend’s match programme against Hibs. “This vacation lasted just a little too long.”

It’s ironic that today’s visitors for such a controversially delayed return are Dundee, who Rangers complained had been "negligent" and "unprofessional" after the Dens Park club's long-standing pitch problems led to the postponement of two games between the sides earlier this year. The last time they met was the last match staged at Ibrox when Rangers were still processing letting the Scottish title slip from their grasp.

Dundee taking a 2-0 lead did not improve the mood. Rangers responded well however, scoring five times. Scott Wright, now several weeks into a new life at Birmingham City, is the last player to have scored a competitive goal at Ibrox after curling home his side’s fifth in the final moments.

In the match programme CEO James Bisgrove tiptoed gingerly around the small matter of an Old Firm defeat a few days earlier that left Celtic on the brink of the title – their rivals wrapped things up 24 hours later against Kilmarnock.

“Saturday’s result was disappointing for everyone connected to the club, but it is about trying to build momentum now in the last two games ahead of the Scottish Cup final,” he wrote.

It proved to be his final programme column for reasons possibly not unconnected with Rangers’ exile.

James Bisgrove, right, has left his role as Rangers CEO. | SNS Group

Now in Saudi Arabia, Bisgrove has taken the rap for the delay to renovations to the Copland Road Stand, after the board sanctioned work to upgrade the disabled area. Similar work is due to be carried out next year in the Broomloan Stand opposite. "The summer periods have been chosen to ensure regular season matches are not disrupted by this essential work," the club explained in a statement in May.

Lessons have presumably been learned after the astounding news earlier this summer that Rangers would have to find an alternative venue to host games at the start of the new season, due to a delayed shipment of steel from China. 

It wasn’t just any season either. It was and is one where they are desperate to stop a Celtic side ‘going for 55’, which would equal Rangers’ current record total of Scottish league title wins.

It was not initially even clear when they would be able to return to Ibrox. There was talk of October, perhaps even December. And then there was the vexed issue of where Rangers might play in the meantime. Aside from the grumbles about the view, the distance of stands from the pitch and, of course, the cost of renting a stadium when they already have one, Hampden has proved a reasonably successful temporary arrangement. 

Rangers have scored ten goals, won three out of four games and conceded just twice. These goals, however, came at a cost. They were the ones eliminating them from the Champions League against Dinamo Kyiv, having already gained a creditable draw in the away leg in Poland.

Who knows what might have happened had they played this second leg at their own Ibrox fortress? Might they have found a way past the team from Ukraine to pocket an extra £4 million. Might they have somehow made it past RB Salzburg in the play-off round? 

The Walter Smith statue at Ibrox. | SNS Group

“It’s a hypothetical question,” says Richard Gough, who’s on the phone from the United States. It felt incumbent to speak to the iconic Rangers skipper, Smith’s lieutenant in the glory days, ahead of such a significant weekend. 

He was in Cape Town when the statue was unveiled and is looking forward to returning in November to see the fresh addition to the Ibrox landscape, just a few yards from where a statue of John Greig, voted Rangers' greatest-ever player, has stood since 2001.

In a way Gough wishes there wasn’t a need to honour Smith – not yet at least. Death is not a requirement for being cast in bronze – Greig, mercifully, is very much still with us. However, when Smith died three years ago next month at the age of 73, it was only a matter of time until Rangers paid some form of lasting tribute to their second most successful manager after Bill Struth. “Hopefully he will get a stand named after him as well,” says Gough.

Just maybe not the Copland Road stand, the root of some - though far from all - of Rangers’ current troubles. It can’t be ignored that in the same week as a fast and lean looking Celtic dismantled Slovan Bratislava 5-1 in the Champions League, Rangers are celebrating, er, returning to their own stadium, where a reduced capacity – the rear of the Copland Road Stand remains shut off – won’t even be tested. Being back at Ibrox won't necessarily cure all their woes.

Gough address the struggles some Rangers players can have playing at home. Hampden, where the fans are so distanced from the pitch, perhaps offered a measure of relief from the pressure – and criticism – that can spill down from the stands.

Rangers captain James Tavernier. | SNS Group

Rangers might not have played at Ibrox but skipper James Tavernier still copped a mouthful of abuse at the stadium after the squad returned to HQ following the comprehensive defeat against Celtic earlier this month. “The Rangers fans are absolutely magnificent – but they can also be very critical,” says Gough. “That comes with the territory. They are used to winning a lot of stuff. When we don’t win, it can be a tough place to play. They are used to a certain standard of playing. If they don’t see that, they are quick to be critical. I found that OK as a player, I mean you must hold to a certain standard at Ibrox. If you don’t you get criticised very, very quickly.”

Still a club ambassador as far as he knows, it’s understandable if Gough is feeling a little unsure about where he stands in the current climate. Others in elevated positions are falling by the wayside. The latest is chairman John Bennett, who recently stepped down because of health reasons.

Smith, by contrast, has already become part of the furniture. His elevated position is secure for all time. 

As Bennett put it at the unveiling, the statue is a welcome addition to “the Ibrox campus”. To expand on this education theme, its position, overlooking Ibrox Primary School, by the side of the busy Edmiston Drive, seems designed for road safety purposes.

The pose in which Smith has been captured, with hands in the air, as if urging caution, makes it seem like he is urging children to stop, look and listen before crossing the road, if indeed the Green Cross Code is permitted in these parts. 

Walter Smith, Richard Gough, Paul Gascoigne and Ally McCoist back in 1997. | SNS Group 0141 221 3602

It befits Smith's father-figure image, the manager who babysat Paul Gascoigne, even inviting him to Christmas Day lunch on one occasion, now protecting local school children for generations to come, as well as awing Rangers supporters.

Jennings was proud to see his creation glinting in the bright Glasgow sunshine this week. Sculptors don't just develop an intimacy with their subjects, whose features they are hewing every day for months on end. They also become very close to the subject's family, with whom they are in constant dialogue as the project progresses. Jennings had lunch with Smith's widow Ethel at Ibrox on Monday.  

It was a dual-purpose trip north. Of course, the statue's upkeep was uppermost in the sculptor's mind. After all, this weekend marks its first public performance since the unveiling.

"It’s been a few months now," notes Jennings. "I wanted to give Walter a first inspection, so to speak. How is he weathering? Obviously the weather is different in every town. You have more rain in Glasgow, there is maybe a bit more salt in the air. But actually the bronze is looking really good so it was more a case of the club and me putting a plan together.

“We will have the bronze cleaned maybe every couple of years, whereas some sites might need cleaned once a year. So the trip back up was a bit of that. But mainly it was to catch up with the family again.” 

Rangers fans know the feeling. Despite everything, it’s good to be home.