Would you rate Walter’s first spell a success?

El Chico de Natura

El Chico de Natura

Well-Known Member
I’m fully aware this is a controversial title but bare with me. We spent a fortune during that time to win a league in which celtic were nowhere to be seen most years and suffered several embarrassing European exits. His departure announcement and mishandling of Gazza also cost us the 10. I’d argue that he should have been asked to resign after AEK. Of course, if that had panned out, we wouldn’t have had his messianic second spell so it’s probably for the best.

What do you all think? Was his trophy-ladden years enough or should we have achieved more?
 
El Chico de Natura said:
I’m fully aware this is a controversial title but bare with me. We spent a fortune during that time to win a league in which celtic were nowhere to be seen most years and suffered several embarrassing European exits. His departure announcement and mishandling of Gazza also cost us the 10. I’d argue that he should have been asked to resign after AEK. Of course, if that had panned out, we wouldn’t have had his messianic second spell so it’s probably for the best.

What do you all think? Was his trophy-ladden years enough or should we have achieved more?
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are you serious? Do I rate his 9 in a row era?

FFS, pub is calling

You my friend are what is not as a WuM.

Over to you MARK.
 
Harrogate Bluenose said:
are you serious? Do I rate his 9 in a row era?

FFS, pub is calling
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It's a success.

It also could and should have been so much more. I get where the OP is coming from.

We didn't win as many Scottish Cups as we should have, we didn't murder Celtic as often as we could have and our European record was an embarrassment. It's beyond shocking really and that one year in 92/93 doesn't excuse the other 6 being THAT bad.

We should have and did win the leagues. I'm sure the pressure through 8 and 9 was like nothing else but pretty much everything was stacked in our favour but they get great credit achieving it.

It's the Euro record that really gets me about it all though. We blew our chance at the big time.

Walter's 2nd spell should be lauded more than it is though and I still love the man.
 
Domestically yes, there is no debate about that for me. He and that squad produced the goods time and again when it mattered most and won us nine in a row. Could it have been even better? Undoubtedly, as we should have had more trebles and should have dished out more hammerings to a Celtic side on their knees, but no one can seriously deny that Walter Smith's first spell as Rangers manager was a success.

In Europe it was a different story sadly, but the domestic game is more important.
 
Of course, you could point to Europe with the money we spent but he was hampered with the 3 foreigner rule for most of it

the 2nd spell was outstanding, even though he was shafted by the spl/sfa in the league and the quest for UEFA cup
 
Yahoos still had some pretty decent players during the later period of Walter Smiths spell.

Di Canio, Mcstay, Collins, Cadete, Van Hooijdonk. Stubbs, Thom (full German international) as well as a few other international players.

Walter deserves praise for any titles he won during that period.
 
Unicorn said:
Here we go again. The answer is most people do in real life as all most fans care about is finishing above celtic every year.

It's different on message boards though, people still get upset about bad results in Europe over 20 years later.
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1992? We should have been in a european final with the likes of big Dave McPherson and Scott Nisbet, Murray etc give it a rest.

Best Manager I have ever seen in all my days following the Gers, Knew what was needed and europe to him came 2nd to winning the league.

He was a real man manger. Anyyone saying he should have done more can do 1 as far as I am concerned, This has just took a new level of stupidity on this board,.

Infestation alert.
 
Yes, it was undoubtedly a success not least because he steered us to NIAR.

Some younger Bears may not fully appreciate it now, but until that point Timbo had not one but two big bits of ammunition he'd frequently use to demonstrate their superiority - the European Cup win, but also NIAR.

Negating one of those was therefore a massive once in a generation type achievement that will go down as Smith's defining moment.

However, at the same time we were riding high on the belief that we could also negate the other one too.

Reaching what was effectively the semi finals of the inaugural Champions League only fuelled that belief, but thereafter we failed horribly to keep the dream aflame and I too felt Smith could and maybe should have been jettisoned after the AEK Athens debacle.

If we'd done so however, would we still have won NIAR?
 
Harrogate Bluenose said:
1992? We should have been in a european final with the likes of big Dave McPherson and Scott Nisbet, Murray etc give it a rest.

