The return of Walter Smith

With Rangers’ current manager Graeme Murty losing a huge amount of favour among fans recently, the dawn of reality that he probably isn’t the right guy to lead us forward has most certainly come upon us.

However, whisper it, more and more supporters are in favour of Walter Smith again. Frankly, he’s who we all want, he’s the boss, and he could easily turn this club round – if he could take Paul Le Guen’s diabolical mess and fix it in 24 hours, he can do the same with our current half decent squad.

I know I know, you can hear the ‘leave him alone’ and ‘let the guy retire’ from here. And I completely understand and borderline agree with such sentiment.

No one has given more to Rangers than Walter, and we love him forever for it.

But…there is unlikely to be a Rangers fan alive that would genuinely protest to having Walter back as manager. He was in remarkable form at the Legends match, back to his best after reports of ill health.

And while none of us wish the man stress and strife in his twilight years, we cannot help but speak with our hearts and say we want him back as manager.

No one owns the SPL like Walter Smith. He is the best manager the top flight has had other than Struth and Stein, and is every inch worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as those two, whatever side of the Old Firm you’re on. He is certainly the best manager the SPL has ever had.

Would he give us a Rangers of the level we expect? Absolutely. A couple of shrewd bosman signings to sort the defence out and Rangers are laughing.

We admit this article is far more in hope than expectation. Walter has earned a sangria in the sun, and is almost certainly loving retirement. Maybe a part of him misses the glory days at Ibrox, maybe he really doesn’t miss any of it and is happy on the beach with his shades on.

But more and more fans have murmured about a return to the dugout for the Old Master.

And the reality is there’s only one Walter Smith, and while we’ve enjoyed (relatively) recent success under Eck and Advocaat too, nothing compares to Uncle Walter.