KEVIN Thomson feels that Graeme Murty is taking a page out of Walter Smith’s managerial manual by restoring a British backbone to his team after the exotic experimentation of Pedro Caixinha.
While the nine-in-a-row great and recent Scotland target would surely have been incandescent about the three goals the Ibrox side shipped at Hamilton on Sunday, Murty counts Smith as a confidant and there are echoes of the way the former caretaker manager has re-centred his team in the manner Smith built around David Weir, Steven Davis, Kyle Lafferty, Christian Dailly and Thomson himself when he replaced Paul Le Guen to return to the club for his successful second stint as manager in 2007.
In his case, the likes of Russell Martin, Jamie Murphy, Sean Goss have provided an infusion of players who instinctively understand what the British game is all about, with Alfredo Morelos cast in the Nikica Jelavic role of a foreign difference maker at the sharp end of the pitch.
“Graeme has changed to going British, hasn’t he?” said Thomson, part of the last Scottish club side to take part in a European final, the 2008 Uefa Cup against Zenit St Petersburg in Manchester. “It is similar to what Walter did when he took over from Paul Le Guen. Walter tried to change it to British, to get people who knew what it was to play for Rangers. He had one of the best already there in Barry [Ferguson] and he had to get the best out of Barry, put players around him to do that, and it made for a successful team. I think Graeme is invested in trying to do something similar.”
It didn’t take long for Smith to remind Thomson that okay wouldn’t just cut it at Ibrox, mind you. Now a youth coach, predominantly with the Under-13s – he still has his own Kevin Thomson Youth Academy too – that is a lesson he now tries to pass onto the younger generation. This can be aspiring first team professionals like his fellow Hutchison Vale alumni Jason Cummings, his Under-13 academy squad at the club or his own son Jackson, who is already attached to Rangers at the age of eight.
“I was lucky that Walter told me that being okay at this club wasn’t good enough,” said Thomson. “Sadly, I thought I was doing alright. But alright wasn’t enough. Then I had boys like Davie Weir, big Ugo [Ehiogu] rest his soul and Baz [Barry Ferguson]. I still remember Baz barking at me when I didn’t pass the ball to him in the first session. Then we had big Jig and the younger generation who all had the bit between their teeth and wanted to knock the older ones off their perch. It was just a great environment to be the best you can be, and the older ones created that. Coisty [Ally McCoist], Kenny McDowall, Walter created that. We had 30 players when I first came in but there was an edge at training every day because Walter wouldn’t accept anything less.
“The first time I saw him [Cummings] when he came in here, him and Holty were there in the car park at 2pm,” Thomson added. “So I said to them ‘Its 2 o’clock, where are you going’. I was saying ‘you should be in there, practising’. And he said ‘I’ve got a game tomorrow, Uncle T’. I said okay but just make sure in there every day, getting better. I said this is an amazing club and I said that these next five, six months for him should be as selfish as he can possibly be – which he is – to showcase his talents here, to hopefully be here long term.
“That is what I would say to everybody, look at Scotty [Celtic captain Scott Brown, his good friend] across the pond, he is selfish, he wants to keep on playing, he doesn’t want to rest on his laurels. And that is the nature of the beast we want to try to create.”
Compared to the elite he experiences at Auchenhowie, Thomson accepts all levels of player to his own academy, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t expect them to work hard. “My biggest hunch right across society and grassroots football, pro youth and first team is we don’t work hard enough,” said Thomson. “Some say they work 20 hours a week but the harsh reality is you only need to work at my academy for 45 minutes and you crawl off the pitch. People can kid themselves on coming in here and kicking a ball about if they’re not doing it at the right intensity to try and get better. That’s something we’ve tried to create in the academy that when you train, it’s with a purpose and when you do something you do it to make a difference. That’s something I’m trying to implement into all the kids who come under my care.
“In my opinion to be a young football player you need to be hard working, but also respectful and thirdly you need to try and be the best you can be and I’m trying to instil that in every kid who comes into my care.”
**Kevin Thomson was pictured promoting the Rangers Youth Development Company and their £8k in 2018 Lotto campaign. £10 million in prizes has already been won in recent years and it costs just £1 to play. Full details on RYDC and their portfolio of products can be found at www.rydc.co.uk
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