The Goalie
Well-Known Member
Ally McCoist is on the other end of the Zoom call, which means that we have barely had time to say hello before he is off and running with a story.
McCoist talks of the recent memorial service for his mentor Walter Smith at Glasgow Cathedral and the wonderful yarns that were swapped between the grand old men of Scottish football — such as one about the time McCoist became Smith’s assistant with Scotland.
“First game, Italy away in the San Siro,” the 59-year-old recalls. “It’s me and Tommy Burns [the other assistant manager], who is one of the few people in football who had worse timekeeping than me.
“Walter says, ‘Look you two, I’ve organised a car to get you to the San Siro, leaving half an hour before the team bus, to set up training.’ So myself and the goalkeeping coach, big Jimmy Stewart, and Tommy headed away. Now, I don’t know if you’ve seen rush-hour traffic in Milan.”
McCoist starts chuckling. “You’ve probably a fair idea where this is going,” the former Rangers and Scotland striker says laughing.
“We eventually get there and I’m panicking a bit. But Tommy is looking through the fence and says, ‘Coisty, brilliant news, the Italians are still here. We can watch them train for five minutes.’ ”
McCoist cannot believe their luck and wanders over to take a look. “Tommy, I’ve bad news,” he says. “That’s us.”
He laughs at the memory of him and Burns running sheepishly on to the pitch with bags of balls over their shoulders and Smith giving them the stare. “Walter had a hell of a stare, which meant he didn’t need to say anything,” McCoist says. “Ah, what a great man. I owe him so much.”
It is a typical McCoist reminiscence; self-deprecating, full of fun and, perhaps above all, showing a refusal to take life — and certainly not football — too seriously. He is exactly the type of companion you need when the world seems to be growing darker by the day, which is perhaps why McCoist has recently been enjoying one of those regular rounds of affection from the football-loving public for his radio shows on talkSPORT and his commentary north and south of the border.
He has the insights of a player who won the European Golden Boot in 1992 and 1993, and won ten league titles in Scotland, but engages people mostly with a warmth that lifts the spirits even when a game is less than gripping.
Typical was his intervention during a recent game between Leeds United and Crystal Palace when, watching Raphinha stand over a free kick, McCoist predicted that the ball would be “whipped in with unbelievable pace” into a dangerous area.
The ball flew straight into the stands. “Well, I didn’t say how high it was going to go,” McCoist added quickly, and you had to laugh along.
McCoist has entertained viewers with his quick wit in his role as a TV pundit
McCoist says that his sons keep him up to speed about how his work is being received on social media and likes to think that he understands at least some of what football supporters want from him.
“The fact that they can tell I’m enjoying it, I think that’s important,” he says. “I hope they can tell that there is someone enjoying his work, as I should be [while] sitting in one of the best seats in the house.”
The rough and tumble of life often forces perspective and McCoist understands where some of his grounding comes from when he starts talking about Mitchell — one of his five sons who will be with him on Christmas Day to open presents while he “tucks into the selection box far too early”.
McCoist was asked in an interview a while ago for his greatest inspiration in life. He thought about his parents, and his late father, who nurtured his love of football, but settled on Mitchell.
One of twins, Mitchell was born with a serious heart defect. Further complications meant that he was in intensive care for most of the first year of his life and endured multiple operations and complications that have left him severely disabled.
“He is 23, which in itself is remarkable. We were told that he would not see anything like 23,” McCoist says. “His twin brother is 6ft 3in, a bustling centre forward. He is very small. The wee man is effectively still in nappies and we feed him through a tube. But he is loved and gives so much love.
“His mum, my ex-wife [Allison], has done a phenomenal job looking after him. Like a lot of kids in his situation they need a bit more care and attention at a time like this [with the pandemic] and she does that in a phenomenal way.
“Mitchell is different and that has a different impact on you. And I would think he has had the same effect on everyone’s life in the family, including his brothers. They absolutely adore him as you would hope and expect. He is a blessing. He has other needs and there is a reality to that.”
What has Mitchell taught him? “I am not a pious character who never makes mistakes. I still wave my fist at someone who cuts me off at the lights, but it’s a beautiful way of bringing you back — a reality check to what is important and what isn’t.
“Losing a goal in the last minute? Important, of course it is, but not really in the grand scheme of things.”
McCoist, right, with his Scottish player of the year award in 1992 alongside manager Smith
NEWS GROUP
McCoist knows how it is to be consumed by football: as a player chasing trophies with Rangers through the glory years, when he became the club’s top scorer, and then as a manager who took on the job in 2011 as it all went very sour, with a financial meltdown that resulted in the club being demoted to the Scottish Third Division.
