The Rangers dream ended by ruthless Souness - Stuart Beattie interview

Stuart Beattie would enjoy a meteoric rise from playing boys club football to starring in the Rangers' first team in a matter of months but the arrival of the former Liverpool skipper from Sampdoria brought an end to his dreams of becoming an Ibrox mainstay.

The 18-year-old was signed by Souness' predecessor Jock Wallace in 1985 from under the noses of Celtic.

He recalled: “When I was playing football at under 18s with Ardeer Recreation Boys Club a Celtic scout came along and said they were interested in taking me up to Parkhead. I trained with Celtic for a month and played two games for the youth team. David Hay, who was the manager at the time, took me aside after training one day and said they were interested in signing me but wouldn’t sign me until after the summer.

“The following week I was going for a trial with the Scotland Juvenile team and we were playing Rangers. I was coming back from injury so I was on the bench. Rangers reserve team coach Stan Anderson came into the dressing room and asked the Scotland manager if I could play for Rangers and I said I would.

“I scored a goal against Scotland but tore my ankle ligaments and got carried off. After the game, Stan Anderson came in and said they were interested in taking me to a tournament in Dusseldorf in four weeks’ time and he said if I came up to Ibrox every day I would get treatment for my ankle.

“So I went to Ibrox every day and eventually went to Dusseldorf with the under-18s with the likes of Derek Ferguson and Ian Durrant.

“Jock Wallace had flown over on the Saturday night after the Celtic game earlier that day to watch two games on the Sunday. I played one half-game and got sent off in the second game.

“On Sunday night, the coach John Hagart came up to me and said, ‘The gaffer wants a word with you up in his room.’

“I went up and he offered me a two-year contract. I was on £70 a week but if I got in the first team I’d double my wages. I’d get £100 appearance money and £100 a point. In those days it was two points for a win so potentially you could make £450 a week but at that time Rangers were struggling a bit.”

Signing for Rangers as a teenager is the stuff of dreams for most kids but Beattie admits it’s a moment tinged with deep regret. “Coming back from Dusseldorf, we got the bus back from the airport and my dad was waiting to pick me up in the car,” he recalled.

“The gaffer said, ‘Do you want to go and get your dad?’

“I regret this to this day, I said, ‘No,’ because when I was growing up and playing football, my dad was a drinker and used to go to the Masonic in Stevenston and he’d say, ‘I’ll come and watch you,’ but he wouldn’t turn up to the games.

“My dad was very abusive religion-wise. Anything to do with Celtic or Catholics he was derogatory to them. My younger brother Craig and I rebelled against him so I supported Aberdeen and Craig supported Dundee United to wind him up.

“So when big Jock asked if I wanted to get my dad to watch me signing that’s why I said no but it’s a big regret, I was just a young stupid boy.”

He may not have had the best of relationships with his father but it was a role Wallace filled during his time at Ibrox.

“He was like a father figure,” he said. “As a young boy, it was like your dad. Sometimes at training, he’d walk by you and give you a dig in the chest and say, ‘toughen up and be prepared!’ It was the battle fever stuff. Big Jock spoke to everybody, whether it be the young boys, the reserves, first team.”

It wouldn’t be long before Beattie was treated to a trip to the infamous Gullane Sands where his body would be pushed to the limit.

He recalled: “We’re all sitting on a bus going up to Edinburgh and all the players around about me, Nicky Walker, Ally McCoist and others were saying it’s going to be a nightmare as they’d already experienced it. I’m thinking we were going to a beach to run up dunes, how hard can it be?

“When you get there the dunes were like mountains and then you get into it and, honestly, everybody was sick.

“I couldn’t believe the amount of running we did. You were running up these dunes and basically, you were sinking into your knees. The gaffer was at the top shouting, ‘Go! Go! Go!’ and you had Alex Totten at the bottom trying to push you on. That was the worst ever.

“Pre-season was always a nightmare but after the three weeks, you were feeling really good. I think nowadays that’s what some of the players should be doing.”

As well as brutal pre-season runs, Beattie was subjected to torture on the training ground when the teenager had to go up against the likes of McCoist and Davie Cooper on a daily basis. “When I used to mark McCoist in training it was just a battle, he recalled.

“I’d pull McCoist’s jersey to stop him running as big Jock would tell you and McCoist would elbow you in the face and you’d split a lip or your nose.

“It was like combat stuff. Every game at training Jock expected it to be like a real game. Folk were going off injured when there would be a big game at the weekend but that was his expectations.

“Davie Cooper was a magician. You would want to tie your ankles up in the morning because he would nutmeg you four or five times in training.

“He was the best I’ve ever seen and played against. In training, we used to have reserves versus the first team and he was a total nightmare to play against, he was frightening.”

Beattie would feature alongside McCoist and Cooper when he would make his first team debut against Hibs at Ibrox in October 1985 just seven months after signing from Boys Club football.

It was to be no fairy tale as Rangers would lose 2-1 but it was a day Beattie fondly remembers. “The Friday before the game, I got called into the boot room after training and the gaffer was sitting with Alex Totten. They said I had done really well in the reserves and even though I was a young boy I was good enough and they were going to play me tomorrow.

“This came out of the blue. I was training all week but I hadn’t a clue. He told me this around half 12 and I said, ‘Fuck! Aye brilliant.’

“By the time I got changed and went and got the subway into Glasgow to get the train back to Stevenston, there was the billboard outside with a guy selling the Evening Times. It said there was some Rangers exclusive so I bought it and the headline was ‘BEATTIE MAKES DEBUT.’

