77 days: The Strange Case of Rangers and Paul Ritchie

Paul chose Rangers, yet it was a move that was to turn sour. Fast.

Here in the first instalment of a two-part interview Ritchie takes us inside his dealings with Dick Advocaat and his shockingly ruthless Ibrox exit.

Snubbed for a Champions League qualifier squad, not even worthy of a place on the bench.

Paul Ritchie was only three months into his Rangers career under Dick Advocaat but the fanfare that had greeted his Bosman signing from Hearts had long since faded into silence.

The Scotland defender would soon discover that his absence from the 18-strong travelling party for a vital European clash away to Herfolge BK in the summer of 2000 wasn’t just a settling into a new club blip.

It was the beginning of the end.

Soon the left-sided centre-back who had seemed the perfect fit for a gap in the defence was sold to Manchester City for £500,000.

He was out of Ibrox without playing a competitive game. Gone after just 77 days.

Today, at the age of 47, with the waves crashing on the golden, sandy shore of Oceanside Beach in San Diego behind him when we catch up, Paul is able to reflect calmly on the hand he was dealt back then.

Yet the hurt remains.

He said: “At that point I was upset, I wanted to play.

“I went to have a chat with the manager because I felt I had to. I asked what I had to do to become part of the plans.

“Dick said: ‘You have come from a smaller club and you have to adapt to Rangers. Listen, though, if you want to go then you can go, if you want to stay then stay.’

“I was just in the door and I was being told that? I had only been there three months!

“Two days later he called me in and told me they had an offer from Manchester City and it had been accepted and I could go.

“So it was short and sweet, I felt I was the left-sided option they needed in central defence but clearly he didn’t.”

The strange case of Paul Ritchie and Rangers is built around the desire of former chairman David Murray to show his club could still hold onto its Scottish roots and dominate.

Under Advocaat, the club faced mounting criticism that there was no native tinge to any of the player acquisitions.

With Paul’s contract running down at Hearts and his profile as one of Scotland’s most gifted young defenders Murray, ever the entrepreneur, smelled a deal.

Ritchie reasoned: “The big thing for David Murray was that he had to find Scottish signings because Rangers were getting so much stick for all the foreigners from Holland, Italy and everywhere else in the world.

“I did speak to the manager but I have always felt that I was a chairman signing.

“I think a part of Advocaat liked and admired me as a player but I felt from day one that I was way down the pecking order.

“We had Craig Moore, Lorenzo Amoruso, Tony Vidmar, Sergio Porrini and Scott Wilson and I made it six but those last three were supposed to be moving on.

“I knew I had to bide my time but I wasn’t a kid, I was 24 years old and I had over 150 SPL games under my belt.

“It was an institution, it was different and I loved it but I didn’t think the manager trusted me right from the start.”

Gers’ history is strewn with stories of players who have toiled to make an instant impact at the club.

The Light Blue jersey can feel heavy at first, such are the demands.

Paul knows that was the case with him and he confessed: “I scored an own goal in a pre-season friendly and I struggled in the games, I wasn’t performing well.

“The final straw came early when we faced Herfolge in the Champions League and before we went to Denmark he named the 18 and I wasn’t in it.

“Vidmar, Porrini and Wilson who were all supposed to be on the way out of the club were included.

Paul Ritchie against Ghent (Image: SNS)

“It was harrowing in some ways but within a week I had an offer from the Premiership and Manchester City and Joe Royle wanted me. I wanted to play.

“So I took it, in hindsight, Dick didn’t last much longer than me and Alex McLeish might have been a better fit for me.

“Yet I couldn’t be that player in the shadows and Advocaat made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to play for Rangers.”

Paul had expected a period of adjustment, he knew the move he had craved came with a price – even if he was a free transfer.

He was prepared to wait and to learn but wasn’t ready for the brutal reality of life under Advocaat.

He stressed: “Listen, I had no problem being behind Amoruso and Moore because I felt they were both great defenders.