“A dream job at a nightmare time,” he says. “It would be some book but they wouldn’t believe it. I ended up in the High Court as a witness to the fiasco that was going on around me.
“I don’t regret [taking the job] because it was my club growing up as a boy and I played there for 15 years. In many ways I was masochistically pleased that I was in charge, [working with] Ian Durrant [the first team coach] and people that knew and cared about the club.
“But it was anything but managing. We had four players turn up for pre-season training. Absolutely crazy.
“The hardest thing wasn’t players leaving but people losing jobs who have been there for 20 years, delivering mail and doing things that people take for granted. That was heartbreaking. It was everything to them.”
He has had interviews at several clubs since — Blackburn Rovers, Queens Park Rangers and Sunderland included — but regards at least the latter as a close escape. “Dodging bullets!” he says. “Like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.”
The most recent offers to coach have come up in Scotland but the sack race leaves him thinking that he is better off in the media world, where he is required to have staunch opinions — “and I won’t shirk them” — but, he likes to think, he can also express some understanding of how hard the job can be.
“[Mikel] Arteta [at Arsenal] is an example,” he says. “Six weeks ago, there was an execution squad. Marcelo Bielsa [at Leeds United]. Are we suddenly saying he cannot coach? I just think sometimes people make change for change’s sake.
“The perfect example might be Hibs up here. Last year they finished third in the league behind Celtic and Rangers, which in my book, [is like] they’ve won the league. Semi-final of one cup, lose the final of the other. They go on a poor run, yes, but still got to the League Cup final and Jack Ross is sacked? What are they looking for? They will replace Ross with someone who will be a success if he achieves what Ross achieved.”
He is often pitchside watching his other sons, Alex, Argyll, Arran and Harris — spanning ages 12 to 26, and from two marriages — when he reflects on one of the lessons learnt from the likes of Smith, Jim McLean and Sir Alex Ferguson: that their managerial careers came at the expense of time with family.
So you can see why McCoist is sticking with his role in media and he hopes to be back at work with Amazon Prime next week, bringing his enthusiasm and humour just when it might feel most needed.
“You can’t kid the punters if a game is rubbish but I always hope I can find something magical when I am sitting there on the halfway line looking down on that pitch,” he says. “I just hope we can keep on playing, though Boris might have more on his hands than Brentford against Manchester City by next week.”
● Listen to Ally McCoist on talkSPORT Breakfast, weekdays from 6am
McCoist talks of the recent memorial service for his mentor Walter Smith at Glasgow Cathedral and the wonderful yarns that were swapped between the grand old men of Scottish football — such as one about the time McCoist became Smith’s assistant with Scotland.
“First game, Italy away in the San Siro,” the 59-year-old recalls. “It’s me and Tommy Burns [the other assistant manager], who is one of the few people in football who had worse timekeeping than me.
“Walter says, ‘Look you two, I’ve organised a car to get you to the San Siro, leaving half an hour before the team bus, to set up training.’ So myself and the goalkeeping coach, big Jimmy Stewart, and Tommy headed away. Now, I don’t know if you’ve seen rush-hour traffic in Milan.”
McCoist starts chuckling. “You’ve probably a fair idea where this is going,” the former Rangers and Scotland striker says laughing.
“We eventually get there and I’m panicking a bit. But Tommy is looking through the fence and says, ‘Coisty, brilliant news, the Italians are still here. We can watch them train for five minutes.’ ”
McCoist cannot believe their luck and wanders over to take a look. “Tommy, I’ve bad news,” he says. “That’s us.”
He laughs at the memory of him and Burns running sheepishly on to the pitch with bags of balls over their shoulders and Smith giving them the stare. “Walter had a hell of a stare, which meant he didn’t need to say anything,” McCoist says. “Ah, what a great man. I owe him so much.”
It is a typical McCoist reminiscence; self-deprecating, full of fun and, perhaps above all, showing a refusal to take life — and certainly not football — too seriously. He is exactly the type of companion you need when the world seems to be growing darker by the day, which is perhaps why McCoist has recently been enjoying one of those regular rounds of affection from the football-loving public for his radio shows on talkSPORT and his commentary north and south of the border.
He has the insights of a player who won the European Golden Boot in 1992 and 1993, and won ten league titles in Scotland, but engages people mostly with a warmth that lifts the spirits even when a game is less than gripping.
Typical was his intervention during a recent game between Leeds United and Crystal Palace when, watching Raphinha stand over a free kick, McCoist predicted that the ball would be “whipped in with unbelievable pace” into a dangerous area.
The ball flew straight into the stands. “Well, I didn’t say how high it was going to go,” McCoist added quickly, and you had to laugh along.
