Walter Smith will be forever linked with Dundee United.
Elsewhere, Rangers, Everton and Scotland will dominate conversations but, in Dundee and for United fans, Walter is indelibly associated with Tannadice and the greatest years in the club’s history.
Signed by legendary manager Jerry Kerr in 1966 from Ashfield Juniors in Glasgow, Walter made 183 appearances for the club in a long playing career, with his last appearance in September 1980.
Walter himself would have laid no claim to being other than a journeyman football player – and there’s an iconic picture of him kissing his boot in a rare moment of joyous celebration and surprise after netting one of only three goals he ever scored for United.
But if his playing skills were that of the ordinary player, his coaching skills and motivational abilities were on a superior level and were swiftly utilised by Jim McLean, who gave him a player/coach position in which he flourished.
He was coaching with the Scotland youth set-up at an early age, while he was a coach with Jim, and it became clear to shrewd observers that he would eventually stride out in his own right as a manager.
While he was a player and coach at United, many of a certain age in the Tayside area who did day-release in the various building and other trades at Kingsway Technical College will recall games of head tennis and five-a-side football with Walter.
There was a firm connection with the city and its college through Ian Campbell, who was part of the United coaching staff in the glory years as well as being head of department in PE and striker Kenny Cameron teaching there too.
Walter and some other United players of that era regularly participated in lunchtime football sessions and took the occasional PE class.
Indeed, during his years as Jim McLean’s right hand man, there were regular, hotly contested five-a-side challenges between Walter, Jim and their coaches and the Pittodrie staff under Alex Ferguson as the two clubs emerged as the New Firm to become the main challengers to Celtic and Rangers’ domination of the game.
Walter’s coaching skills and eye for detail became invaluable and they complimented Jim’s forensic football mind perfectly.
Together they forged a fantastic football partnership which saw United win two League Cups and their first ever and only top league title during club’s most successful spell of all time.
He was an integral part of great European occasions too and can be seen looking nonplussed as Roma players vented their anger at he and Jim McLean on the pitch after United’s 1984 defeat in the European Cup semi-final.
That was Walter’s style; to be unflappable and unperturbed, but he was as tough as teak – and that picture spoke a thousand words as Walter left the field unfazed at the histrionics around him.
There’s a great video clip of Walter and another great Dundee United man Archie Knox, who’d also played for the Tangerines in the ’74 Scottish Cup Final, when they were managing at Rangers, taking my old BBC colleague Chick Young to task in the tunnel after he’d ventured a question which neither man liked.
The clip can be watched below… but I should warn you, some of the language is fairly industrial!
In the wake of Walter Smith’s passing, it seems only right to remember this interview with him (and Archie Knox) ripping into Chick Young. pic.twitter.com/p139HUs3MA
— MC (@mockchopped) October 26, 2021
The gruff, threatening growls of two old school football men from Glasgow and Tealing had wee Chick spluttering as they suggested where he could stick his microphone.
Chick was speechless and I’d have been exactly the same in his shoes.
Both were great blokes with a good sense of humour but they took their football very seriously and woe betide you if they had cause to vent their wrath.
Walter’s long and highly successful association with United ended in 1986 when he became assistant manager to Graeme Souness at Rangers before going on to become manager at Ibrox and then at Everton.
After a short spell as assistant at Old Trafford he became Scotland boss in 2004 before another spell as Rangers manager and then finally retiring in 2011.
Las time I was in his company was at the funeral of the late, great Ron Scott of the Sunday Post here in Dundee.
It was fitting to se him back in the city where his stellar football journey in football management began.
We’ll not see his likes again.
