Strachan in the Sunday Herald in Scotland today. Interesting in that he says more funds could be spent by the end of August. The man’s obsessed with ‘yob culture’ - all his interviews are about it. He’s a very complex character, reviled by many Celtic supporters, but I’m a fan of the ginger prick.
By Michael Grant
Gordon Strachan on the media, the fans and whether hes a better manager than Martin ONeill
THERE MUST be more than one Gordon Strachan because the thorny one who could start an argument in an empty room was nowhere to be seen. Almost an hour in his Parkhead office began with him apologising for arriving a few minutes late and ended with him saying sorry again for the tea being served in polystyrene cups. If Strachan can be that courteous to a journalist, given that he finds many in the football media as appealing as something a dog would deposit on the pavement, he would doubtless show good manners to a murderer.
Celtic and Rangers managers tend not to do one-to-one interviews but Strachan has been in the mood to let the drawbridge down. Needless to say it was highly rewarding to spend time in the company of one of football’s more complex and intriguing personalities; witty and challenging in equal measure, but always stimulating. One minute we were comparing the funniest parts of The Simpsons movie, the next disagreeing about whether Scottish football writers had made their minds up about him from the moment he arrived at Celtic in 2005.
Two years later we hardly know him any better, and what little evidence we have is based on the very environment in which he is most guarded and wary: the artificiality of a press conference. His mood can lighten or darken depending on what he is asked. Now and again he shows how much fun he can be. One of the most striking things about Strachan is how readily he laughs.
advertisementSince coming to Celtic he has paid no attention to media coverage of himself or the club. Or so he says. It is one of the oldest lines in the book, but what makes him different from all the other managers who trot it out is that he has never let his guard drop by alluding to something a sports journalist has come out with. He makes a virtue of the fact he has never complained about anything written or said by a reporter since he came to Scotland. How could he, if he never read or listened to it in the first place?
The idea of Strachan avoiding the likes of the Daily Record, Radio Clyde’s phone-in or even BBC Sportscene is interesting because, as his cinema visit to see Homer and Marge proved, he is not the type to cut himself off from popular culture. He turns to the cinema, DVDs and television to give his mind a break from football.
For a man who applies a form of self-censorship in terms of what he reads and watches, namely avoiding coverage of Scottish football, he is highly critical of the way this country perceives itself in the media.
Strachan has spoken before about how pessimistic and critical Scottish society can be and the longer he stays here the more the issue troubles him. A radio presenter’s remark about the Edinburgh Festival, which he visited late last week, epitomised the attitude which depresses him. "There’s no doubt that the scrutiny of football in this part of the world is as intense as anywhere. But I don’t think the negativity is just towards football. As a nation we are very negative. We are a fantastic nation, but so negative.
"Take the Edinburgh Festival. It’s a fantastic thing, it really is. People from all over the world come to our country for it, they love it, they take pictures, they see the type of country we are. And then I hear someone on the radio - I don’t know what it was, one of those nugget ones where the local hero is some joker cracking innuendos from 7 o’clock to 9 - and he’s saying it’s useless and pompous and all the rest. This is a festival everyone wants to go to but over here in Glasgow it’s crap, it’s useless, it’s only for big-headed or pompous people. No!
"If I did read the papers and listen to everyone’s opinions maybe it would bring me down. But because I protect myself and I am quite happy with what I’m doing it’s not a big thing to me. When I do go somewhere else outside Scotland I can pick up a paper. And I can get my news from national television.
“There is a lot that is good about the game in Scotland. There is. But I don’t know if we like the good stuff as a nation. I used to get Scottish papers when I lived in England and I’d think come on, give yourself a shake for Christ’s sake’. It was so negative. Musicians, artists, actors, engineers, scientists: it’s phenomenal what they’ve done as a small nation but that doesn’t get promoted.”
Being an Old Firm manager is not the first job that comes to mind for someone determined to be sunny and upbeat about life. Often Glasgow isn’t about a glass being half full or half empty, but broken and held up as a weapon. Celtic and Rangers, or their supporters at least, are consumed and preoccupied by arguably football’s most powerful rivalry. If Strachan dislikes negativity then surely nothing is more negative than the Old Firm environment and its stew of hatred, bigotry, jealousies and accusations?
On this, his reply is shrewd, careful and - it has to be said - disappointing. “Yeah. I don’t want to get involved in that though. I think there is enough said about it, enough in the papers about it. There are more educated people than me who can deal with that. I know I can do coaching okay, so I will leave it to other people to deal with.”
When he talks to a journalist Strachan feels as though he is in a game laced with tricks, and if the end result is a strong newspaper headline he has fallen for one. That meant he could not be persuaded to go on the record about what he really thought about sectarianism. It was a shame, given how intriguing it would be to hear the views of an intelligent and opinionated outsider on the corrosive effects of life as a prominent Glasgow football personality.
But he did expand a little, referring to the traps into which a Celtic or Rangers figure can fall. He brought up the incident in which John Hartson and Stephen Pearson sang at a supporters’ function in Donegal only to be hurled into controversy because fans shouted IRA slogans in the background. The episode was caught by a mobile phone camera and eventually made the front pages.
