THERE are very few positives to take from Rangers' disastrous 2014-15 campaign, however, the emergence of Andy Murdoch was a rare ray of light.
The Ayr United midfielder made his first-team debut back in 2013 when he came on as a substitute during a win over East Stirlingshire at Ochilview but it wasn’t until the departure of Ally McCoist that he was catapulted regularly into the engine room.
Murdoch was flung in at the deep end but despite impressing, he couldn’t help get the club back into the Scottish Premiership at the first time of asking. Failure to beat Motherwell in the Playoff final would, ultimately, spell the end of the Paisley youngster’s time at his beloved club.
Interestingly, Murdoch could’ve ended up on the other side of the tracks. He recalled: “I was playing with Everton Boys Club in Paisley and it was a local scout who brought me into Murray Park.
“I was on trial with Rangers and Celtic at the same time. That was interesting. I’d be training with Rangers on a Thursday and playing with Celtic on a Sunday so it was a wee bit strange.
“My mum always found it funny. She would see me in a Rangers strip on a Thursday and I was in a Celtic strip on a Sunday. She thought it was just weird and not right.”
“I trained with Celtic a few times and played with them but I was wanting to sign for Rangers so I didn’t continue the Celtic side of it.”
Despite joining his boyhood heroes, Murdoch admits he struggled initially to adjust to the demands placed upon him: “It took me about six or seven months to get properly used to it.
“I wasn’t really enjoying myself in the first half of my first season but by the second half I got used to it and started settling a bit more.
“Everyone who was there was good. At my Boys Club, there were a few decent players but you could tell the standard was different.
“When you’re a young player at these clubs everyone thinks they’re going to play for Rangers or whatever club it is then suddenly you start realising when it comes to 14s and 15s when you’re getting offered a full-time contract, that maybe everyone isn’t going to be as good as they think.
“You see people realise that and then they need to go on trial elsewhere and find another team. It can work well for them though because it can motivate them in the future.
“I’ve seen a few boys who have been released then gone on to make a career for themselves like Conor McGrandles. He was in the same youth team as me and he’s now at Lincoln City so it’s not the end of the world to be released by a team like Rangers when you’re a young player.”
“I remember getting offered my first full-time contract but I wasn’t sure at the time, because I was born in January. I was a year above so I could go in earlier than everyone else in my team.
“I remember training one night and saying to the boys in my team, ‘I’m going full time, this is my last night training part-time,’ and they were excited for me. Then it was just a different world when you go full-time.”
While off-the-pitch, Rangers were staring into a black hole, Murdoch says the club’s demotion to the Third Division was a blessing for the young players coming through the ranks.
He said: “It was definitely beneficial for myself and a few others at my age because we were training with the first team so it was good in a personal sense but, obviously, it was bad for the club.
“It was an enjoyable season for me that year when Rangers were in the Third Division.
“There was quite a few of us who were promoted into the first team training, Lewis [Macleod], Barrie [McKay], Fraser Aird, Calum Gallagher, Charlie [Telfer] and a few others. It was good to get that experience with older players.”
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Murdoch would make his Rangers bow at the tail end of the 2012/13 campaign when he came on as a late substitute in the aforementioned 4-2 victory over East Stirlingshire.
He says it’s a day he’ll never forget: “I had been on the bench a few times before and hadn’t got on.
“The score was comfortable and then I got put on with Danny Stoney.
“I didn’t know I was coming on but it was enjoyable and a wee bit surreal that I was playing for Rangers.”
Murdoch was making strides on the pitch but the club was a shambles off of it. He recalled: “At the time I didn’t really think about it because I was just wanting to play but I think if I was a bit older I would pay a lot more attention to it.
“When you look back, it was a disaster to be honest, if I was a senior pro I’d be thinking, ‘What’s going on here?’
“I remember the first team would have meetings and the youth team would have meetings. Charles Green would come in and speak to the first team and young players about financial stuff. Us young boys would be like, ‘What are you talking about?’
“You just had to roll with it but it was strange times.”
Murdoch would only feature once in 2013-14, a 20-minute cameo against East Fife.
He admits his lack of game time under Ally McCoist was a frustration: “I went on pre-season with the first-team to America and there were three or four games, I played about 30 minutes so I hadn’t really played any pre-season games and I wasn’t really fit so when I came back.
“I was thinking, ‘I’m a year older now, I probably should be playing games somewhere,’ so I was considering maybe going on loan to try and get games.
“When you train with the first team you always try to do your best and get involved but it doesn’t always happen so I tried to keep my head down and keep working hard.”
Despite the lack of first-team action, Murdoch was part of the successful side who would scoop the Scottish Youth Cup, beating Hearts, who were managed by current first-team boss Robbie Neilson, on penalties.
The 27-year-old says it’s a team that remain close to this day: “It was a brilliant team.
“All the lads were great, I still keep in contact with a few of them.
“We were all pals with each other and we were all decent players, the likes of Calum Gallagher, Charlie Telfer, Craig Halkett. So there were a lot of good players there and it was an enjoyable season that year.”
Murdoch would return to first-team action in February 2015 under interim boss Kenny McDowall and it wouldn’t take him long to get his name on the scoresheet when he unleashed a stunning strike into the top corner against Raith Rovers at Starks Park.
