THE Forth Community Centre will officially be renamed in honour of Willie Waddell this weekend after terrific fundraising efforts from Rangers supporters to honour one of the greatest figures in the history of the club.

The ceremony takes place on Saturday and it will be great to see Deedle remembered in this way.

I grew up with him at Rangers. Davie Whyte signed me on an S Form and then Willie signed me on full-time, so I was with him right from the start at Ibrox.

People saw him differently but he was great with me. He was a hard, hard man and he didn’t get on with many people. He probably had more enemies than friends.

But he loved the Rangers and he would do anything to defend the club and make the club successful.

What gave me even more admiration for him was what he did in the aftermath of the Ibrox Disaster.

What he did in those months was remarkable and he totally changed the whole club. That was the kind of man he was, and he will never be forgotten for it at Ibrox.

He made sure every player attended funerals and he put in so much effort. It was a lot for one man to take on, but he did it.

He lead Kilmarnock to the Championship and then came to Rangers and won the Cup Winners’ Cup in Barcelona before he left the manager’s job to big Jock.

Once he went upstairs, he was a hard man to deal with when it came to contracts and he looked after the finances for the club.

It was hard to get a rise out of him anyway and a difficult man to deal with at times. But if you got on with him, he treated you really well.