But what legacy did Dick leave Rangers in his time as Director of Football before leaving to manage the Orange nation steer them to the European Championships and get roundly booed by the Dutch fans during Euro 2004.
Well if you believe Murray, Dick was instrumental in the appointment of Alex McLeish as manager; maybe he was getting his own back after getting the bullet upstairs!
Also he was allegedly the architect behind Murray Park. Laughingly, the Club’s website says about Murray Park “the training ground has already helped nurture top team talent like Stephen Hughes, Bob Malcolm, Mo Ross and Alan McGregor.” It fails to mention that none of them ever established themselves as top team players and with exception of Boab, all have left the Club!
During Dick’s 11 month reign as Director of Football he was linked with almost every job in football before finally taking the Dutch job and this speculation was of more interest to the press than Alex McLeish!
David Murray wasted another full 11 month’s salary on a Dutchman who had lost the support of the fans, spent millions on transfers on legends such as Marcus Gayle, Tore Andre Flo and Bert Konterman and also lived rent free in a £430,000 house in Newton Mearns which was bought and decorated for him to use by the Club!
Why then the prolonging of the sacking of Alex McLeish?
Timing, well maybe, but is Big Eck’s heart really going to be in it when we travel to Porto for our biggest game of the season knowing he’s going?
Money, I doubt it, as many people forget Murray assets are estimated by the Sunday Times Rich list in 2004 to be £450 Million, that’s right £450 Million! He can well afford to terminate McLeish, Wouters and Watson’s contracts come to think of it he could do Lovenkrands, Bernard etc. ad nauseam. As a point of interest in 2003 the Sunday Times estimated he was worth £267 million. Only a £183 million increase in one year!
Loss of face, well the fans think Eck should go, the majority of the press think Eck should go, privately some players will admit that Eck should go but Father Tommy Burns doesn’t! Surprising Sellick fan Tommy doesn’t think he should go isn’t it! I don’t believe for one minute that Murray gives a toss what people think of him, you don’t get to be as rich as him if you do!
The dithering in the termination of Eck’s contract is doing us no good at all. The shuffling of him into another part of the Club would only be an embarrassment for Rangers and if McLeish was a man he would tell Murray to stick it up his backside.
We must terminate his contract now and he must leave now and a position should not be created to accommodate him.
At the moment there are still some fans that have respect for Eck’s trophy haul and the history books will show he has won seven trophies. The memories of the debacle of Eck’s teams and signings will also fade and there may come a time when people start to believe Olivier Bernard wasn’t that bad a fullback! No, well some older bears think fondly of Craig Patterson at Centre Half!
Move Eck sideways into a new position and I believe any good memories of Eck will be tainted. Stop Dicking about David its time for a clean break!
MR GEE