I'm the Rangers boss who had just nine players on first day of pre season – we beat Celtic but it still ended in tears

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21-06-2025

Russell Martin will get his first look at his new Rangers squad when they report back for pre-season training next Monday.
Whatever he thinks of the group of players left behind by Philippe Clement, at least he'll have enough to fill a starting XI.
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That's certainly more than could be said for Mark Warburton when he rocked up at Auchenhowie for his first day as Ibrox gaffer.
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Sunday past marked 10 years since the Englishman shook hands on the deal that would see him become just the 14th man to occupy the manager's office at Ibrox.
If you'd lined up the 13 bosses who came before him, that would still have been four more than the number of players the former Brentford gaffer found waiting for him in the first-team dressing room.
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But it was upon that blank canvas that Warburton began drawing up his plan to finally restore Rangers to Scottish football's top flight after four bleak years in the lower leagues.
In the end, his blueprint for success would be shredded by the relentless green-and-white winning machine constructed across the city by Brendan Rodgers before a bizarre fall-out with Dave King ended his time in Glasgow.
But for a short spell, the Light Blue legions really did look upon Warburton as the man to make their club great again.
In the first of Record Sport's exclusive two-part sit down with the former Ibrox gaffer to mark a decade since his appointment, he details:
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How he arrived to find a squad down to the barebones.
The pressure that was piled on his shoulders as he was tasked with answering the Ibrox board's non-negotiable demand for promotion
And how Old Firm joy at Hampden gave way to Scottish Cup Final agony.
Warburton certainly wasn't short on offers when the opportunity to talk with Rangers came up.
A former City trader, he walked away from the world of finance aged 40 to pursue his dream of a career in football.
And his stock was soaring after an 18-month stint in charge of Brentford that very nearly saw the Bees reach the Premier League's land of milk and honey.
But it was at the suggestion of his assistant boss Davie Weir that the then 52-year accepted an offer to talk with Gers chairman King.
'I had a couple of really good offers from really big clubs,' he said. 'But Davie said, 'There's interest from Rangers, we should talk'.
Rangers manager Mark Warburton gets in the spirit of things on armed forces day at Ibrox -Credit:2016 Willie Vass
'At that time, Rangers were where they were but Davie insisted it was worth the conversation - 'It's Rangers!' So we had a meeting in London and that's where it started.'
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It might have been Rangers, but not as three-time SPL winner Weir had known them. The club was on its knees, still trying to recover from years of financial recklessness and a failed promotion push the season before.
Warburton, though, could see the potential to build a team in his own image.
'If I'm right in the numbers the chairman had just released 13 players,' said Warburton. 'So, the first day we walked in, we literally had nine players. That was it.
'I was thankful to have the likes of Kenny Miller and Lee Wallace but there was only seven more!
'Even on the first day I had to ask for one of the academy lads to come over so we could at least play five-a-sides.
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'I was told there wasn't anybody good enough but there was this one lad who hadn't done well enough on loan and was heading out the door. His name was Barrie McKay.
'He comes over and within five minutes Davie and I are looking at each other asking, 'How is this kid not in the first-team?''
McKay would go on to become a mainstay of the promotion-winning team Warburton built in rapid fashion.
For the rest, he would dip into the list of contacts he'd built up during his days as a youth coach at Watford and while working with the NextGen Series.
Former Newcastle kids James Tavernier and Martyn Waghorn arrived alongside Wigan defender Rob Kiernan. Danny Wilson returned to the club he'd spent his academy days at, as did Andy Halliday.
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'The loan market I knew really well so was aware of guys like Dom Ball and Gedion Zelalem,' said Warbs. 'It was really, 'Just go get a squad together as quick as you can'.
'Of course, we could pay a lot more compared to the other clubs in the division.
'But still, it was nowhere near the level of pay that the English Championship could offer, so it was a real struggle to get the likes of Tav, Waghorn and Rob to come up.
'I had to really convince them to come by telling them about the size of the club, the expectation levels, the huge fan base and what it means to wear that Rangers jersey.'
