Craig Moore: Inside the Smith, Advocaat and McLeish eras at Rangers

Here in the first instalment of a two-part interview the tough-tackling former Australian international defender looks back over the peaks and troughs of 12 years in a light blue jersey.

From 9 in a Row to coming through the dark days when many of the Ibrox faithful had given up on him to the joy of a domestic clean sweep in 2003. This is Oz’s story.

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Tutored by Smith, trusted by Advocaat, Treble then trouble with McLeish.

Craig Moore saw it all under three iconic Ibrox managers as he racked up 253 games and 12 major honours across two spells in a light blue jersey.

Back in 1993, in the wake of starring for Australia as they finished fourth on home soil in the Under-20s World Cup, Oz was courted by George Graham’s Arsenal.

He had identical three-year contracts on the table from the Gunners and Gers. He chose Ibrox.

Craig’s national team Head Coach, proud Scot Eddie Thomson who was a close friend of Walter Smith’s, played a major role in that decision.

Yet Moore reveals now that the human touch of master man-manager Smith was also pivotal.

He stressed: “I didn’t see Walter coach so much when I was working under him, even though I know that he was a wonderful operator out on the grass.

“He was the manager when I was with him, very much a great human being who knew how to lead men.

“His office was just off the right when you walked in the main door at Ibrox and each week he would clear his own inner sanctum to allow me, this young kid, to go in there and phone home to Australia.

“He knew how important that was for me because I was so far away from home. I will always remember his small people touches like that.

“I never got on the wrong side of him thankfully because he knew when to set a marker and put his foot down. He pulled you into line pretty quickly.”

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Moore made his breakthrough in a 1994/95 season that, despite winning the league by a commanding 16 points from second-placed Motherwell, could be described as one of transition.

Smith’s side suffered a horror week in the August of that year as they tumbled out of the Champions League in a qualifier against AEK Athens, lost 0-2 in an Old Firm clash with Celtic before crashing out of the League Cup against Falkirk.

Three defeats on the spin, three different competitions, all at Ibrox in the space of seven wretched days. Unheard of.

Against this turbulent backdrop, an 18-year-old Aussie was trying to convince a squad going for their seventh successive title that he belonged in their midst.

Moore reflected: “I am proud to have been part of the Nine, it was an education.

“There was a huge Scottish contingent when I was there first time around. Goram, McCall, Ian Ferguson, Durie, Gough, Durrant, McCoist, Brown, Davie Robertson.

A young Moore celebrates winning the 1996 League Cup (Image: SNS)

“Goughie was an inspirational leader who managed the dressing-room and I learned so much from those players, they were born winners.

“So many of them including Walter had grown up as fans of Rangers too, this was THEIR club.

“They taught me so much going for the Nine, we just always seemed to have the right people on board and the foreigners we signed also bought into the standards.

“Training each day was like an Old Firm game, it was that intense, so competitive.”

Bred as a tough-tackling centre-half at the Australian Institute of Sport, Oz was desperate to make his mark wherever Smith detailed him to play.

He found himself in what became a graveyard shift for other young players like Steven Pressley.

Moore smiled ruefully: “Yep, I played in that hellish place for young players at Ibrox, at right-back with the Enclosure growling at you if you make mistakes.

“Walter knew I was a centre-half but I was coming into a very experienced side.

“I signed on the back of the 1992/93 season when they had gone 44 games unbeaten and almost reached the Champions League Final.

“So I couldn’t dictate where I played, I was a kid coming into a red-hot team and I just leapt at any opportunities I was given.

“Slowly I got more involvement and I would be right-back, midfield, on as a sub anywhere. I scored an early goal up at Aberdeen and I loved it.”

Then it all turned sour. Moore knows now his days of strife and struggle in what can be one of football’s most unforgiving arenas could have been avoided if he’d opened up to the legendary boss he was working under.

Craig’s wife Heather was pregnant and fell ill. Rather than speak to his gaffer, and living in fear of losing his place, the tormented defender chose to bottle up his fears.

He sighed: “Looking back the tough times came for me at Ibrox playing at right-back and to be honest that was on me for not confiding in Walter about some personal issues.

“My wife was pregnant and I was playing in a match against Dundee United, we smacked five past them at Ibrox but me?

“I thought my missus had miscarried but I told no one. I had the worst game of my LIFE.

“I couldn’t pass the ball five yards to another blue shirt, my head was gone.

“I had been in the set-up enough now that the honeymoon period with the fans was officially over.

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“The Bears ripped into me and I think from that game forward many of them thought I just wasn’t good enough for the football club.”

Moore lost his starting slot and he was in a dark place, one that Rangers’ Greatest Ever Goalscorer helped drag him out of.