Best Manager I have ever seen in all my days following the Gers, Knew what was needed and europe to him came 2nd to winning the league.
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I think you may have misunderstood. Both of Walter's spells were success in my eyes.
 
Herman said:
Of course, you could point to Europe with the money we spent but he was hampered with the 3 foreigner rule for most of it

the 2nd spell was outstanding, even though he was shafted by the spl/sfa in the league and the quest for UEFA cup
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We had our best run when it was in place.

Even when it was scrapped though, some of our most embarrassing defeats occurred then.

The three foreigner rule isn't an excuse to be put out by teams from Bulgaria and the Czech Republic when our spending power blew them out of the water and we had the pick of almost any three foreigners we wanted.

It also has to be remembered that Scotland, as a national team, was very much better then that it is now. The three foreigner rule didn't impinge on us the way it would now when we could call on Goram, Robertson, Gough, McCoist, Durrant, Brown and I. Ferguson

I'm not allowing him that excuse when the likes of Levski had to rely on guys whose career highlight amounts to turning out for FC Pirin.
 
Walters80 said:
Yahoos still had some pretty decent players during the later period of Walter Smiths spell.

Di Canio, Mcstay, Collins, Cadete, Van Hooijdonk. Stubbs, Thom (full German international) as well as a few other international players.

Walter deserves praise for any titles he won during that period.
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Andreas Thom was a cracking player in his day but was done by the time he went to Parkhead.

They paid an astronomical amount of money for him at the time too despite him being 30.
 
By any standard it must be deemed a success, for any team at any level to show that dominance for so long, however, I believe the point that was should have achieved more is valid. We had world class players and, at that time, could compete financially with all but the elite of the major leagues so to be swept aside regularly by minnows and eastern block teams showed a lack of ‘something’ in the great man.
 
Laudrup1 said:
We had our best run when it was in place.

Even when it was scrapped though, some of our most embarrassing defeats occurred then.

The three foreigner rule isn't an excuse to be put out by teams from Bulgaria and the Czech Republic when our spending power blew them out of the water and we had the pick of almost any three foreigners we wanted.

It also has to be remembered that Scotland, as a national team, was very much better then that it is now. The three foreigner rule didn't impinge on us the way it would now when we could call on Goram, Robertson, Gough, McCoist, Durrant, Brown and I. Ferguson

I'm not allowing him that excuse when the likes of Levski had to rely on guys whose career highlight amounts to turning out for FC Pirin.
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Sparta were on another level to Levski in terms
of quality. I think the poorest tie in his first reign would have to be Strasbourg.
 
Absolutely a success for me, 9IAROW was an incredible achievement, went through school watching us win that.
 
Blaew said:
Sparta were on another level to Levski in terms
of quality. I think the poorest tie in his first reign would have to be Strasbourg.
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Better than Levski but shouldn't have been better than us and naivety put us out. If you want to excuse him 91/92 as it was his first European shot, I can get on board with that an especially when 92/93 followed.

Everything else that followed was a sheer embarrassment though particularly given our standing in the game at the time.
 
Laudrup1 said:
Better than Levski but shouldn't have been better than us and naivety put us out. If you want to excuse him 91/92 as it was his first European shot, I can get on board with that an especially when 92/93 followed.

Everything else that followed was a sheer embarrassment though particularly given our standing in the game at the time.
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This is to far fetched and argument in my opinion.

your talking about a period when Italian football was so dominant and the fact remains that players like Vialli, del Piero, baresi, Maldini etc would never come to Scotland.

could we have been more savvy in the market- yes.

Berkamp for me is a player we should have went for
 
Laudrup1 said:
Better than Levski but shouldn't have been better than us and naivety put us out. If you want to excuse him 91/92 as it was his first European shot, I can get on board with that an especially when 92/93 followed.

Everything else that followed was a sheer embarrassment though particularly given our standing in the game at the time.
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levski were woeful and their keeper at Ibrox a joke, europe was generally hands over the eyes stuff and gave me years of nightmares.
 
