Ian Durrant: Fresh start at Murray Park has helped Rangers on the road to recovery

Ian Durrant has helped write several chapters in the Rangers story. As a player, he was a nine-in-a-row legend and an Ibrox hero before he added more medals to his collection as part of Walter Smith’s management team during a successful spell in the dugout.

Through the good times and the bad, the highs and the lows, the 49-year-old has seen it all. The tough times make you appreciate the good ones that bit more.

Recent years haven’t made for pleasant reading for supporters, but Durrant remains one of the key protagonists in Light Blue. He is content in the present and confident for the future.

Where once the discussions behind the crested gates of Auchenhowie centred on finances and off-field drama as a series of characters came and went, it is football chat that reverberates through the corridors these days.

It is a sign for Durrant that Rangers are back on the right track, the focus fixed to where it should be as the club look to return to the levels they are accustomed to.

The arrival of Mark Warburton and the signing of a host of new players has brought a fresh feel to Murray Park, while the Ibrox crowd has been reinvigorated by the style of their side and a string of eye-catching performances.

The results have been impressive and encouraging, the steps forward positive for Durrant as Rangers continue to stride along the road to recovery.

“It is a proper place to come into work now,” he told SportTimes.

“Before, you were scared to stop at a garage and see a paper because everything had nothing to do with sport.

“It was this was going to happen, that was going to happen. For years, there was no focus on football.

“Now, we have got a good environment and we are trying to be the best we can be.

“The players try and do the best they can but it does affect you, it affects everything. It affects you when you go home, your family, there were boys wondering if they were going to be in a job.

“You can only come in and do your job. A lot of it was putting a brave face on, but it did affect everybody. If you have a happy environment at your work, you will be your best.

“It is a learning process now. The manager and players have come in and there is a freshness because there is a new start. The whole place needed it.

“We have heard the word ‘cleansing’ being used. Now it is an environment that Rangers should be. It is a breath of fresh air coming here now.”

The outlook may be brighter for Rangers, but the turmoil of recent years remains fresh in the memory. The trials and tribulations now serve to inspire, though.

Durrant has gone from the Champions League to the Under-20 side at Murray Park in the space of a few seasons but he is relishing his role in Warburton’s blueprint.

The pain and frustration of the last few campaigns have not diminished his enthusiasm, nor his love for the club he is eager to see back where they feel they belong.

“It makes you more determined,” Durrant said. “We had a great level of success and then, all of a sudden, it was taken away from us for one reason or another, a lot of which had nothing to do with football.

“When you are in football, that hunger can’t leave you. You need that desire to improve and I have always had that.

“I remember Graeme Souness saying that every day was a learning day. You learn something different, something new every day.

“If you are involved in football, you need to want to be the best you can. If you don’t have that, you are not in the game and you are not doing your job.

“At Rangers, you need that motivation, there is the psychological challenge of playing for this club. You need to be fully charged.

“I put big demands on the young players, the manager puts big demands on the first team.

“He says every day to be the best you can be today. If you do, nobody will have any complaints.”

If Rangers are to reach the levels they aspire to once again, the work of Durrant could be crucial in making the dream become a reality.

His Under-20 squad is the final stop off point for kids that progress through the Murray Park ranks. The next step, the scores of players and Durrant hopes, is into Warburton’s plans.

The former Gers midfielder is determined to progress the careers of those under his tutelage. He is unsure what next move is and whether he will ever take the step into management, though.

“I had a couple of opportunities a couple of years ago but, since then, it has dried up,” Durrant said.

“The job chances become far lesser as you get older. I am in a good place just now.

“To be fair, you are a coach more than a manager now, even at first team level.

“I have maybe missed the boat in terms of being a manager. I am enjoying it here and long may that continue.

“I never say never. I would love to say I could stay here for 20 years and be even older and greyer than I am just now. You never know what is round the corner."