Murray and I both knew my time was up, reveals Smith

A FULL decade after the event, Walter Smith made the startling admission yesterday that he was dismissed by the Rangers chairman, David Murray, in 1998, during the only barren season of the seven he spent on his first tour of duty at Ibrox.

"I was nicely sacked," said Smith, who, with the sweetest of ironies, will mark the tenth anniversary of his lowest moment in football by reaching the highest peak of his career, the Uefa Cup final in Manchester on Wednesday.

It was while discussing the extraordinary progress made by his hastily-assembled squad through this engrossing season that Smith was pressed for the reasons for his departure at the end of a campaign in which Rangers did not win even a domestic trophy.

The most damning failure of all, of course, was the loss of the championship to Celtic which confounded the widespread expectation that the Ibrox side would surpass their great rivals' record by lifting a tenth successive title. He responded with surprising candour.

"There were a few factors at work at the time," said Smith. "In a way, I felt within myself that perhaps my time was up anyway and a number of the players who had been with us for a long time also seemed to be coming to the end of their time. I went to see the chairman with my thoughts and, unfortunately, he agreed with me. So maybe I brought it partly on myself, but there was a willingness on the chairman's part to let me go. On reflection, I think it was the right decision for everybody at the time, but, most importantly, it was the right decision for the club."

In truth, Smith's revelation amounted simply to confirmation of what many people within the game had come to believe. Rangers' faltering from the very start of that fateful season had been embarrassing for Murray because of the proclamation of imminent glory he had made before the start. The Rangers chairman had assured the club's followers that the manager had made his plans early and that he had spent what was then the astronomical sum of £18 million (although it was learned that the actual figure was nearer £12m) to strengthen the squad and recruited the players he wanted. Murray concluded by claiming that Rangers now had a squad capable of making a serious challenge for the Champions League and one capable of winning it by the year 2000.

In the event, they did not make it past the qualifying round, beaten by IFK Gothenburg on a 4-1 aggregate. Worse was to follow, when they fell to Strasbourg in the first round of the Uefa Cup, thereby eliminated from two European tournaments in the space of a month. At home, they had exited the League Cup in September, losing to Dundee United, and, by the end of October, they were third in the league, behind Hearts and Celtic. On the last day of the season, the Scottish Cup final would be lost to Hearts.

In the kind of curious quirk that seems peculiar to football, it was Smith's unimpressive record in Europe that cost him his job. Even the six league championships (Graeme Souness had been responsible for the first three in the sequence of nine), three Scottish Cups and three League Cups were not sufficient to prevent his falling out of favour with his chairman and many of the supporters.

Now, it is the run to next week's European final, with a squad emphatically less talented than many he handled in the past, that has done more then anything to re-entrench Smith as a redeemer. This time, at 60, he has no intention of planting thoughts of his leaving in anyone's head, far less that of his knighted chairman.

"At this moment," said Smith, "it is my intention to finish my career here, whenever that is. Of course, you can never tell what the future holds, but I came here on a three-and-a-half-year contract and I would hope to see that out. And, who knows, if we're doing well, perhaps there will even be an extension. But I have no plan except to finish it all here."

Despite a resurgence over the past year that has taken Rangers from ignominy to pre-eminence, Smith insisted that, however many trophies may be won of the four that are possible, there will be changes in the summer that could include the loss even of players considered indispensable.

"There is still much to be done," he said. "Despite how well this squad has done, you are always striving for improvement. And, because of the financial situation in Scotland, and even at clubs like Rangers, there is always a possibility that players will be sold and others brought in. That's something you just have to handle.

"The stock of a number of our players is rising and it's natural that other clubs will show an interest in one or two of them. But we would hope to have the wherewithal to hold on to the majority of them. It's important for the progress of any team to keep the better players.

"We could make changes in the summer, become a better – dare I say it, more entertaining – team and not do as well as we have this time. That's football. We've had our share of luck along the way and we could play better next season and not have the same luck and do worse. That's how tight the margins for error are."