Gordon Smith takes a pop at John Greig in Open Goal interview

dh1963

Well-Known Member
GORDON SMITH has revealed how he and John Greig clashed from his first day at Rangers.

Gers legend Jock Wallace signed Smith from Kilmarnock in 1977 for just £65,000.

The midfielder hit the ground running at Ibrox, scoring 27 goals and winning the Treble in his debut season.

But while things were running smoothly on the park, he endured a strained relationship with the club's greatest ever player off it.

Smith was team-mates with Greig for a year before the Light Blues icon replaced Wallace as manager in 1978.

However, Rangers' record appearance holder was less than impressed with Smith's arrival and wasn't shy in letting the new boy know.

Smith told Open Goal: "I got on quite well with him. But two things happened which had significance.

"The first day when I joined Rangers; I arrived at Ibrox, I had just signed the day before, I had my first training session, and I walked up to the club and Sandy Jardine and John Greig got out of a taxi.

"Sandy Jardine says, 'Welcome to the club Gordon, that's good', and John Greig said, 'Hello, I don't know what we've signed you for!'

"That was the first welcome of my captain to Rangers. I goes, 'What do you mean?'

"He goes, 'Well we've got Cooper left wing' and I said, 'Well I'm not going to be playing left wing'.

"He went, 'Alright'. Maybe that's what he meant; we've got another left winger so I don't know why we've got you because that's where I'd been playing.

"But it was not exactly the best welcome!

"And then, the second point was in that first season, I was scoring really regularly when I came into the team at first and then I went about three games without scoring and that was the first team he said anything to me.

"He went, 'Ah you're not scoring now for us, eh?' I was like that, 'Oh, cheers.'"

Asked if he ever took Greig to task, Smith said: "You find it hard. I had so much respect for him because he'd been a club legend, a great player, he'd won the Cup Winners' Cup for them.

"You're thinking to yourself, you don't want to have an argument with him.

"I'm glad I never really went into detail with my arguments with him because then he became manager and I had to deal with that.

"But I never really got on with him that well when he was the manager either."
 
Not really having a pop, Smith is just relaying a couple of events. Grief, by all accounts, had played the greatest Rangers eleven ever, arguably, so it's safe to say his standards would have been a bit high.
 
Greig will always be a Rangers legend but he flopped as manager and if Smith’s story is true then it’s not difficult to see why.

You want a manager to support you and give you a fair crack of the whip, not to belittle you for no good reason.

Perhaps that was Greig’s style. If so, it didn’t work.
 
In his autobiography Gordon Smith tells the story of his transfer to Brighton. He was happy at Rangers but John Greig asked him to go down and speak to Brighton because the manager, Alan Mullery who Greig was friendly with, was under pressure. The understanding was that he wasn't expected to sign he was just performing a favour.

Smith went down, got a great offer which he declined and a furious Mullery got on the phone to Greig. Smith then spoke to Greig who told him he should sign because he wasn't going to be part of his plans at Rangers. Smith signed although neither he or his wife really wanted to move.

He relates the story without bitterness and admits that it all turned out well in the long run but I guess it's just another example of the way football works. As manager John Greig had to make those kind of difficult decisions.

All of that is just Gordon Smith's side of the story of course but clearly John Greig didn't rate him.
 
JG was our worst ever manager in my lifetime until Pedro rocked up with his powerpoint presentation and his world's 48th best coach epithet.

I would take Ally as manager over JG, although both remain legends.
 
About every Si Ferry interview repeats similar stories between every rookie and senior players. That’s the nature of football at a top club. Souness said at Liverpool that you were always under the cloud of not being as good as the last team, even when you’d just won a second European Cup.
 
Greig will always be a Rangers legend but he flopped as manager and if Smith’s story is true then it’s not difficult to see why.

You want a manager to support you and give you a fair crack of the whip, not to belittle you for no good reason.

Perhaps that was Greig’s style. If so, it didn’t work.

See post #26
 
John Greig is quite forthright and can be unpleasant to people. I worked beside a ref supervisor (bluenose) and John Greig had to meet the refereeing team on arrival before every home match. Apparently he was consistent in being unpleasant every time he met the refereeing team.
 
Nothing new here. It's been well documented for years that Greig and Smith didn't get on.

In his book And Smith Did Score, Smith tells how Greig tried to put him down, saying "it's always the smart ones that leave" to which Smith replied "is that why you're still here, John?" Next thing Greig was appointed manager, and Smith's time was soon up.
 
