BlueMeanie
Well-Known Member
DAVID MARTINDALE’S chances of making it at Rangers ended the day he broke his leg playing against a pub team with his pals.
Thirty years ago he didn’t care. Now it’s his greatest regret.
2
Livingston boss David Martindale
Martindale faces the biggest day of his short career as a boss when he leads Livingston out in the Betfred Cup final against St Johnstone on Sunday.
He’s quickly made his mark — and landed two manager of the month awards — since taking over from Gary Holt in November.
Martindale is that rare breed of gaffer nowadays who doesn’t boast a top-level playing career.
But he admits things might have been different if he’d been bright enough to realise the chance he had after being invited to join Gers’ YTS scheme.
2
Martindale reveals Rangers regret
Four weeks later that opportunity was snatched away after he joined his mates for a kickabout.
Martindale, 46, said: “Rangers used to have the local soccer schools and had all the best players in the regional areas.
“When I was 15 or 16 I went along and there must have been 50 of us there. They kept two of us back and said they were going to put us into the system.
“I think it was YTS at the time. But at the same time I had my pals chapping my door trying to get me to play with them because I was the best player. I wasn’t allowed to play because of the Rangers thing but three or four weeks later I went and played against a pub team in Bathgate and the big centre-half snapped my leg in two. That was thirty years ago.
“I broke my fibula and tibia. Rangers found out and just pulled the plug. They pied me. I was out for about 18 months.
“Ally McCoist had just broken his leg and I remember him getting stretchered off the park.
“I wasn’t bright enough at the time to realise that had been an opportunity.
“I’d been out training with Rangers and Motherwell were interested too.
“But I had discipline problems and just ran about the streets with my pals.
“Even after I broke my leg I wasn’t doing rehab or going to see physios. It was just waiting to get my stookie off so I could go back to playing football with my pals.
“I’ll be honest with you, at the time I probably didn’t care or gave it a second thought and I just moved on to playing football with my friends again.
“But it’s probably my biggest regret in football, looking back. I was very loyal to my friends and the teams I’d played with.
“We’d all grown up together in the scheme and we played Saturday football and Sunday football. It was quite territorial.
“People were saying I could play higher but I just played football with my pals and that’s probably to my detriment if I’m honest now.
“I didn’t see it like that at the time. I don’t now but I did then.”
Martindale has spoken enough about his past to know he’s a different man these days. The football obsessive inside him allied to an attention to detail played a part as he led Livi to a 14-game unbeaten streak.
But even that couldn’t beat his best-ever run without losing a game during those days in the amateurs before he later moved to Broxburn Athletic in the juniors.
He said: “I went seasons unbeaten at that level. At amateur level we had seasons where we won a Scottish Cup on a Saturday and a Scottish Cup on a Sunday.
“Riverside, the team was called. It was a Sunday morning team. It was basically a local pub. I think we went a full season unbeaten — and it was a half-decent level too.
“I must have been 17 or 18. We played Saturday afternoon amateur and won the Scottish Cup and I got called up to t1he Scotland amateurs squad.
“We’d then play Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon. We just played football and it was a decent level. But there were a lot of good players who had discipline problems, shall we say — and I was one of them!”