It would be his first and only Rangers goal and he admits seeing the ball nestle into the back of the net was a shock to him: “It was Lee Wallace who played me a ball, I just got it on the turn and shot because it was on.
“I hadn’t really prepared myself to celebrate a goal or anything like that so I wasn’t really sure what to do so I was probably a bit surprised myself that it went in.”
Shortly afterwards, former Light Blues hero Stuart McCall was appointed manager until the end of the season and Murdoch would benefit, becoming an integral part of the Rangers midfield. He said: “I really enjoyed playing for him.
“He put a lot of faith and trust in me. He just said I’d be the base of the midfield with Dean Shiels and Nicky Law doing more attacking stuff so I was grateful for the trust he placed in me.
“Because he played in my position he saw a few similarities so he helped me out at times, always giving me tips and things.”
As Hearts celebrated winning the Championship title, Rangers would navigate the playoffs before coming unstuck in the final against McCall’s former club Motherwell.
Murdoch would feature 10 times at Ibrox including the Playoff matches against Queen of the South, Hibernian and the Steelmen.
He admits it could be a difficult place to play football when things weren’t going their way: “Sometimes you’d be walking out and the stadium would be full and you’d be buzzing just to be playing.
“The Playoff games at Ibrox against Hibs and Motherwell, even though we lost the latter, were brilliant. It was bouncing, the atmosphere was amazing.
“If you started well and got an early goal, it could be so loud, the fans would be buzzing and you’d just feel you could continue scoring and playing well.
“But on the different side of it, which I wasn’t really used tom having only played a handful of games was if you lose the ball and you lose the ball again, the fans get on top of you and you hear the groans.
“There were a few games when you weren’t doing so well and you could definitely hear what fans were thinking. You just have to rise above it and concentrate on the game but you could hear it for sure.”
Rangers' disastrous season would culminate in a Fir Park horror show where Bilel Mohsni would take centre stage. For a 20-year-old Murdoch, it was all a bit surreal: “We had more to lose, the pressure was all on us.
“They came to Ibrox and just sat in, they were good on the counter-attack and had a few fast players on the wings.
“After losing 3-1 in the first game, you’re going to Fir Park chasing from the start so it was hard to come back from that first game.
“At full time, there was just a bit of a melee in the middle.
“I’ve actually played with one of the boys on the Motherwell side. He was talking to me about it and it was just funny hearing the other side of it but at the time you’re thinking, ‘What the fuck is going on?’
“I just remember Bilel coming into the dressing room very angry and everyone just trying to calm him down.
“He just left and went back to France that night.
“He was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, he was so kind to you but if you got on his bad side and he lost his temper that was it. He was gone.
“He was always good with the younger boys, he would always spend time to talk to them so I only have nice things to say about him apart from that one outburst.”
It was a moment of madness that would encapsulate Rangers’ season and spark the beginning of the rebuild that saw Mark Warburton appointed manager.
For Murdoch, despite being named Young Player of the Year, his Ibrox days were numbered.
He said: “He came in like a new manager does and had a look at everyone in pre-season.
“It just didn’t really work out, to be honest. He brought a lot of English boys in from the lower leagues in England, it worked out for the club but didn’t work out for me at the time.”
Murdoch was loaned out to Cowdenbeath at the start of the 2016 campaign and says it was a shock to the system: “Going to Cowdenbeath was definitely an eye-opener but I actually really enjoyed my time there.
“Although I’d have preferred to have played in the Championship on loan at the time I went there and enjoyed it.
“It was good to see a different side to it, within the same year I was playing for Rangers and then I go to play at Cowdenbeath at their stadium and stuff with boys who play part-time.
“I hadn’t been in that environment before. There were guys who work 9 till 5 every day then come to training 7 till 9 Tuesday’s and Thursday’s so it makes you appreciate what you’re got when you’re playing full time at a big club.”
A six-month loan to Queen of the South would follow in January but by that time Murdoch wanted out of Ibrox permanently. He was left bemused by the club’s decision not to release him from his contract: “I just wanted to play by then, I didn’t see a future for me at the club so I just thought it better if I get out.
“I think I could’ve left in the January but Rangers didn’t let me go. I was gutted they didn’t let me go, I didn’t see a reason why.
“I wasn’t playing so why did they not let me go?”
Despite having one year left on his deal Murdoch would depart Rangers in the summer of 2016 when he made the switch to Greenock Morton. Nowadays he plies his trade at Somerset Park for Ian McCall’s Ayr United side.
He would make two trips back to Ibrox as an opposition player, his Morton side would lose 2-1 to the Light Blues in the Scottish Cup in what was the first match following Warburton’s resignation back in February 2017 and he would be on the losing side again when the Honest Men were humbled 4-0 in the League Cup in Steven Gerrard’s first season as boss.
Murdoch knew that night that the Ibrox side were on their way back to the top. He recalled: “It was good to go back. I enjoyed it the first time more than the time I went back with Ayr when we got beat 4-0.
“That was Gerrard’s first season, you could see he had brought in really good players and you could tell they were on the up.
“Last season was a great achievement, it takes a lot to do that. They always looked confident they were going to win every game, they didn’t look like they were going to lose from the get-go.
“Their defending was brilliant with the clean sheets they achieved so both sides of the pitch were doing their jobs.
“This season, if everyone stays fit and healthy then I still think they can win it.”
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