John Greig is quite forthright and can be unpleasant to people. I worked beside a ref supervisor (bluenose) and John Greig had to meet the refereeing team on arrival before every home match. Apparently he was consistent in being unpleasant every time he met the refereeing team.
Is this a new theory about why refereeing decisions go against Rangers? ;)
 
Nothing new here. It's been well documented for years that Greig and Smith didn't get on.

In his book And Smith Did Score, Smith tells how Greig tried to put him down, saying "it's always the smart ones that leave" to which Smith replied "is that why you're still here, John?" Next thing Greig was appointed manager, and Smith's time was soon up.

Did Paul Elliott help Smith write his book? :cool:
 
JG was our worst ever manager in my lifetime until Pedro rocked up with his powerpoint presentation and his world's 48th best coach epithet.

I would take Ally as manager over JG, although both remain legends.
Big John never had it as a manager.
He inherited a fine team and then fckd it all up.
Gordon Smith is perhaps opening a window into why this happened.

Nonetheless, as a player, I thought Big John was just fckn great.
 
Greig was/is a prickly character, nothing news worthy there.
Not prickly enough at times.
He was always turning up alongside Billy McNeill for photoshoots.

McNeill was a man who continually complained that The Filth had always been cheated by referees and thus belittled and disparaged every single achievement of Rangers as a team.
He did this even during their nine in a row when Jock Stein had the referee's in his pocket.
He was the epitome of the churlish 19th Century Terrorist victim addicted Rangers hater.

I don't know how Big John could stomach being in the same room as the cvunt.

However, we were later to find out that McNeill always knew that kids at his club were being sexually abused and that he did fckall about it.
What more needs to be said?
 
Gordon Smith does an interview and speaks honestly, he didn't get on well with John Greig so what many people have personality clashes with others. The fact this has been made into an article suggests an overreaction.

It's not like Gordon Smith is slating Greig just stated a couple of incidents thag led to them not being best of friends.
 
That was the only thing of relevance I took from it. John Greig = Club Legend - Gordon Smith = someone fortunate to play for us.
I don't think that is fair mate.
Gordon Smith gave me some great moments and would have had a longer career at Rangers but for circumstances that were not of his making.
Gordon was a very good Ranger indeed.

But of course, as a player, there have been few that were Big John's equal in a Rangers shirt.
Gordon Smith would be the first to tell you that as well.
 
Not the first to question John Greig's personal skills.

Really bad decision by Rangers to appoint him manager directly from being a player.
Of course it was but, Smith is being a bit touchy here.
I’d almost expect a quip like that from Greig in the same way as I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear Durrant or McCoist ask the same of a new player.
Also, let’s not forget Greig brought Smith back to Rangers primarily to play in the League Cup final of 83.
And that, obviously, Smith agreed.
 
JG was our worst ever manager in my lifetime until Pedro rocked up with his powerpoint presentation and his world's 48th best coach epithet.

I would take Ally as manager over JG, although both remain legends.


Greig had his faults as a manager perhaps because he went straight from being captain one season to manager the next but he guided us to two of our best European results knocking out Juve and Eindhoven.
 
Greig doesn't come across as a very nice guy , I know a few people who have dealings with him & was disappointed to hear the way he conducted himself
 
I don't think that is fair mate.
Gordon Smith gave me some great moments and would have had a longer career at Rangers but for circumstances that were not of his making.
Gordon was a very good Ranger indeed.

But of course, as a player, there have been few that were Big John's equal in a Rangers shirt.
Gordon Smith would be the first to tell you that as well.
I’m not knocking him mate. But when you’ve played 100 times for a club as a pro amongst 8 clubs that you represented (as a midfield forward he scored 117 in 490 games), you might be less critical of a man who was a defender / midfielder but he played for one club and managed 120 goals in 755 games. No matter his thoughts on Greig as a person, they are irrelevant to anything. That’s personal, that he shares it is just wrong.
 
Greig had his faults as a manager perhaps because he went straight from being captain one season to manager the next but he guided us to two of our best European results knocking out Juve and Eindhoven.

It's interesting that those two results were in his first season. By the end of that campaign there was Cologne and Celtic.

What I remember:

Failed to qualify for european football for only the second time in our history.
Chesterfield
Dukla Prague away
Scottish Cup Final 1982
 
Back
Top