Our attitude towards Walter during our TIAR season

BomberBrownFan

Well-Known Member
Today’s amusing gathering of Seans and Kierans in the car park at Parkhead has made me think of how we reacted towards Walter during our bid for a proper, full ten titles in a row as that started to hit the skids.

Having spoken to people about it and read up about it, while the fan base was rightly pissed off about Gothenburg and Strasbourg alongside the squad’s lack of consistency that year, we never turned on him in the way that they have on Lennon.
Arguably we had more reason to be angry about the state of the team given the context we operated in but even until the game against Kilmarnock at Ibrox, we still rallied behind him and the team.

Just shows you the night and day difference between us and them.
 
Today’s amusing gathering of Seans and Kierans in the car park at Parkhead has made me think of how we reacted towards Walter during our bid for a proper, full ten titles in a row as that started to hit the skids.

Having spoken to people about it and read up about it, while the fan base was rightly pissed off about Gothenburg and Strasbourg alongside the squad’s lack of consistency that year, we never turned on him in the way that they have on Lennon.
Arguably we had more reason to be angry about the state of the team given the context we operated in but even until the game against Kilmarnock at Ibrox, we still rallied behind him and the team.

Just shows you the night and day difference between us and them.
Plus connor, declan and kevins
 
I remember being disappointed that Walter said he was retiring going into that season after winning 9. There was no frenzy and obsession about a possible 10 in a row, as we're witnessing now. If anything, the media were all about Celtc stopping us from doing so.
 
9 was our target, 10 was an afterthought.

10 has been on their minds since 2012.
Which is exactly why Lennon survived in to this season. They were up in arms after another piss poor CL campaign, but they forgot all about it when they went top after we crumbled.

Only themselves to blame.
 
I was gutted we did not win that season, but it did not get under my skin or dwell in my thoughts.

I felt proud of what we had done, and it far outweighed any disappointment of losing that title.

I think Rangers fans mostly accepted the situation and looked forward to the next season.
 
The obsession was with them stopping 10, we just got on with it but is wasn’t to be.

That's how I remember it back then. If we won ten, then so be it. It was just another season for us. The media, however, were obsessed with Celtc winning the League. The pressure piled onto refs that season was as predictable as ever by the media, especially Keevins with Bobby Tait.
 
Goldson, John and Drinkell to go with the op’s Goss and Wright?
I’m sure there is a better known Kieran that I’ve forgotten.
Ok.
I get your point but know what i mean.
Were talking about the usual names tims call their weans in the west of scotland.
To make it as irish as possible.
 
Walter boob by saying he would leave at the end of the Season, instead of it being enough to push over the line it acted against us. As for Bobby Williamson, Ex Player, and Manager of Kilmarnock coming to Ibrox and winning, A Rat, No Scum Manager would have done that, the same way as St Midden lay down to the Scum
 
It wasn’t about 10 in a row for me, but I’d be a lying bastard if denied I had wanted Walter gone for about two seasons previous. I thought it was obvious that the squad had aged badly and that we were under achieving for what we were spending. I’d started to want Gough out the team, which would have sacrilege to me a few years previous, and already felt we’d missed our chance in Europe.

He way way over achieved in his second spell, and I never disliked him or abused him - Christ, a picture of me receiving a trophy from him had pride of place in my Mum’s hallway, still does - I just felt we should have had a better manager at the time.
 
I'm sure the players and management were applauded on the team bus at Tannadice after the 10 had gone. Compare and contrast with the behaviour of the scum.
 
Walter boob by saying he would leave at the end of the Season, instead of it being enough to push over the line it acted against us. As for Bobby Williamson, Ex Player, and Manager of Kilmarnock coming to Ibrox and winning, A Rat, No Scum Manager would have done that, the same way as St Midden lay down to the Scum

Walter stating that he was leaving at the end of the season was a massive error. I'm not saying that the players downed tools, but it must have had some psychological effect on the team.
 
the walter leaving announcement was a big factor

i wasn't so much gutted about not getting 10, just not getting another title was the kick in the balls

happy to be corrected but it felt like the squad had largely reached the end at 9 and were mostly kept on for the 10th season as if to say "you got us to 9 so cannot change too much"

they were dead on their feet, highlighted by Advocaat coming in and having a gutted squad to work with
 
I remember being disappointed that Walter said he was retiring going into that season after winning 9. There was no frenzy and obsession about a possible 10 in a row, as we're witnessing now. If anything, the media were all about Celtc stopping us from doing so.
That’s not how I remember it at all.