When fans laud today’s king of the pundits and Ibrox hero Ally McCoist, the unsurpassed feat of 355 goals in 581 games for the club looms large in their memories.

What is buried and forgotten is the day back in 1984 when Gers lost a Scottish Cup quarter-final to Dundee at Ibrox and the crowd turned on one of their own.

As an East Kilbride boy who was fiercely proud of our own hometown hero Coisty, I’ll never forget that day.

At 2-2 Gers had Robert Prytz and Ian Redford, God rest his soul, sent off and the stadium turned toxic.

They knew defeat for the nine men was coming and when it did it wasn’t the manager Jock Wallace who was the scapegoat.

It was the born and bred Gers fan wearing no.9 for his team, the one he loved with all his heart.

The chant started in the Copland Road: “Ally, Ally get tae fuck. Ally get tae fuck.”

It was a shameful moment in my eyes, yet one that in typical fashion McCoist would soon recover from after he rattled a hat-trick in a 3-2 League Cup Final win over Celtic.

So Moore was sharing a dressing-room with a man who knew from his own deeply painful experience what it felt like to be on the outs with a support that can make you or break you.

Craig confessed: “Those next 12 months were really tough for me and I had to keep falling back on the early advice that Ally McCoist gave me.

Ally McCoist and Craig Moore in 1996 (Image: SNS)

“Coisty pulled me one morning before training in those darker days and told me: ‘To be a success at this football club and survive, son, you are going to have to develop a thick skin.’

“He told me he’d had an entire stadium singing: ‘Ally, Ally Get Tae Fuck!’ when he was missing chances early on and he went on to be our greatest ever goalscorer. Think of that.

“He told me I had to keep my head down, work hard and keep the faith knowing that I still had the backing of Walter and Archie Knox and that’s what mattered most.

“As a young boy, though, that was very tough but I had to come through it and have better days in my natural position.

“I’d never take those experiences back, though, because as a young player it’s not about life being great all the time.

“You need to come through the tough times, otherwise you won’t have the 15 years at the top of football that I managed to have.”

Moore bounced back to reach 100 games in his first four-year spell at Rangers but when the 10-in-a-row quest failed in 1998 and Smith bid his first emotional farewell one of the younger members of that band of brothers chose to go with him.

As a national newspaper journalist and a friend of Moore’s back then, that decision always puzzled me.

A new era was beckoning with Dick Advocaat and a fresh start, he was 22 and could be an integral player at the heart of it. Yet he left. Why?

He reasoned: “It was an incredible period under Walter and I only left because I felt that I hadn’t truly established myself as a starting 11 player in that company.

“I felt there was a changing of the guard coming under Dick Advocaat and I should go.

“Walter was such an influence on me back then, even now I feel that his death was a huge loss not just to his family and friends but to the football club.

“He gave me the trust and backed me to be a professional footballer. I will never forget that.”

Craig opted for a departure to English Championship football and Crystal Palace and, at first, he relished the new adventure.

He pointed out: “I had worked with Terry Venables with the Australian National Team when we had horrible failure against Iran in qualifying and failed to make France 98.

“He was at Crystal Palace and I felt it was a great opportunity to test myself in England.

“I did well there but then Palace hit financial troubles and it all turned sour. I scored three goals in my first four games, they thought they’d signed a STRIKER!

“Seriously, I knew that Dick liked me as a player but I’d taken the English option and I had a good relationship with the Palace chairman Mark Goldberg.

“When it all went sideways he told me that if I could get out to do so because they were going to be slashing wages and all sorts.

“I looked up in the stands one day and saw the Rangers scout Ewan Chester there and thought that was interesting.

“Before I knew it, I was back up the road at Rangers again and I went on to enjoy a really good run of football.”

Advocaat was a starkly different character to Smith, the journey to the Nine was one of masterful man-management. That was not Dick’s way.

The Dutchman was a cold-eyed tactician and a tough taskmaster, a coach who like Smith demanded the highest of standards from his players but in a contrasting fashion.

Oz admitted: “Dick was brutal at the start. I remember we were going to pre-season in Florida and Ian Ferguson was already out there on holiday.

“He got Fergie to fly back from Florida to Glasgow to fly back out immediately from Glasgow to Florida with the team!

“He was setting out his stall, letting us know who was in charge.

“I had a moment in a game early in the season in a 2-1 win against Kilmarnock when I made a mistake and he subbed me after 23 minutes.

“He called me into the office on the Monday and we had a Champions League qualifier against FC Haka of Finland looming.

“Dick said: ‘Listen, if that’s what you are going to give me and those are the type of mistakes you are going to make I will go out and buy another central defender. It’s not good enough.’

