Something a bit different in this one, and Sir Alex’s comments about Rangers’ dignity about the events in 2012.
The interesting thing here is that despite being one of Govan’s most famous sons (ok, probably the number one really) Sir Alex’s time at Ibrox was cut short and he cut ties due to the appalling and ignorant comments from a director at the time who made some cheap reference to her religion.
Sir Alex remains gutted to this day that he didn’t ‘get the hairdryer’ out and hold the moron to account, but that of course was a completely different world in 1967 to the slightly more enlightened one today.
It did, however, end his association with the club – once he moved onto Falkirk two years later that was him done with that era of Rangers and once in management and onto Aberdeen, he became truly a Red Devil into the 80s and his new Man Utd career.
But he will always have a soft spot for his boyhood club, and while, like the Beatles’ Ringo (who walked away from Liverpool but never ‘let them down’) he never forgot Rangers and will always keep an eye on the club, his heart is mainly with Man Utd – that became his team even if he had such a strong friendship with our Walter.
However, he did speak to Rangers TV recently, and praised the club and the fans for maintaining dignity despite how the country treated us.
He said:
“I think it was a lesson to the ones who voted to put them out because the crowds went down, they were missing the Rangers fans. I can’t remember all the reasons why that happened but they could have found a better solution to it because at the end of the day the health of the game is derived around supporters and those supporters weren’t there. But to get back, it was a long journey, it wasn’t overnight. I was surprised about Rangers, after they got back in the Premier League, they [the fans] still travelled. They could easily have said ‘well I’m not going there, you voted us out’. But they kept their dignity.”
Sir Alex’s words carry weight in the world of football, few men in this sport possess the clout Alex does and for him to say that does show what this club went through 11 years ago and how the club kept its dignity while it was everyone else in Scottish football trying to mock and degrade us.
Still one of our own after all these years.