I wanted to support Rangers and Gio at Aberdeen game, not undermine him – Michael Beale opens up on Ibrox and pub trip
MICHAEL BEALE turned up at Ibrox to support Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
It didn’t cross his mind he could be undermining him.
From posing for pictures with Rangers punters in fan-filled Govan boozers to taking his seat in the directors’ box as a VIP guest of the club.
On a day when the Dutchman in the dugout was fighting to save his job, for some, Beale’s conduct broke one of the unwritten rules of football management.
That’s how some saw it then. How they still see it now. He was even accompanied on the trip by his QPR coach Harry Watling, who has followed him back to Ibrox.
Their views were only confirmed when the 42 year-old was announced as Van Bronckhorst’s successor within weeks of that appearance back in Scotland.
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But when Beale returned to Ibrox last night for his official unveiling, he insisted his critics have got it all wrong.
He said: “It’s disappointing people think that.
“In previous years, Rangers had played Sundays and Thursdays with the Europa League.
“I’d been away a year. My plan was always to come back and do a game as a fan, really.
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“I’d always wanted to come up and watch Rangers as a fan over the years then found myself working here inside. That trip was planned five or six weeks previously. If that’s the perception, I hope Gio doesn’t think that because it certainly wasn’t my intention.
“I just came back to watch the game and see a few people I hadn’t said goodbye to in the community I lived in.”
In fairness to Beale, it seems he would have been unbelievably foolish to have turned up at Ibrox for that Aberdeen game on October 29 — which Rangers won 4-1, by the way — had he thought for one second he was in the frame to take over from Van Bronckhorst within weeks.
And he’s nobody’s fool. He has earned himself a reputation as one of the game’s smart-thinking coaches.
If anything, his appearance at Ibrox was horrendously naive. But that doesn’t make him a bad person.
When it comes to this job he’s just accepted, though, his judgement has to be crystal clear from now on.
So is he ready for the scrutiny he’s going to be under?
Beale said: “I haven’t picked a team yet, I haven’t lost a game and you haven’t written anything nasty about me.
“I get it. It’s a privilege. Where I came from, I didn’t have the big career. I’m a career coach.
“It has taken me 21 years to be sat here in front of you guys at a huge football club.
“I am very fortunate with the upbringing I’ve had in terms of ten years at Chelsea, six at Liverpool and across to Sao Paulo. Those clubs have a lot of pressure as well. But the three-and-a-half years here are the biggest experience for me.
“I was really close to Steven Gerrard and watched everything and took a lot of pressure on myself as well.
“I felt it when things didn’t go well and also felt the elation when it did go well and we won the league.
“I am sure there’s going to be a lot of pressure at different moments and with different games.
“And the expectation is always going to be there so that no matter how well you do, you have to go again.
“What I think will give me a bit of comfort is the clarity and alignment between me and the board and how they want things to go.
“That will give me the strength to make difficult decisions and make them in difficult moments.
“My backroom team have all got roles making sure that I’m the best version of me as well.”
Beale was officially paraded as Rangers manager in the same famous Blue Room that Gerrard stepped into back in May 2018.
Yet his unveiling couldn’t have been more different.
Gerrard was welcomed into Ibrox with thousands of excited supporters packed into Edmiston Drive outside.
The crowd was so big the doors of the stadium had to be swung open to let fans flood inside.
That’s when Gerrard delivered his ‘Let’s go’ message to the Ibrox faithful.
Asked what his own message to an expectant support would be, Beale added: “I haven’t got that slogan — because that slogan was almost genius!
“I don’t even think he thought that out, he just said it!
“But no, I just think the fans are the most important people at this club.
“That’s been shown over the years with the support they have given the club to get back to where we are now.
“This club got back to where it wanted to be — winning the league title and getting into the Champions League.
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“Throw in that the club got into a European final as well, so let’s not make out everything is broken round here.
“Because for me it was broken at other times. This is the time to go forward.”
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