Laudrup1 said:
Better than Levski but shouldn't have been better than us and naivety put us out. If you want to excuse him 91/92 as it was his first European shot, I can get on board with that an especially when 92/93 followed.

Everything else that followed was a sheer embarrassment though particularly given our standing in the game at the time.
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In general our European record is poor. It’s interesting reading match reports and reviews from the 60s where the constant phrase is naïvety.

But yeah I tend to agree even though I was very young in the 90s. I remember digging out a World Soccer from 95 where it describes us as one of the favourites and that Smith had an embarrassment of
riches available to him.
 
Ubik said:
levski were woeful and their keeper at Ibrox a joke, europe was generally hands over the eyes stuff and gave me years of nightmares.
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Strangely I’ve watched that second leg a few times on YouTube. That Todorov goal is unreal and jammy as %^*&. I’ve still got the Rangers News from
that week somewhere too.
 
Are people just genuinely reading the title and booting off instead of taking in my points? Ffs, my question is basically whether domestic success is all that mattered to you or if you believed we could and should have done more in Europe.
 
El Chico de Natura said:
Gothenburg for me.
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The only thing about them is that at least they were a consistent Champions League team in the 90s. They had made the quarter finals only a couple of seasons before. Still, the performance was terrible. Again, have watched that recently on YouTube.
 
El Chico de Natura said:
I’m fully aware this is a controversial title but bare with me. We spent a fortune during that time to win a league in which celtic were nowhere to be seen most years and suffered several embarrassing European exits. His departure announcement and mishandling of Gazza also cost us the 10. I’d argue that he should have been asked to resign after AEK. Of course, if that had panned out, we wouldn’t have had his messianic second spell so it’s probably for the best.

What do you all think? Was his trophy-ladden years enough or should we have achieved more?
Click to expand...

It's a huge success. The most successful period in our history. Europe remained a tough nut to crack plus he still got us as close as we have ever been in the European Cup.

I get what you're saying but it's the easiest question I've ever answered in my life.
 
El Chico de Natura said:
Are people just genuinely reading the title and booting off instead of taking in my points? Ffs, my question is basically whether domestic success is all that mattered to you or if you believed we could and should have done more in Europe.
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Surely the title should be "Should Smith have achieved more in Europe?" in that case.

Anybody who doesn't rate it a success is mental.
 
Should have done more in Europe. Domestically while Celtic were in decline, then disarray, then gradually rebuilding there was still a challenge from Aberdeen at least at the start of the NIAR era, although we had a huge financial advantage over the rest of the league.

He had some great times but I wonder what might have been achieved by a modern continental manager coming in halfway through his time rather than at the point we got Advocaat.
 
I suppose we could cut Walter 'some' slack when it comes to his European record at the time, maybe not the ridiculous qualifiers but certainly in the group stages.

Football was evolving all over Europe and trying to juggle the pressure of getting 9 as well as competing in Europe is something he wasn't quite up to at the time considering it was his first job as manager.
 
El Chico de Natura said:
The answer to that is obvious though.
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So is the answer to your question.

Yes it was a success. Could we have done more in Europe? Maybe. Could we have done less in Europe with the 92/93 season being no mean feat and a few very tough groups in the CL? Maybe.

Could another manager have done better in Europe? Maybe. Could another manager have failed to get 9? Maybe.

But his first spell was an undoubted success in the truest form of the word. It was literally trophy after trophy therefore a success.
 
El Chico de Natura said:
I’m fully aware this is a controversial title but bare with me. We spent a fortune during that time to win a league in which celtic were nowhere to be seen most years and suffered several embarrassing European exits. His departure announcement and mishandling of Gazza also cost us the 10. I’d argue that he should have been asked to resign after AEK. Of course, if that had panned out, we wouldn’t have had his messianic second spell so it’s probably for the best.

What do you all think? Was his trophy-ladden years enough or should we have achieved more?
Click to expand...
It was a success mate.
You stuck your head above the parapet asking that question :))
 
The 10? From what I remember bit was 10 in a row we were going for, not "The 10".

92/93 alone marks his spell as a success. Then there's the rest.
 
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