The new recruits weren't the only ones have having to deal with the strain of feeding the Ibrox fanbase's hunger for success.
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'Well, there was no question of promotion,' recalled Warburton. "We had to get the team back up to the Premiership. Promotion was a non-negotiable.'
Ex-Rangers chairman Dave King
Things, though, could not have got off to a better start as Warbs' new-look side put on a stylish show in the campaign curtain-raiser, a 6-2 Challenge Cup win over Hibs at Easter Road.
'Things really did fall into place quickly. We had a great start. We were playing in such a brave way and the fans really bought into it.'
It was that afternoon that the travelling Ibrox fans first aired their Magic Hat ditty in tribute to the Londoner.
He'd go on to conjure up the prize the the board demanded of him, winning the Championship with an 11-point cushion.
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But he very nearly provided an additional silver-lining that no-one saw coming when Gers were drawn to face Celtic in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup.
Despite being up a Parkhead side that were miles and millions in front, Warburton took the bold decision to instruct his second-tier outfit to go toe-to-toe with the Premiership champions in a Hampden thriller.
'It was my first Old Firm game and I looked on it as a privilege to be involved in that,' he said looking back on Gers penalty triumph after a breathless 2-2 draw.
'We stayed in Mar Hall the night before the game and I'm looking around at all these young boys in our team. None of them had played in a game like this.
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'I was looking for signs of nerves but all I saw was an absolute excitement for the game. They just couldn't wait to get to Hampden. That was really pleasing.
'From my background in the city, you look at certain situations and weight up the probabilities of situations. It occurred to me that it would be very difficult for Celtic to do anything other than underestimate us.
'They came in as Scottish champions. They had a midfield of Callum McGregor, Scott Brown, Stuart Armstrong, Tom Rogic.
'They would expect us to try to shut up shop, to change our style and go more defensive. I just thought the best thing we could do is the opposite and really have a go.
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'From the first passage of play, we showed our intention. It sounds corny, but I just thought we deserved to win. It wasn't a lucky win.
'Of course, Patrick Roberts should have scored that big chance but I do think Celtic were surprised by the way we attacked the game and were even dominant for spells.'
Victory was sealed when Rogic ballooned his decisive spot-kick.
Celtic's Tom Rogic misses his penalty during the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final match against Rangers
But as his players raced off in wild celebration, Warburton paused to think of the man standing in the opposite dugout.
He said: 'Of course your first thought is what it means for the blue side of Glasgow.
'But then a second later I had a thought for Ronny Deila.
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'I knew the amount of crap he was getting at that time, and what he was dealing with. Some of it I thought was outrageous. He'd won the title but the abuse he got was shocking.
'I just remember thinking, 'Wow, what's he going to face now?'
'But of course personally, you can't not enjoy moments like that. It was a great day.'
From that soaring high came the bitterest of lows in the final against Hibs.
With a 2-1 leading heading into the final 10 minutes, Warburton's side contrived to let the Cup slip as David Gray's winner ended 114 years of Leith longing.
While Gers had been given a three-week break after rounding off their league campaign, Alan Stubbs team were kept battle-hardened as they fought their way through to the play-off final.
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'We had injuries, and I think there's only four outfielders on the bench. That played a part of course,' added Warburton.
'But in terms of self reflection, the three-week break between our last league game and the final killed us.
'We just couldn't find a game. All the other British teams were were away on holiday, so we just couldn't find a first team to play.
'In the end, we had to go down to London and play Tottenham's kids.
'I've thought back to that period so many times and asked, 'could we have done it differently?'
'On the day itself, we didn't start well and had to come back from losing an early goal.
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'But when Andy Halliday scored to put us ahead, I thought, 'Well, we've got through it'.
'It was a hot day, we looked tired. 'Let's just get through it and get it won'.
'But then what happened happened. To lose a cup final in the last minute was devastating.'
*Read part two of our exclusive interview tomorrow, as Warburton remembers the infamous 'Going for 55' display and the moment he knew he was in trouble at Ibrox.