Rangers’ recent renaissance is down to a great number of factors, but here we look at the very underrated influence of Graeme Murty’s new assistant whose experience, calm and dedication are becoming growing factors in current form.

Jimmy Nicholl was born in Hamilton, Ontario in Canada to his Northern Irish parents who moved back to the Rathcoole estate on the outskirts of Belfast when he was only 3-years old.

After he began his football career as a young apprentice with Manchester United, the club very kindly arranged for his family to relocate to the safety of England, to avoid the unrest caused by all the troubles in Ulster.

As a player, Nicholl had two spells at Ibrox firstly in season 1983-84, where he won the League Cup, and then again under Graeme Souness between 1986 and 1989, this time claiming two League Championship medals and two further League Cups.

The former Ibrox star was recently the number two job under Paul Hartley at Falkirk and left his job with the Championship club after being given permission to speak to Rangers.
Jimmy is now 61 and was over the moon to be given the opportunity to be involved once again with the Ibrox club who have always been his first football love. He adored his earlier spell coaching at Rangers, when he was in charge of the reserve team for a period, under Rangers legend Graeme Souness in the 80s.

He is now delighted to be the new assistant manager to Graeme Murty, who has been assured that he will be in charge of Rangers until at least the end of the season. It has also been decided that Jimmy will continue to work with Northern Ireland, having assisted their manager, and one-time Rangers managerial target, Michael O’Neill since 2015.

Falkirk’s Paul Hartley said of his departing buddy;

“I wanted Jimmy to stay with me at Falkirk, because I felt we’d struck up a really special bond over the last couple of months and he was my manager twice, at Raith Rovers and also at Millwall. He’s someone I have so much respect for, and when this fantastic opportunity came along for him, it was a no-brainer – he was absolutely thrilled to accept the Rangers offer, and there was nothing I could have said that would have stopped him from going.”

Nicholl started his career as a junior player at Manchester United and his senior career started in 1974. He helped the club to win the 1977 FA Cup Final and also collected a runners-up medal in
1979.

In 1981, he left Old Trafford to join Sunderland on a permanent contract after a loan spell, and played 32 games in one season before moving to Toronto Blizzard in Canada, scoring 11 goals in 77 games over the next two years before signing for Rangers.

In 1984, he returned to England to sign for West Bromwich Albion where he stayed until their relegation from the First Division in 1986, before returning to Rangers for three years, helping them win two Scottish league titles in the process.

After leaving Rangers, he signed for Dunfermline in 1989 before moving to a player-manager role at Raith Rovers, having originally joined them on 27 November 1990.

Nicholl had great success at Raith Rovers, winning the legendary 1994-95 League Cup (oh how that one will always sting them in the east – there’s only one Scott Thomson) and the Scottish First Division championship. Due to aforementioned League Cup epic, Raith Rovers qualified for the 1995-96 UEFA Cup and impressively reached the second round, where they were eliminated by eventual winners Bayern Munich.

On 28 February 1996, Nicholl was appointed manager of Millwall, who just over two months earlier had been top of Division One but were now sliding down the table. He was unable to stop the decline and Millwall slipped into Division Two on the last day of the season.

He remained at Millwall until the following February, and six months after that returned to Raith Rovers. His second spell at the Starks Park side lasted two years, and ended on 14 June 1999 after he had failed to get them back into the top flight.

A 28-day spell as manager of Dunfermline Athletic followed later in 1999, and he later served as assistant manager to Jimmy Calderwood. In May 2004, Nicholl followed Calderwood when he took over as manager at Aberdeen, again serving as his assistant until the two parted company with the club in May 2009. He resumed his partnership with Calderwood at Kilmarnock in 2010.

Nicholl was appointed manager of Cowdenbeath in June 2010, but he left at the end of the 2010–11 season after they were relegated from the First Division.

Nicholl was then appointed assistant manager of Kilmarnock for a second time, this time under Kenny Shiels on 15 June 2011, and the Rugby Park club won the 2011-12 League Cup under Shiels and Nicholl, but Shiels was sacked by Kilmarnock in June 2013.

Nicholl then decided to accept the offer of assistant manager at Hibernian and after manager Pat Fenlon resigned on 1 November, Nicholl was appointed caretaker manager. Nicholl left the Easter Road side soon after their new management team was recruited.

After leaving Hibernian, Nicholl returned to Fife club Cowdenbeath for a second stint as their manager. He led the Blue Brazil to avoid relegation via the Championship play-offs in the 2013-14 season by beating local rivals Dunfermline in the two-legged final.

He led the side to the Fife Cup that season, however a very difficult season followed in 2014-15, which included a joint-record 10–0 defeat to eventual champions Heart of Midlothian. The club was relegated to League One on the last day, after which Nicholl resigned as manager.

While still at Cowdenbeath, Nicholl had also become assistant manager to Michael O’Neill with the Northern Ireland national team in March 2015.

He was appointed as assistant to new Falkirk manager Paul Hartley in October 2017, while also continuing in his role with Northern Ireland and Jimmy is back where he belongs by assisting our manager at Rangers.

Such a wily campaigner with as much knowledge as anyone of Rangers and of the SPL, as well as the expectation at Ibrox is an ideal assistant to Graeme Murty who, while doing impressively, is still cutting his managerial teeth and can rely on experience like Jimmy’s to guide him.