“I said: ‘No problem, just to let you know you can go out and sign another defender if you want, do what you like on that. I am the one who is going to be playing.’

“He just told me: ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.’ It became a moment of trust and I went on to play perhaps the best football of my career.

“I wasn’t the only one who suffered that way with Dick, Fernando Ricksen got hooked after 22 minutes in an Old Firm game.

“And I remember he did it to Mikey Mols at Ibrox and he had his whole family in the stands! Mikey was fuming but Dick did whatever he needed for a result.”

Craig won two titles under Dick’s guidance and was fascinated to watch how the Dutchman tackled the mission of succeeding Smith.

Moore believes Advocaat faced an unenviable task but it is one that he reckons history should show as mission accomplished.

He stressed: “Rangers needed a figure like Advocaat after Walter. I feel Sir David Murray got that one right.

“The style of football changed but he was a manager who delivered and the fans took to him.

“Dick realised what Rangers are all about, he knew the expectations and the success you must bring. I thought his personality suited the place.

“A lot of people didn’t like Dick because he would look after his first 15 players and there wasn’t much love for the others.

“He saw that as the job of the assistant coaches, he was ruthless that way and focused on those he felt he could rely on.

“For me he softened, and I got to know the person. Don’t forget I also went to Borussia Moenchengladbach and played for him there.

“I got to know Dick not as a friend but as two people who had a good working relationship.

Moore with Dick Advocaat (Image: SNS)

“He was a brilliant tactician who came alive in Europe for me because he was willing to change formations to influence games which I wasn’t used to.

“He’d alter things in-game and some would see this as weakness, because you are bending to the opponent, but I didn’t.

“Dick had the nous and the ability to change and play in a way that we could go on and win.”

When the Dutchman’s influence on his squad began to wane and Martin O’Neill’s Celtic seemed to have his number, change beckoned.

Craig admits now that he harboured some fears for Alex McLeish when he first walked into the marble halls as Advocaat’s successor.

“He said: “I’ll admit now that when Alex came in I wondered if the job might be too big for him.

“He hadn’t been at Rangers as a player or a coach and I think the core players were a big help for him at the start.

“The secret of being a successful coach at Ibrox is knowing who you bring in to keep winning and he did that.

“And I remember some little tactical tweaks with me personally where he would talk to me about the art of defending.

“I was used to winning headers and trying to find midfielders and get us playing again.

“He’d look at game film and pick out instances where I should head it 10/15 yards further in the air and give us a chance to defensively reset. He knew my job.

“He was good with that level of detail and had been a top defender himself.”

These days Moore is busy forging a growing reputation as an agent in the game he loves.

When he takes time to reflect back on his playing days it is generally to use his experiences to help the players and their parents as he guides the talent he nurtures through their own journeys.

When I point out that he is in a privileged position to gauge the impact of three huge figures in Gers’ history he concedes: “There are very few who played significantly under Smith, Advocaat and McLeish. Really only me and Barry Ferguson.

“We had an incredible finish to big Eck’s first full season when we beat Dunfermline 6-1 and won the title on goal difference.

“I remember those last seven games, we knew we were winning the matches but the issue was how many are we scoring?

“Think about that in terms of the mentality that was required, one eye always on the goal difference.

“We gave people grey hair that season but in the end we sent a lot home happy!”

Yet just a year later in the late summer of 2004 McLeish and then club captain Moore were at loggerheads.

Craig had been given the chance to play for Australia in the Olympic Games in Athens and he opted to go, knowing that he would face flak as it meant missing the start of the domestic season with Gers.

McLeish stripped him of the captaincy and Oz admitted: “Some Rangers fans will never forgive me for the Olympics episode and I understand that, it doesn’t affect me now.

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“You have to know the inside story and that is that the club were trying to sell me at the time.

“They were shopping me about a little bit and I had already missed an Olympics Games in 1996 because I broke my foot against Celtic.

“I had the opportunity to do it again in 2004 as an overage player and our upbringing in Australia is different to that of Scotland. It is a massive thing for us.

“I have always been very proud to play for my country, I have done it at 17s and 20s, the Olympics that I took pelters for and at two World Cup Finals in Germany in 2006 and then South Africa in 2010. It meant a lot to me.

“For 12 years I gave 100 per cent every time I played and won 12 honours.

“I feel that I knew when it was the right time to move on, you have to pass on the baton at Rangers.

“I didn’t want to be that guy clinging on by my fingernails.

“I don’t look on the end with Alex and I as a fall-out now and we still talk to this day.

“Listen, I love Rangers and I have an undying passion for this club.

“I just never wanted to hang on in there when deep down I knew I couldn’t help them the way I used to. Fuck that, it’s not me.”