McCoist has entertained viewers with his quick wit in his role as a TV pundit
McCoist says that his sons keep him up to speed about how his work is being received on social media and likes to think that he understands at least some of what football supporters want from him.
“The fact that they can tell I’m enjoying it, I think that’s important,” he says. “I hope they can tell that there is someone enjoying his work, as I should be [while] sitting in one of the best seats in the house.”
The rough and tumble of life often forces perspective and McCoist understands where some of his grounding comes from when he starts talking about Mitchell — one of his five sons who will be with him on Christmas Day to open presents while he “tucks into the selection box far too early”.
McCoist was asked in an interview a while ago for his greatest inspiration in life. He thought about his parents, and his late father, who nurtured his love of football, but settled on Mitchell.
One of twins, Mitchell was born with a serious heart defect. Further complications meant that he was in intensive care for most of the first year of his life and endured multiple operations and complications that have left him severely disabled.
“He is 23, which in itself is remarkable. We were told that he would not see anything like 23,” McCoist says. “His twin brother is 6ft 3in, a bustling centre forward. He is very small. The wee man is effectively still in nappies and we feed him through a tube. But he is loved and gives so much love.
“His mum, my ex-wife [Allison], has done a phenomenal job looking after him. Like a lot of kids in his situation they need a bit more care and attention at a time like this [with the pandemic] and she does that in a phenomenal way.
“Mitchell is different and that has a different impact on you. And I would think he has had the same effect on everyone’s life in the family, including his brothers. They absolutely adore him as you would hope and expect. He is a blessing. He has other needs and there is a reality to that.”
What has Mitchell taught him? “I am not a pious character who never makes mistakes. I still wave my fist at someone who cuts me off at the lights, but it’s a beautiful way of bringing you back — a reality check to what is important and what isn’t.
“Losing a goal in the last minute? Important, of course it is, but not really in the grand scheme of things.”
McCoist, right, with his Scottish player of the year award in 1992 alongside manager Smith
NEWS GROUP
McCoist knows how it is to be consumed by football: as a player chasing trophies with Rangers through the glory years, when he became the club’s top scorer, and then as a manager who took on the job in 2011 as it all went very sour, with a financial meltdown that resulted in the club being demoted to the Scottish Third Division.
“A dream job at a nightmare time,” he says. “It would be some book but they wouldn’t believe it. I ended up in the High Court as a witness to the fiasco that was going on around me.
“I don’t regret [taking the job] because it was my club growing up as a boy and I played there for 15 years. In many ways I was masochistically pleased that I was in charge, [working with] Ian Durrant [the first team coach] and people that knew and cared about the club.
“But it was anything but managing. We had four players turn up for pre-season training. Absolutely crazy.
“The hardest thing wasn’t players leaving but people losing jobs who have been there for 20 years, delivering mail and doing things that people take for granted. That was heartbreaking. It was everything to them.”
He has had interviews at several clubs since — Blackburn Rovers, Queens Park Rangers and Sunderland included — but regards at least the latter as a close escape. “Dodging bullets!” he says. “Like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.”
The most recent offers to coach have come up in Scotland but the sack race leaves him thinking that he is better off in the media world, where he is required to have staunch opinions — “and I won’t shirk them” — but, he likes to think, he can also express some understanding of how hard the job can be.
“[Mikel] Arteta [at Arsenal] is an example,” he says. “Six weeks ago, there was an execution squad. Marcelo Bielsa [at Leeds United]. Are we suddenly saying he cannot coach? I just think sometimes people make change for change’s sake.
“The perfect example might be Hibs up here. Last year they finished third in the league behind Celtic and Rangers, which in my book, [is like] they’ve won the league. Semi-final of one cup, lose the final of the other. They go on a poor run, yes, but still got to the League Cup final and Jack Ross is sacked? What are they looking for? They will replace Ross with someone who will be a success if he achieves what Ross achieved.”
He is often pitchside watching his other sons, Alex, Argyll, Arran and Harris — spanning ages 12 to 26, and from two marriages — when he reflects on one of the lessons learnt from the likes of Smith, Jim McLean and Sir Alex Ferguson: that their managerial careers came at the expense of time with family.
So you can see why McCoist is sticking with his role in media and he hopes to be back at work with Amazon Prime next week, bringing his enthusiasm and humour just when it might feel most needed.
“You can’t kid the punters if a game is rubbish but I always hope I can find something magical when I am sitting there on the halfway line looking down on that pitch,” he says. “I just hope we can keep on playing, though Boris might have more on his hands than Brentford against Manchester City by next week.”
● Listen to Ally McCoist on talkSPORT Breakfast, weekdays from 6am