To Strachan the specifics of the incident were trivial although useful as a warning of the minefield which surrounds Old Firm people. “These things he lifted his phone are deadly now. Before I came here someone had videoed some of our players singing The Fields of Athenry. I know, everyone knows, that our boys are singing a song and some nugget who has nothing to do with the club shouts out in the background. It was a nothing story that one paper kept going for four days of coverage. These are the last fragments of it sectarianism, hopefully it would be dying, but that just keeps it going.”
Sectarianism co-exists with yob culture in the west of Scotland. It is hard to think of a combination which could be more repellent to Strachan. He is able to live contentedly here because of a lifestyle which limits his exposure to the yobs and neds. He has been with his wife, Lesley, since 1975, and as a couple they wouldn’t exactly give Amy Winehouse and her man a run in the hellraising stakes. The Strachans’ marriage may be the most secure in football; husband and wife, grandparents, and happiest together in their own company. When they go out it may be to an afternoon cinema show rather than nights in pubs or clubs.
Strachan was amused by the idea that a couple of previous incidents - he once chased some youths who were abusive outside a cinema, and got into a verbal altercation with a Rangers supporter at a filling station - have created the impression he does not trust himself to walk the streets of Glasgow. If it seems as though he is lying low, it is only because he and Lesley have always done so.
“Big Alex McLeish tried to describe me as a tea-drinking recluse. I’m not. It’s not like I’ve come to Glasgow and hidden away from the world. I was like that anyway. I never drank on Saturday nights. I never came out with that old line about I always like going out for a quiet meal with my wife’ - which really means you get pissed anyway. I’m not hiding from anything. I hope people don’t think I’m scared to go out in Glasgow: I’m not, far from it. It’s just that I didn’t like going out, full stop.”
After a long overdue hip replacement operation in May his physical fitness is being restored. A diet including porridge and bananas prolonged his playing career to 40 and, now aged 50, he still looks after himself. The heavily-lined face is misleading: he seems better able than most to cope with the stress and relentless demands of managing a major club. Sceptics doubt that he has the inclination to have a long reign at Celtic but he is into his third season and has yet to drop a hint that he sees a leaving date on the horizon. A 12-month rolling contract offers no clues; no chance of giving us a big headline.
He played for Scotland on the night Jock Stein died in Cardiff and had a scare of his own when he collapsed at Coventry’s training ground and panicked that he was having a stroke. It turned out to be a virus and he has been okay ever since. As was shown by his 15-month sabbatical before coming to Celtic he is a rounded character capable of putting football in perspective and losing himself in films or even safari holidays to get a release from it. He can escape the madness.
"I still suffer, don’t get me wrong. I still suffer badly when we don’t get a result. I probably suffer worse than some of those other guys. Some like to go out and have a drink on a Saturday and lose themselves in that for a couple of hours. I can’t. I just sit there and suffer. But in the morning I go: right, here’s what we have to do, bang, bang, bang’ and then I carry on.
“I think I am still in good physical shape to stay on the coaching field. When you start to get overweight and fat, when you can’t get about and you don’t look like you should be out there, that’s when you should get off.”
For two years the bad hip prevented him spending time in the gym but since the operation he has returned. He doesn’t eat junk, doesn’t booze, and doesn’t even play as much golf as he would like. "I love golf, but I don’t play it in the summer because I’ve told the players they cannae play it either. The same with alcohol. If I had been out for a drink the players could sense it one way or another. I cannae do that.
“You have to discipline yourself to lead by example. That’s not a problem for me. It’s not as if I’m desperate for a drink. I can laugh and joke without alcohol.”
He suspects that some of his critics are less inclined to lead such an abstemious existence. Dismissing all websites and newspaper or radio phone-ins may seem arrogant given they are an outlet for legitimate expression and some of it might even be positive or constructive. Well, in theory at least. But to Strachan they are little more than the voice of the yob culture he detests.
“Years ago if you wanted to state an opinion about a football club or its manager you had to have the ability to construct and write a letter. You don’t have to do that now. You could be under the influence of alcohol, drugs, stupidity, lack of intelligence - but if you pick up a phone and shout it someone will put it in print or broadcast it.”
Similarly he is unconcerned by the Celtic supporters’ debate about whether or not he is a better manager than Martin O’Neill. Two title wins, one Scottish Cup and one League Cup and progress to the last 16 of the Champions League were secured by a squad younger and on lower wages than O’Neill’s.
Some supporters cite the team’s lack of entertainment, failed signings such as Thomas Gravesen or Jiri Jarosik, or even his sarcastic attitude to the media. Strachan has in the past alluded to not having “the Irish aspect” that O’Neill did, which meant he would never become as popular at Celtic as his predecessor. Yet criticism of him can be exaggerated and the majority of fans admire and respect him. His public persona is probably too difficult and challenging to unite the support of any club.
"Winning the league and cup and getting to the last 16 in the Champions League was a kind of treble for me because the last 16 far outweighs winning the League Cup. But not even trophies are going to satisfy people. I used to watch the Prime Minister making a decision and most of the country would say that’s a good idea’ but you would always find a backbencher wanting to stick himself in front of the television to criticise.
“We could still do significant deals before this transfer window closes. But in real terms we have spent 4.5 million so far this summer with people coming in or going out. That’s no’ bad considering that Michael Chopra went from Cardiff to Sunderland for 5.5m. But after 4.5m here you get: go on Gordon, get out there and win that Champions League…’”
And guess what? That gave him another laugh.