“I’m thinking, ‘Christ Almighty!’

“You couldn’t make it up. To be an under-18s player from the end of March to the October and I’m playing with the Rangers first team.

“I remember two bits of the game. I came out to do my warm-up and my stretching and the Copland Road were shouting, ‘Stuart, Stuart, geez a wave!’ “McCoist ran up and said, ‘Give them a wave!’

“I said I thought it was for Stuart Munro and McCoist said, ‘No, it’s for you ya daft bastard!’

“So as soon as I waved the crowd just erupted. The hairs on the back of my neck and my arms stood up.

“I couldn’t believe the pace of the game, it was so fast. Stuart Munro scored an own goal so we were 1-0 down then Colin Harris comes on as a sub and he went through and shot and I tried to block the shot, it hit the top of my foot and spun over Nicky Walker so it was basically an own goal.

“After the game, Nicky said, ‘Did that hit you?’ I said, ‘No,’ I didn’t want to admit it might’ve been my own goal and I’ve never told him to this day!

“I didn’t appreciate playing for Rangers at the time. Now when I think about I think, ‘Wow!’ But back then I hung about with Ian Durrant and Derek Ferguson you had just broken into the first team and I was thinking this was it.

“It didn’t sink in until afterwards. We won the reserve league that year and the Glasgow Cup final so I got a medal and a tankard but when Souness came that all changed.”

The player/manager was busy acquiring some of the biggest names in British football as well as eyeing Doncaster striker Neil Woods who would sign for Rangers in December 1986.

Beattie and Colin Miller were transferred to the South Yorkshire side as part of the deal but it was a move the then 19-year-old defender was reluctant to make only for Souness to force him out the Ibrox exit door. “When Souness came in he only spoke to the first team,” he said. “He would walk by you in the corridors at Ibrox. It’s only four feet wide but he would walk by you in the morning and not acknowledge you and he did that with all the youths and reserves. You don’t treat human beings like that.

“The first I heard about being transferred was when Dave Cusack who was Doncaster manager, came up to watch us in the reserves against Queen’s Park at Lesser Hampden.

“Apparently Souness had given him a list of about 16 names and it was a case of him being able to pick any of them as part of the transfer for Neil Woods. I think they paid 100 grand plus two players.

“Don Mackay, who was the reserve team manager, said to me after the game that there was a guy who wants to sign me. I didn’t know I was up for sale or anything.

“The next day I turned up for training. Souness and Walter Smith called me upstairs and they told me Doncaster had come in for me.

“I said, ‘Where’s Doncaster?’ They told me they were in South Yorkshire in Division 2 and that they wanted to sign me. I said, ‘I’m not interested.’ “Souness said, ‘Well, you’ll be in here three times a day seven days a week training.’

“I’d have been in there 14 hours a day so they basically tried to push me out.

“The writing was on the wall. Souness did say I wouldn’t get a game in the first team for seven or eight years if I stayed.

“When Souness came he obviously changed the philosophy and everything, you had fresh gear every day. When big Jock was there you got your training gear for the full week and after every training session, you’d hang your stuff in a cage and put it in the dryer. There were big massive pipes that were warm and it dried off your gear for the next day. You would go in sometimes and it was brick hard because it was wet then it was dry.

“I went to Doncaster with no boots and in my first training session I was thinking, ‘Where’s my boots?’

“I had to go to a local sports shop and buy boots and I’d leave my training gear on the floor of the dressing room and the boys at Doncaster would say, ‘What are you doing? You need to take that home with you to wash.’

“Neil Woods would’ve thought he had won the lottery leaving Doncaster and joining Rangers.”

Beattie’s time at Doncaster would yield just 29 first-team games before he was forced to retire from the game he loved due to a series of major injuries. He admits it was tough to take. “I had two long spells out,” he explained. “I had one disc out and I was out for eight months then I had another disc out and I was out for six months. I then got a scan and there was a third disc out and the surgeon said to me, ‘This is getting serious now, you’ve had two big discs out and this one now is going to affect your bladder. I’d advise you to quit football professionally because you’re going to end up in a wheelchair.’

(Image: NQ)

“As soon as he said that I’m thinking, ‘Christ! What am I going to do?’

“I went back up to Scotland and did voluntary work in a children’s unit and then in about three months I got a temporary contract before getting a full-time job but I was heartbroken.

“When I got the news I had to quit football, the Doncaster assistant Joe Kinnear wrote to Souness to see if Rangers could give me a testimonial either down in Doncaster or up at Ibrox.

“The Doncaster manager at the time, Dave Mackay then phoned me a couple of weeks later and said, ‘No, Souness said they had too many testimonials on their plate.’”

Beattie would eventually receive a long-awaited benefit match in 1996 when some of Rangers’ Nine-in-a-Row heroes took it upon themselves to recognise one of their own. “I played junior for two or three years but then the disc that came out in 1989 came right out,” he recalled. “I lost all feeling in my left leg and I had to go straight into the Southern General to have an operation. They said I had a 30 per cent chance of being incontinent after the operation so I had to quit football for good.

“Dave McKellar who I used to work with and was the goalkeeper at Rangers previously, contacted John Brown to arrange a testimonial so a Rangers select came down including John McGregor, Archie Knox, Ally McCoist and wee Durranty.

“I had never met John Brown and hadn’t met or spoken to Durranty or McCoist since I left in 87’. I was surprised that McCoist turned up, he was late right enough!

“It raised a couple of thousand pounds so that was good.”

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