Russell Martin interview: Jimmy Bell and dreaming of role since 2018

“I said to Disco at the time when I was here as a player, I want to manage this club one day,” Martin says, talking in Ibrox’s Thornton Suite on a busy day after being unveiled as the new Rangers head coach.

“He texted me last night saying, ‘You've made it happen, well done, I'm proud of you’. I told him I was really grateful for that.”

Martin returned to Rangers on Thursday, this time as head coach (Image: Steve Welsh/PA Wire)

When Martin departed Ibrox after an underwhelming loan spell in 2018, few would’ve hastened him back. On his final day, perhaps subconsciously dragging out the final moments as a player of this unique club and sensing it was coming to the end, he describes a scene with the late, and great, Jimmy Bell.

The legendary club kitman, who was so much more than that until his passing in 2022, was the last man in the building alongside Martin that day. Bell brought the teetotal Martin a glass of whisky and told him story after story of what this club, as unrecognisable as it was at that time, could be, should be, one day would be. It is a regret of Martin’s that the pair cannot toast again as new ownership marks welcome new beginnings for this sleeping giant of a club and Martin returns with the responsibility to deliver what Bell worked so hard in service of, making this club winners.

“For the first week or two I didn't have a clue and Jimmy hardly said a word to me apart from to tell me off about kit and stuff,” Martin says of his relationship with Bell.

“By the end, we got on really well. I was really sad when he passed. My last day at the training ground, he brought in a bottle of whisky and I was in the jacuzzi and I was the last one there.

“He brought in two plastic cups, and I don't drink, but I felt obligated because it was Jimmy, he's a Rangers legend. I was already a bit dehydrated, I'd been in the jacuzzi too long.

“He poured me a couple and, as I said, I don't drink, I felt obligated. He told me so many stories and it was honestly a beautiful moment. I'm really glad I shared that with him.

“I was really grateful at the time because I felt that meant that he'd accepted me. It hadn't gone well on the pitch, but he understood that I'd tried my very best.”

But as Rangers turn to the former Southampton boss for his blend of authority and a track record of coaching a progressive, modern style of play, Martin comes rebranded and newly modelled. This is not the player, who by his own admission, was more hard work than talent. This is Martin in the role he always wanted to one day assume. As a manager, as a leader.

The legendary Jimmy Bell (Image: SNS Group)

“When I came here, I wanted to stay here as a player for as long as I could,” he adds.

“And then when that became apparent that it wasn't going to happen, the aim was then to try and get back here as a coach or as a manager. And thankfully I've been able to do that.

“[My spell here as a player] is probably one thing I look back on in my career that I'm a bit hurt by it really. That it didn't go as well as I wanted to. And I didn't give a good version of myself on the thing that mattered the most, the pitch.”

So does Martin ‘get it’? Does he understand that this club, in all reality, just means so much more than most? Those conversations with Bell and others, and the exposure to the unique rigours Glasgow provides, will prepare him somewhat for the level of intensity and pressure he has chased after and will now face. He references wearing a cap and glasses to escape the noise and read in the West End during his first spell as a player. But as the main man? Attention will be everywhere he wanders.

Martin is no stranger to, in his words, ‘chaos’. He has spoken openly and candidly about growing up in a home where his father was a domestic abuser and the intensity of that environment set the tone. His relaxed stance and pursuit of a style of football that at points garners such risks is foundationed not only on a desire to create a totally different atmosphere to that of which his father gave him before matches (when his last words were “don’t make a mistake”), but perhaps an ability to take on stress that others who haven’t been through his experiences cannot.

“I think for players, for managers, coaches, leaders, [mental strength] it's everything,” he continues.

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“I think resilience dictates how far you go. I don't think it's talent. As a player you have a level of talent to get to where you get to, then it's about resilience to making a mistake, how you respond to that, how you respond to maybe a crowd not being overly positive towards you, how you respond to a setback, a big defeat or whatever.

“Also, even making a decision in the game as a manaher, you’re making it on your terms and not because you're forced into anything. I think that's so important. think it's what separates the best players from the good ones. There's not a huge gap.

“And then as a coach I think it's everything because the minute I feel under stress or it affects my energy, it’s going to affect everyone. I'm really conscious of that.

“I think that's why I was desperate to be a manager early on because I had so much frustration from my own career. When I sat there as a player and I wanted things done in a certain way, or how I wanted to be treated in a certain way, to be able to go and play on the pitch with clarity.”

Martin is asked about that correlation between what he believes and how his teams play. Because after all, as he has so often referenced, the best managers have teams that represent them, that buy into their worldview and drink the kool-aid served up. Why? The very best leaders are surely the very best at selling a vision.

Martin during his playing spell at Ibrox (Image: SNS Group Paul Devlin)

He continues: “I don't think anything's separate. I think a team is a reflection of the leader, ultimately.

“When you look at Sir Alex's team, they were relentless. They found a way to win all the time. In a different way to, like, Tony Pulis’ team looked like him. It was hard-working, it was gritty, it was resilient.

“And Tony's actually someone I've seen at Southampton training ground a lot, because he lives down here and his grandson plays for the academy. So I enjoyed some real conversations with him. We're very different in terms of how our teams look, but they're reflective of who we are as people, probably.

“And I think I just want my team to be relentless and hard-working and play with courage and almost like I would have wanted to play when I was a player.”

And how does success follow in the high-possession, high-octane style he favours?

He adds: “Trust, clarity, ultimately, so they're not making the game up. So they have freedom in one area to pitch, for sure. But to get there, we have to get there in a certain way that means we can stay there for as long as possible, otherwise the game becomes like basketball.

“I think the less transition you have as manager of this club, the better. [We want to] sustain attacks as much as possible.”

Martin is known for his clear football philosophy (Image: Steve Welsh)

Given the intensity of this place and the frequency of do-or-die games, Martin will not need to wait long to feel the pressure. It will come his way whether he likes it or not. But that buy-in, that passion, can be such a huge, momentous positive if channelled well. He and the club’s new owners inherit a support that has teetered on the brink of dangerous apathy for far too long, with no light at the end of the tunnel. While it is possible, with work required on the squad and the implementation of a new game model likely to take time, that this doesn’t pan out as expected, how many are the possibilities if it does?

“Disco the way he talked about Rangers, he got emotional talking about his football club [back in 2018] and what it meant to him.

“He was sad at that point because it wasn't what it was, and he was desperate for it to be back to where it should be.”

Martin stands now where he wanted to in 2018, leaving the training ground for a final time in a taxi home, a few glasses of whiskey deep. If he is able to provoke tears of the right kind this time around at Ibrox, his name will be immortal.

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