TIAR was a huge thing for us. We spent a record amount in the summer of ‘97 going for it and Walter didn’t announce his retirement until it was essentially forced upon him by ENIC following the double Euro disasters at Gothenburg and Strasbourg.

There’s a part of me that still thinks he should have been jettisoned there and then, and at the time that’s what I wanted, but because TIAR was such a big deal for us there was a belief we needed continuity to achieve it.
 
That’s not how I remember it at all.

TIAR was a huge thing for us. We spent a record amount in the summer of ‘97 going for it and Walter didn’t announce his retirement until it was essentially forced upon him by ENIC following the double Euro disasters at Gothenburg and Strasbourg.

There’s a part of me that still thinks he should have been jettisoned there and then, and at the time that’s what I wanted, but because TIAR was such a big deal for us there was a belief we needed continuity to achieve it.

looking at the transfers - it might have been a record amount but it was on very few players

Amoruso was injured for the most part
Stensaas was terrible
Negri disappeared half way thru
thern contributed relatively little
 
That’s not how I remember it at all.

TIAR was a huge thing for us. We spent a record amount in the summer of ‘97 going for it and Walter didn’t announce his retirement until it was essentially forced upon him by ENIC following the double Euro disasters at Gothenburg and Strasbourg.

There’s a part of me that still thinks he should have been jettisoned there and then, and at the time that’s what I wanted, but because TIAR was such a big deal for us there was a belief we needed continuity to achieve it.

I don't recall us as supporters obsessively talking about " the ten " back then, mate. Obviously, we wanted to win the League title and anything else, but it was nothing like what we're witnessing at present.
 
It wasn’t about 10 in a row for me, but I’d be a lying bastard if denied I had wanted Walter gone for about two seasons previous. I thought it was obvious that the squad had aged badly and that we were under achieving for what we were spending. I’d started to want Gough out the team, which would have sacrilege to me a few years previous, and already felt we’d missed our chance in Europe.

He way way over achieved in his second spell, and I never disliked him or abused him - Christ, a picture of me receiving a trophy from him had pride of place in my Mum’s hallway, still does - I just felt we should have had a better manager at the time.

My thoughts were very similar on pretty much all points.

Europe had been such a disaster and such was our spending power compared to the rest of the league that I think we could have got a manager that would have managed both (as Advocaat proved was possible) even with the pressure of the NIAR season.

However, I get why they didn't sack him earlier. If they done it and not got to 9, the fall out would have been mental.

Growing up. my Dad always said that the only things Celtic had over us was NIAR and their EC win.

They were shiting it that we'd take at least one of those things away from them in the period.

Part of the utter madness that we see from their core support is now based on having lived through us overwriting their NIAR legacy. They don't talk about anymore near the levels they did through the 70s and 80s since we equalled it.

Also, while I don't count our first actual NIAR given the war years, that one is just as much of a thing as their present one is in terms of official battles between us as I see it. So for that, we're 2 and 2.

This time, if they don't get 10, they've failed. Our failure would have been not getting 9.

I think things would have to be a good bit worse before their board will take action. As it stands, their board can blame Lennon for it all going wrong as the manager carries the can. There would come a tipping point but it'd be too late by that point anyway.
 
happy to be corrected but it felt like the squad had largely reached the end at 9 and were mostly kept on for the 10th season as if to say "you got us to 9 so cannot change too much"

Gattuso, porrini, vidmar, stenstaas, amoruso,Thern, Negri, johansson, niemi and Gough in the winter .

Pretty much signed a new team in 97 too
 
Lots of people saying walter saying he was leaving. Only a few weeks ago he said on Rangers TV he was sacked. Murray wanted a change and sacked Smith then asked him to take the team for the rest of the season.
Daniel Levy, who was on the board back then representing Joe Lewis and ENIC, demanded Smith was sacked in the wake of yet another European horror show.

Murray refused because there was still TIAR to focus on and the compromise was that he be allowed to see out the season.
 
