Walter Smith ready for final fling

THE start of another pre-season at Murray Park and Walter Smith is where he wasn't supposed to be, performing his media duties as Rangers manager.

Asked what he would have done with himself if he had actually stepped down, Smith doesn't have to ponder long before providing a response. "I would have retired and that would mean learning to play a bit better golf, joining lots of my pals who had retired and doing things I have never had the opportunity to do at any other stage... the best thing now is not to think of it."

The life of leisure would seem to hold more obvious appeal than overseeing the painful whittling down of Rangers' playing squad in the absence of a buyer for the club. Yet some appeals are impossible to turn down.

The Rangers manager has admitted previously that, so clear in his mind was he about leaving, he cleared his office into a black bin bag, before rethinking and deciding to stay on for one more year.

Now, the 62-year-old has revealed that what caused him extend his, supposedly, short-term second stint at his beloved Rangers to a four-and-a-half-year gig were petitions from his coaching comrades Ally McCoist, Kenny McDowall and Ian Durrant. The men who stood to gain most by his departing, and who will move up one on the coaching chain of command to fill the void when he makes his farewells next summer.

"They, as much as anything, got me to change my mind," Smith says. "They came to me. I had made my decision, I was leaving. Then I sat down with them and they persuaded me to stay. I had to make sure when we talked there wouldn't be overall disappointment about them not getting the opportunity they thought they would be getting a year ago. That is why I did say if I was coming back I wanted to make it clear this would be my last year."

Even when Smith was given the full backing of his backroom team, he didn't simply arrange his personal effects on his desk once more. He just wasn't sure as he agonised over the matter in the two weeks between winning a second successive championship and the season ending. "Once I was happy enough that they were happy, I went home and had a couple of weeks thinking about it and then I said: 'Right OK, I'm happy to go'."

In these strained and uncertain, yet successful, times at Ibrox, the willing he has engendered from his coaching confreres and the players under him has provided him with the strength to carry on.

"Their (McCoist, McDowall and Durrant] enthusiasm has been a vital factor to me. Their input has been more important than anything else. The players have been terrific for me, great for Rangers and a good bunch to work with. The whole environment has been great and that's kept me going."

Smith's readiness to walk away can be read as an endorsement of McCoist's readiness to be Rangers manager. "Listen, he was ready to be manager a couple of years ago.

Alistair had just to come and pick up what was required in the background part of it."

Smith this week admitted that only now, with the loss of significant players such as Kris Boyd and Nacho Novo, Rangers might truly feel the chill of the bank's cold hand. In merely attempting to retain an 18-strong senior squad. "We had six players out of contract and lost four. That's a big loss from the pool. We are not going to be able to replace them all; we hope to replace a couple."

Smith gives every impression that Middlesbrough could be successful in their pursuit of Kevin Thomson, who they are reported to have bid 2.7 million for, with Lee Miller added as a makeweight. Thomson is one of eight of the Ibrox squad out of contract in the next year and the Rangers manager has conceded "it might be in the interests of both" these players and the Ibrox club to listen to offers for them when there is the "awkward aspect" that none can be offered new deals at present.

Better news is that, thus far, the trails seem to have gone cold as regards Madjid Bougherra heading to Hamburg and Danny Wilson joining Liverpool. Equally, though, activity hasn't been hotting up in relation to Smith attracting wide players, his priority. "We have been making a lot of enquiries, but so far they have been fruitless."

Come 1 September, days on the golf course with his old buddies might seem heavenly to Smith.z