Interview: Walter Smith, Rangers FC manager

IT WOULD be hard to find two more disparate footballers than Davie Weir and Andy Goram. One is the epitome of cool professionalism, the other a jack-the-lad whose off-field activities led to him being told his days at Ibrox were over in 1994.

It was Walter Smith who axed the tearful Goram after a typical bender, as the player recalled in his memoirs, and Smith last week said that Weir and Goram did have one thing in common - they were the best signings he made in each of his two spells as manager.

Rangers knew what they were getting when they paid Hibs 1 million for Goram in 1991 but Weir, a free transfer, surprised everyone.

Calling the veteran ex-Everton player, who will be 41 in nine days' time, "as good a signing as I've made," Smith added: "I really thought Davie was only going to be helping us out for a three or four-month period to the end of the season, and that's him been here four and a half years. If he has missed any training sessions in that time it will be less than a handful. I've let him stay in England (where Weir's family live) now and again, but I don't think he has missed even four sessions in four years through injury. For somebody to come here at his age and handle the intensity of the games Rangers have every week, you have to say he has been quite a special professional.

"You'll need to ask him if he is going to play on. I kept thinking at the end of every year that he couldn't, and he has beaten me every time."

Weir has also been club captain for two years since Barry Ferguson's departure, and Smith knows his experience has been vital: "Not only have his performances been excellent, but his influence on everybody in the dressing room has been fantastic as well."

Smith predicts a big future in management for Weir, who is taking the UEFA coaching licence course: "I see it as a natural step for him, whether he goes into coaching first or straight into management. I feel he has the potential to be an exceptional manager. He comes over as a really nice fellow but there's a hardness about him, a real desire to win."

That latter quality is something Weir and Goram both displayed in abundance. Reminded that he had nominated "The Goalie" as his best signing in his first seven-year tenure at Ibrox, Smith smiled ruefully: "Anyone who knows Scottish football will know they are entirely different characters - thank goodness. I don't think if Goram had been an outfield player that he would have lasted the length of time that he did. Being a goalie helped him in that way."

In a roundabout fashion, Smith finally admitted yesterday that the turmoil in Rangers' boardroom has affected the playing side. Asked to imagine this season as one of normal business with no "For Sale" sign at Ibrox and with money to spend he said: "It would have helped us. We would have been in a better position, for instance, if we had not had to sell our top goalscorer [Kenny Miller]."

The SPL title is surely going to the Old Firm wire, but Smith says he won't even watch the Celtic versus Dundee United game today or the Parkhead club's midweek match with Inverness Caledonian Thistle, but will catch up on them if necessary.

As always, he is concentrating on Rangers, although there has been no last-minute change of heart by Smith about leaving, unlike Sir Alex Ferguson, whose wife famously wanted him out from under her feet after his retirement decision in 2002 saw him moping around the house.

"Alex made the decision to leave Manchester United when he was roughly the same age as I am now, but then changed his mind," said Smith, "but I feel it is the right time for me to go, and if it means that I don't have any other involvement in football then that's fine. But if somebody made me an offer that I couldn't turn down or that I was keen to do then I would consider it."

So it appears we may not be seeing the last of Walter Smith. It would be a shame, indeed, if a man of his skills and experience was entirely lost to football.