The team that drinks together, wins together.
Although Richard Gough might credit Ian Durrant with coming up with that motto, it did become synonymous with the Rangers skipper during the Ibrox club’s historic run towards nine in a row. Signed by Graeme Souness from Spurs one year into a tumultuous Ibrox revolution, Gough would go on to lead the club to nine successive league titles while also lifting three Scottish Cups and six League Cups.
And, speaking in the latest episode of our headline making Off the Record podcast, Gough has lifted the lid on the boozy team bonding sessions which underpinned a decade of success - and led to him and his team-mates being banned from the sleepy seaside town after being caught up in a bar brawl with a gang of Hells Angels. Gough said: “If we’d lost a game I would take the boys out. I would say to Walter that we were going out to release some energy, or whatever it was.
“He would give us the day off the next day and say, ‘Just make sure you behave yourselves!’ We used to go to a restaurant called La Parmigiana on Great Western Road and get it shut off for the day. It was brilliant.
“All the foreigners used to come out as well and we would be there from one o’clock in the afternoon. Me, being the captain, had to stay there until two or three o’clock in the morning! That was my duty!
“But we got a lot of issues sorted out, let’s say. Boys who maybe didn’t like each other ended up liking each other, stuff like that. Because people think there are 20 people in a dressing room and you all like each other.
"It’s not normally like that. Everyone is different. But once we were out on the field we were all on the same page.”
In the podcast, Gough recalls one particular incendiary flash point in a St Andrews pub which left the skipper hit with a whopping six grand bar bill - and with some serious explaining to do to manager Walter Smith. He went on: “There was a lot of that.
"We were up in St Andrews and a lot of guys were asking for pictures. But a few of our boys had a bit too much to drink and were maybe hanging about a bit too closely with the guys’ wives or something.
“One guy got a bit upset and he started trying to set about a few of the guys. I just said, ‘Look, we’ve got Mark Hateley here and a few other boys who can handle themselves so you’re going to get beat up here!’. Anyway, it all kicked off and we were banned from staying in St Andrews for a while.
“They were bikers, It was a biker group. So, yeah, it was chaos! We got the bill for about £6,000! Walter came to me and said, ‘There’s a £6,000 bill?’.
“I just said, ‘Yeah, we had a good time up there! They are good memories!”
And Gough believes Smith’s instinctive ability to handle a wide range of characters was essential in keeping Rangers at the top of the Scottish game for so long. He said: “I loved Souness and I still love Souness. He managed to get me to Rangers and had been after me for a long time.
“And I loved the way he managed because he was straight down the line and he treated everyone the same. But as I got older I realised that wasn’t the right way to go about things. Walter was terrific at treating different characters in a different way. He just had a good knack of knowing what to do, especially with McCoist.
“Souness and McCoist definitely had a problem because I think Ally was a wee bit too smartass for him. And Graeme didn’t like that. So they used to butt heads a lot, although they respected each other, they used to butt heads
“Walter knew how to play Coisty perfectly. And Walter used to know how to play a lot of the other characters - Gascoignes and Laudrups - completely differently. Then, when the Italians came, he realised he couldn’t shout at them because that would upset them!
“You could shout at the Scottish boys and be abusive to them but don’t be abusive to the Italian players because you would lose them! Walter understood that. He was very good with that sort of thing.”
Of all the complex personalities making up Smith’s inner sanctum, Paul Gascoigne was to prove a particular challenge. And Gough reveals how he came close to trading blows with the flawed Geordie genius after Gazza had left his team mates in the lurch during a Champions League defeat against Ajax in Amsterdam.
He said: “He got sent off after about 10 minutes or something and we needed about 14 players to play against Ajax at that time, not to be down to 10 men. I couldn’t see him in the dressing room, so I went into the toilets and one of the cubicles was shut and I could hear weeping.
“I just booted the door down and he was crying and feeling sorry for letting everyone down. I gave him what I thought and Walter came in and pulled me away from him, saying: ‘Richard, he’s had a bad time at the weekend.’
“I said to Walter, ‘Why did you play him then?’. He said, ‘When you’re in this position at some time, you’ll understand.’. I had a lot of good chats with Walter.
“From the age of 17 I had a very good relationship with Walter Smith and that continued right to my last club, Everton. He understood me perfectly, and I understood him perfectly as well. It was a very good partnership.”
And Gough looks back on his 11 years at Rangers as the greatest days of his glittering career. He said: “I still watch all the games as I will always be closely connected to the club because that small period of time that I was there was the most successful in the 150 year history of the club.
“I miss Glasgow a lot and every time I come back, people come up to ask for a photo and it triggers memories. It’s 25 years this May since I played for the club, losing the last game against Hearts in the Scottish Cup final.
“I captained Tottenham and Everton, two fantastic football clubs, but the best 11 years of my football career were at Rangers. you had to go out and win every game. I played in front of full houses my whole career at Rangers. It was a great time and I was with very good players.”
READ NEXT