“The truth is the other three were supposed to be on the outs and I was still behind them.

“That told me something about how the manager regarded me. I questioned whether he ever really wanted me in the first place.

“Was it a test, what he said to me that day and did I fail it? Who knows. Now looking back, maybe I didn’t react in the right way.

“Yet you can go or you can stay if you want, that sort of language when you have just arrived at a club tells you something.”

Ritchie and Rangers was a narrative that had lingered long before the move finally happened.

Paul smiles wryly when he looks back to the battle of ego and wills between owner Murray and Tynecastle powerbroker Chris Robinson who both had their businesses based in Edinburgh.

He insisted: “Looking back, it started way before that deal ever happened between Murray and Robinson.

“Rangers knew I could be got on a Bosman and they tried to buy me but Hearts wouldn’t do it.

“I went to Bolton for six months and I got a lot of stick from Hearts fans for the way I left.

“I tried to explain my feelings in an interview and I said that I felt Rangers and Celtic were two of the biggest clubs in the world.

“I possibly didn’t realise fully the hatred from other clubs for the Old Firm, I had spoken to Kenny Dalglish at Celtic and I was a target for both clubs.

“Yet I loved Hearts and I still do, they are my club. I was just being honest.

“In the end, they got nothing for me and they were spending a lot of money on foreign players and Hearts’ Scottish kids were on four times less than those being brought in from abroad.

“It has always saddened me because I feel if Hearts had invested in what they had in the likes of Gary Naysmith, McCann, Steven Pressley, Colin Cameron, David Weir and myself we could have been something special.

“Rangers brought in that Scottish core of Allan Johnston, Miller, McCann and myself and I thought I would be part of it all but it wasn’t to be.”

These days Paul is technical director of leading Californian youth franchise City Soccer Club in the sunshine city of Carlsbad, San Diego.

He works alongside his Canadian wife Katie, a former top player herself, and has no plans to return to the turmoil of Scottish football in the foreseeable future.

Paul explained: “We have recently got our Green Cards and I just returned from a week’s holiday in Mexico with my wife and our daughter and I am getting better at switching off from the game when I can.

“I am back at it after vacation but I know the lifestyle I have here and that outweighs any opportunities I might get back home.

“I have done things back to front in many ways because I played pro and then I coached pro as an assistant manager in Major League Soccer.

“Now, at 47, I am in the youth game and it has kind of come full circle for me.

“Listen, I do miss the professional side at times because as a youth technical director you face a lot of politics at times and there are drawbacks.

“Yet I need balance in my life, I gave up so much to be a player and now I have a two-year-old girl and she comes first and foremost.

“I need to earn enough to live in California and I have been at this club now for eight years after coming down from Vancouver.

“My wife and I started at a smaller club then moved to City Soccer Club on our first visas and now we have those vital Green Cards.”

From winning the Scottish Cup with Hearts and wrecking Walter Smith’s first Rangers farewell in 1998 to seven Scotland caps and the heartache of injuries that called an early halt to his career.

Paul has gone through so many peaks and troughs, yet that love for the game remains undimmed.

It shines through still when we talk about the prospects he is guiding in California and the impact he can have on their lives.

Every player he nurtures is made to feel special and valued, something he never experienced in those three months at Rangers before he cut his losses and went to Manchester City.

Paul looks back and sighs: “I just decided I wanted to be where someone wanted me.

“Joe Royle and Willie Donnachie at City were honest, they had been to a Bolton match to watch Eidur Gudjohnsen and been impressed by me.

“They say football is a business and I’m proof of that. David Murray got me on a Bosman and sold me for £500,000 less than three months later.

“It hurt me and disappointed me that Hearts got nothing for me.

“Yet Chris Robinson was offered £1m by David Murray a year before that and turned it down which I found very strange.

“At the end of it all, I know that to some people I will always be the guy who spent 77 days at Rangers and never played a competitive game. I am a quiz question.”