ALLY McCoist heaped praise on his Rangers players for wrapping up the SPFL League 1 title with eight games to spare last night then gave them permission to make the most of their celebrations.
A 3-0 defeat of Airdrieonians at Ibrox delivered Rangers' 26th victory in 28 unbeaten games, putting them an uncatchable 26 points clear of second-place Dunfermline Athletic and securing promotion to the Championship. The players celebrated with a lap of honour and McCoist was conspicuously enthusiastic as he waved and pumped his fists to the supporters.
The Rangers manager had been heavily criticised after the weekend Scottish Cup draw with Albion Rovers but Rangers delivered a far more convincing display as captain Lee McCulloch scored a first-half hat trick which included two early penalties.
"Winning things is a wonderful feeling, no matter what it is and where it is," said McCoist. "These are all championships that we have to win to get back to where we want to be, in the top flight. These are stages in our recovery which must be met. It is only fair that they should be celebrated and enjoyed like you would with any league. There are lots of boys in there winning their first league and good on them for doing that. They are well within their rights to really enjoy it and we will make sure they do.
"Planning for the Championship starts now. The Championship could and hopefully will be a great league next year, with some of the teams that will be in it. We are planning for that and hopefully we can look forward to it and strengthen. The focus straight away is on the game against Dunfermline at the weekend and then we have a game in the Scottish Cup [the quarter-final replay with Albion Rovers] which gives us an opportunity for a home tie against Dundee United. We will enjoy tonight, but the season is far from over for us.
"The players deserve an enormous amount of credit. It's certainly an achievement to win the title. It's one we set out to do and needed to do, as part of the journey back. Twenty-six wins and two draws in 28 games: that's a good achievement. You have to say Dunfermline have done well because with statistics like that we might even have won it earlier.
"We're thrilled for the players, the staff and the supporters. It's been a terrific league campaign and I thought we finished it well tonight. We created a lot of pressure and played a lot of good football. From that aspect it was really pleasing.
"McCulloch in particular has epitomised the spirit within the club we've required at the beginning of the journey back. I'm thrilled for him. For the captain to score a hat trick from centre-half in the winning game is Roy of the Rovers stuff."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article