Martin Rennie has claimed that he was lined up to replace Ally McCoist as Rangers manager back in 2012, at a time when the club was reeling from being put into administration.
The incumbent Falkirk manager stated that he was identified by US based Bill Miller, who was positioning himself as a preferred bidder for the club, despite only recently arriving in Canada at that time to take the reigns of Vancouver Whitecaps.
As reported by Rangers Review, it quickly became clear to Rennie that all was not as it seems and with the benefit of common sense and self-awareness, he quickly ruled himself out of any potential new regime:
“I also don’t know if they appreciated the magnitude of Rangers and also the Old Firm. I think their thought process was to give you a big enough budget to finish second.”
“I helped them understand that wouldn’t work, it wouldn’t be possible to go in with that vision or plan.”
“They were talking about ‘The Rangers’ and ‘The Celtics’ – things like that.”
“I felt I would have been going in as the face of something not built for success so I decided not to follow through on that one.”
Decade
Even now Martin Rennie is not quite a household name, with respect, and that would have been amplified 10 years earlier. This bemusing story is one of many that is likely to surface over the next few days with the upcoming anniversary of 14th February 2012.
That was the day that would signal a very dark period in the club’s history but thankfully the club is now transformed from the corporate vandalism and neglect of the years that followed.
There will not be too much time spent, from a Rangers perspective, looking back and reflecting on what was, but this story with Miller and Rennie provides a reminder of where Rangers was in 2012.