KENNY McDOWALL has described his rise to the position of Rangers manager as "tainted" and expressed his desire to win the SPFL Championship as a tribute to his predecessor and friend, Ally McCoist.
McDowall was a supporter of the Ibrox club as a boy, but showed little joy at taking over his new role in a caretaker capacity when unveiled along with his new backroom team of assistant, Gordon Durie, and captain-cum-coach, Lee McCulloch, at Murray Park yesterday.
The 51-year-old, poached from Celtic to work as a first-team coach under Walter Smith in 2007, was summoned to Ibrox on Sunday evening after McCoist, previously working a 12-month notice period, had been placed on gardening leave.
McDowall was ordered by the club's chief executive, Derek Llambias, to demote the existing first-team coach, Ian Durrant, to Under-20 team duties and admits he has become the new figurehead of the footballing department in circumstances that have left him deeply saddened.
"It's tainted, isn't it?" said McDowall. "What can you do? I have got to try to make the best of a bad situation. It has happened. Ally would wish for nothing other than the team to get on a winning run again and try to win that title. The biggest tribute that we can pay is to try to pull that off. It would be for Ally McCoist."
Rangers, of course, trail in Hearts' slipstream in the league. The season has been calamitous from a footballing point of view. Shouldn't McDowall have been sent packing too?
"It is normally the case in many situations but, at the end of the day, boards do what boards do," he remarked. "I can't control what's happened."
McDowall is open enough to admit, however, that stepping into McCoist's still-warm shoes has been incredibly awkward. "Tell me about it," he said. "First and foremost, he is my mate. He gave me the job as assistant, which he didn't need to do.
"He has a lot of mates from that team that he played with. He could have given it to any one of them and I wouldn't have thought any less of him, but he came to me and asked me to do it, so I have huge respect for him for that alone. For me to be sitting where I am, I have just got to try and be as professional as I can and carry out the duties I have been asked to do. I am saddened."
McDowall revealed that McCoist had made an emotional farewell speech to his players and told them to make him proud by pipping Hearts to the Championship title when he met his squad for the final time at Murray Park on Monday morning, just as the club's directors were being booed and heckled at a stormy Ibrox annual general meeting.
Speaking to the media for the first time since he had been put in charge on Sunday night, McDowall said: "Yesterday was a sad day. Ally came in to say goodbye to the players and the staff. The man that he is, he finished by saying that nothing would make him more proud than if they went on to win the title. It would be a great tribute to Ally if the boys could pull that off.
"Ally McCoist was the glue that kept this club together. I was surprised when I found out he had resigned because I didn't know it was coming. Listen, we are all big boys. It has been a bumpy ride but football is football and anything can happen."
McDowall, the former Partick Thistle and St Mirren striker, added: "The board intimated to me that Ally had been put on garden leave and they told me they were going to make some changes to the structure of the coaching team. Gordon was to come up from the [under-]20s to assist me and they wanted to make Lee a player/coach and I was to start immediately. Was my opinion sought? No. They asked me if I could make those changes immediately. But the decision was made by them."
McDowall describes himself as "carrying out his duty" in telling Durrant his days with the first team were over and concedes those who suggest the board should have carried out its own dirty work may have a point.
"Possibly," he said. "That is open for debate with whoever wants to debate it. They asked me if I would do it, which I duly did. It wasn't easy, but the boys fully understand because, at the moment, there is a lot going on, a lot of positions moving about. Mine was one of them. I had to explain to the lads that it was a board decision. The boys respected that and got on with it.
"Ian Durrant is an excellent professional and always has been. He took it no problem at all. He's been at that level before and done very well. He was more than happy to go down and carry on working for the club he loves."
McDowall has confirmed he had no input whatsoever into the changes he was forced to implement and can offer no reasons for Durrant's demotion. "You would need to speak to the board on that," he said. "I have no idea."
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