Product Description

After 250 appearances for Dundee United, Walter Smith was appointed coach of the Scotland Under 18 team in 1978, helping the team to win the European Youth Championship in 1982. This was the start to what has been a long and successful career in both coaching and management, first with the SFA where he acted as assistant manager to Alex Ferguson during the 1986 Mexico World Cup.He enjoyed an illustrious career in management at Rangers, joining the Souness revolution in 1987, winning seven successive league titles, a domestic treble in 1992/93 and winning both the Scottish Cup and the League Cup three times each. Following this stirring success in Scotland, Smith accepted a position across the border in the English Premier League with Everton in 1998, where he was manager for three years, before reuniting with Sir Alex Ferguson as an assistant manager at Manchester Untied in 2004.In December of that year, Smith was appointed manager of the Scottish national team. During his tenure at the helm, Scotland enjoyed their most successful period of international football for several years, rising almost forty places in the World Rankings and earning Smith the "Scot of the Year" award at the prestigious Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland awards in 2006. Midway through the qualifying rounds for Euro 2008, however, and with Scotland leading the group, Smith controversially accepted an offer to quit the SFA for a return to Ibrox in January 2007. Walter Smith is one of the most talked about and respected managers in British football. This insightful biography casts a reflective and analytical eye over his life and career, examining this shrewd professional through the many highs and lows that he has experienced as a player and a manager.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143590 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
'Walter has football running through his veins. What he has achieved is remarkable and I have huge respect for him' - Sir Alex Ferguson

About the Author
Neil Drysdale has been involved in sports journalism since the mid-1980s and praised for the quality of his writing across a wide range of subjects. He was Bank of Scotland Feature Writer of the Year in 1998, as well as runner-up in 1999. He now works freelance and writes mostly for The Herald, Sunday Herald and Sunday Times and is the author of two sports books - Dad's Army and the biography of Alan Rough. He is married and lives in Falkirk.

Customer Reviews

Hurrah for a true celebration of Smith and Rangers
Walter Smith has always seemed a decent individual and this biography, whilst charting the highs and lows of his career, makes no attempt to disguise its admiration of the Glaswegian. Better still, it covers all the major issues which have confronted Smith and his club in the last 20 years and the author, a self-confessed Rangers fan, doesn't disguise his views. He blasts the double-standards whereby Aiden McGeady was allowed to swan off and play for the Republic of Ireland while, had the player been born of English parents and affiliated to Ibrox, would have been given pelters. What comes across is that Smith built a team in his image, but he wasn't afraid to give flair his blessing, as seen in the signings of Gascoigne and Laudrup. And Drysdale has no doubt that Smith will see off Gordon Strachan in the battle for future honours. Read this and feel proud to support the best team in the world!

Enjoyable but room for improvement.
The biography is mainly a chronological history of Smith's time at Ibrox during the 9-in a row success. There are only six pages on Smith's three and a half yeas at Everton. I know the readership will be mainly Rangers and Scottish fans, but it is supposed to be a biography of Walter Smith, and no a recent history of Rangers.

The book could have been better if, in addition to the chronological format, there were chapters dedicated to specific themes. These could have been a chapter on Europe, which is considered to be Smith's area of weakness, despite having two outstanding attempts at success in 1993 and 2008. Perhaps a chapter on his man management skills, and the trust he had in players, which was abused in many off the field incidents. There could certainly have been a chapter on his dominance of Celtic, and the way in which that was achieved.

Quotes seem to be second hand, and there doesn't seem to have been any in depth interview with Smith. It would also have been more interesting if there was more depth to Smith's views on Mo Johnston, Gascoigne, Laudrup, Tommy Burns, the state of the club after Le Guen's departure, the inability of the SPL to cope fairly with the fixtures congestion of 2008, and many other incidents and controversies.

Thankfully the author does not descend into the almost ritualistic and exaggerated condemnation of Rangers fans. He also defends Smith against the excesses of those more demanding Rangers fans.

Over all the book was enjoyable and should be especially interesting for those Rangers fans who lived through the club's prolonged success in the 90's.

Error ridden
This book was a great let down. Simple inaccuracies (little things like name of proper goalscorer in certain matches .... Iain Ferguson scored in Bochum in 1992 by the way)let this book down badly as well as unneccessary digs at Rangers supporters which stems from media bias and celtic mindedness.