I don't recall us as supporters obsessively talking about " the ten " back then, mate. Obviously, we wanted to win the League title and anything else, but it was nothing like what we're witnessing at present.

I think it was the case that we were SO far in front it was just expected as part of the continuance. You're right though. Getting 9 was the holy grail. Anything after that was uncharted and while we all wanted the wins to continue, I'd have been far more gutted if we didn't get 9 than I was at realising 10 wasn't happening.

Possibly, the difference for us is that come the point we realised Walter was away, we were aware that someone llike Advocaat was coming in and there was a new dawn on the horizon even before we had lost in 97/98.

What Celtic face just now is it looking (as things stand) that they've lost it and there's no plan to console them in the future either. Their issue even more than us in Smith's last year is that it's happening so early in the season. We were leading for large parts of that year (as Celtic were struggling to find form early on under Jansen too) and only really started to come off the rails in Jan - Mar when Celtic were on a run of wins.

In short, everything they've been working towards is falling apart and there's not even a crumb of comfort on the horizon as we had with DA ...in fact, what they're actually seeing coming over the hill is The Rangers coming.
 
That’s not how I remember it at all.

TIAR was a huge thing for us. We spent a record amount in the summer of ‘97 going for it and Walter didn’t announce his retirement until it was essentially forced upon him by ENIC following the double Euro disasters at Gothenburg and Strasbourg.

There’s a part of me that still thinks he should have been jettisoned there and then, and at the time that’s what I wanted, but because TIAR was such a big deal for us there was a belief we needed continuity to achieve it.
That's pretty much how I remember it.
I thought it criminal that we did not achieve 10IAR considering where we were and were they were.
IIRC WS was 'forced' into this following another European shambles.
I thought along the lines of the ENIC group that given what we were spending we should have done better in Europe and 10IAR should have been achieved.
IIRC few of us were disappointed that WS was stepping down, many thought it should have been earlier.
 
9 was our target, 10 was an afterthought.

10 has been on their minds since 2012.
Never a truer word said by the way.

And the plus point to that, for me, is the fact that we have an enduring image of Mr Richard Gough, a TRUE leader and captain, lifting that trophy at Tannadice with tears in his eyes. We have the defining footage of the King thrashing a header into the top corner. We have the memories and all that came with winning a 9th title in a row, they don’t have that. They never will have that feeling in the modern era, they never will be able to truly savour how that felt.
This fact comforts me greatly, and it will even more so when we put the flat on their arse come May.
 
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That’s not how I remember it at all.

TIAR was a huge thing for us. We spent a record amount in the summer of ‘97 going for it and Walter didn’t announce his retirement until it was essentially forced upon him by ENIC following the double Euro disasters at Gothenburg and Strasbourg.

There’s a part of me that still thinks he should have been jettisoned there and then, and at the time that’s what I wanted, but because TIAR was such a big deal for us there was a belief we needed continuity to achieve it.
After clinching 9 then it was all about 10 - from Rangers fans, from the club itself. There were some horrific (looking back) advertising boards around town for the new kit with the “9/10 - Must do better” slogan.
The, “Nine in a row, one more to go” chant as well. At the time it was all a bit of bravado but we were getting ahead of ourselves.

As the season got going it was pretty evident that wholesale changes were needed though. Europe was an utter disaster and when Negri got injured the goals dried up and exposed the lack of focus & fitness at the back.

Rangers fans certainly got behind the manager and the team throughout it though.
The idea of assembling in the car park to shout for the manager’s head just isn’t a very Rangers thing and has been very infrequent in our history. For Celtic supporters it is a default reaction.

It would have been great to see the old guard at Rangers in 1998 being able to clinch that title and make history but it was a campaign too far... and most of us saw it coming.

What you have at Celtic just now is an angry response to not lording it over everyone else.
And to think they’ve been making a joke of not seeing Rangers coming for a few years now - halfwits.
 
looking at the transfers - it might have been a record amount but it was on very few players

Amoruso was injured for the most part
Stensaas was terrible
Negri disappeared half way thru
thern contributed relatively little
We also signed Porrini, Gattuso, Johansson and Vidmar before bringing Gough back from semi retirement in the States.

Whatever way you want to paint it we spent massively including forty grand a week on a crocked Jonás Thern.

