Walter Smith finally able to bask in glory of Ibrox trophy haul

IT IS only now, more than two weeks after vacating the post, that Walter Smith can look back with pride at his achievements as manager of Rangers.

Smith stood down at the end of the season to be replaced by assistant Ally McCoist after clinching the Clydesdale Bank Premier League title to add to the Co-operative Insurance Cup won earlier in the campaign.

Those two triumphs took the former Scotland manager's trophy tally to 21 during his two spells in charge of the Govan club, which included ten league titles and a Uefa Cup final appearance in 2008.

Smith, speaking in STV's two-part documentary, Walter Smith: The Football Years, to be screened on 7 and 14 June, insists he was too busy trying to achieve success during his career to dwell on it.

"You obviously take a pride in your job and a pride in winning and helping the team win, but the one thing that drives you on is to continue winning," he said.

"I think pride comes now, looking back over a career as a whole.

"At that stage you just said to yourself: 'Oh, that's great, thank goodness we've got that one out the way and on we go.' In the end, it's not all about managers anyway, it's about the team.

"And I keep preaching that to all the teams that I've had - it's about the team, it's about us winning.

"It's not about a manager standing up there accepting plaudits. They only last until the first game of the next season anyway and then you've got to go and do it again."

Many believed Smith had cut his ties with Rangers when he left at the end of the 1997-1998 season.

He was happily ensconced at Hampden as national team manager when, in January 2007, he was asked by then Rangers owner, Sir David Murray, to return to Ibrox and fix the mess left by outgoing manager Paul Le Guen.

The former Dundee United player admits it was a call which he found impossible to turn down.

"I was just going about my job as Scotland manager and I got a call from Sir David Murray asking if I would be interested in coming back to Rangers again," said Smith.

"It was right out the blue.

"I would certainly not have left the national team job for any other job, but to come back to Rangers again was something I felt that I couldn't turn down."

Smith, who began his Ibrox career as assistant to Graeme Souness before becoming manager in 1991, regrets that his grandfather, who first took him to see the Light Blues as a boy, was not alive to see him at Rangers.

"I can always remember kicking a ball about in his house as a youngster and early memories of Don Kitchenbrand and Johnny Hubbard and others, but it was my grandfather who was the one who started me on the trail of supporting Rangers." he said.

"My family then were delighted (on Smith first going to Rangers].

"I was just disappointed that my grandfather had died and he wouldn't have seen that.

"But my mum and dad were obviously elated that the oldest son had got an opportunity to work (at a club] where he had stood on the terracing."