People are kidding themselves on that we were easy going about winning TIAR - we wanted it badly.
 
Because Walter smith was a legend. He won leagues fair and square and gave us some great memorable victories!

the scum know lennon is a nobody. Yes he’s won leagues for them but we were out of the league for some of those seasons, he won a league that rodgers had basically already won, he was handed a title last season. He’s always had a helping hand with his success. Smith won them on his own
 
Walter didn’t want to leave, the complete opposite in fact, it was sugar coated at the time to make it look like he was stepping down.

He was 100% binned by Murray, he was allowed to see out the season in the hope of getting 10.

The whole episode was an utter shambles.
 
I don't recall us as supporters obsessively talking about " the ten " back then, mate. Obviously, we wanted to win the League title and anything else, but it was nothing like what we're witnessing at present.
I remember the opposite. Setting a new record was huge for us and our ultimate failure to achieve it was hugely deflating.

We never really dwelled on it though because the next two seasons were two of the best ever.
 
Walter boob by saying he would leave at the end of the Season, instead of it being enough to push over the line it acted against us. As for Bobby Williamson, Ex Player, and Manager of Kilmarnock coming to Ibrox and winning, A Rat, No Scum Manager would have done that, the same way as St Midden lay down to the Scum
So would you have preferred winning 10 that season knowing Kilmarnock lay down to us because Williamson was and still is a bluenose. Don't know about you mate but I prefer winning titles by honest endeavor, I also don't call an ex player a rat. But maybe that's just me
 
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Gattuso, porrini, vidmar, stenstaas, amoruso,Thern, Negri, johansson, niemi and Gough in the winter .

Pretty much signed a new team in 97 too

had a wee look there - 52 games played that season

these probably include any appearance not just starts:


Gattuso 37
Porrini 37
Stensaas 28
Amoruso must have been 10 max, didn't debut till April 1998
Thern 28
Negri 40 (after January was a jersey wasted)
Johansson 8
Niemi 7
Gough 30

taking Gough out of the equation as its was really just a continuation of the previous season
Stensaas & Thern was a season worth between them
the Italians except Amo were regulars but Negri etc etc

rest only contributed in a few games

the bulk of the team was made up of guys who'd ran thru walls for years previously and a few were at the end of their careers - McCoist, Durie, McCall, Ferguson, Goram etc
and Laudrup switched off once he was confirmed to be leaving
 
Walter didn’t have a choice to leave he was sacked but Murray dressed it up as Walter wanted to leave to give him time to get in the new manager.walter himself said it was the longest sacking in history as he was sacked in October but didn’t leave the job till May
 
We started well and they lost their first two game. We'd spent a lot in bringing in new faces, mainly the Italians. Everything was looking very good until about October when Wattie announced he was going at the end of the year. At the time I thought this was a mistake and it turned out to be the case as the players just seemed to lose focus. I wasn't happy with Walter for doing what he did but it has subsequently came to light that it was Murray that told him he was going.
 
I was around 8/9, remember parts of it pretty blurry but can remember my dad being more or less silent all the way home

back in those days you were allowed to sing and get on in the boats home. Every home game home was usually a sash bash. Remember the ferry home was quiet that night. Everyone was gutted. They knew that was it over and basically the end of an era. I was at the Scottish cup final that year to where hearts best us. That was as bad
 
Walter didn’t want to leave, the complete opposite in fact, it was sugar coated at the time to make it look like he was stepping down.

He was 100% binned by Murray, he was allowed to see out the season in the hope of getting 10.

The whole episode was an utter shambles.
I'm sure he signed a new contract the previous summer.
 
Think there’s some selective memories regarding 10. Everyone wanted it & were gutted at the time it never happened
We were gutted but anyone at tannadice the day we lost the ten will tell you.the support instead of turning on the club,the rangers support to a man stayed inside tannadice for a good 20 mins singing and within an hour my mates and I were having conversation about how we were going win the league the next season and what the new manager was going to bring.Yes it was gutting as we should have won the league but it was gone an no amount of anger and venting fury at Walter or the players was going to change it.we dusted ourselves down and went again and blew the yahoos away the next two seasons.
 
Walter did get serious stick that season with some at the front door. But it was for another European failure, actually 2. Gothenburg then Strasbourg.
 
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