Loyal Beale justifies pub visits and Ibrox appearance to undermine van Bronckhorst

Micky Beale is disappointed if anyone thinks that his appearance at the October match against Hearts was designed to undermine Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

With QPR losing to Birmingham on a Friday night their manager decided to make a high profile visit to Glasgow rather than watch one of his next opponents in the English Championship. Aberdeen host the Ibrox Tribute Act on December 20, Beale’s second game in charge.

Before the match Beale posed for pictures with fans in The Lounden Tavern and Grapes Bar then greeted Connor Goldson like a long long bruvva in the Directors Box.

Van Bronckhorst was under huge pressure at the time following five successive defeats in the Champions League but pulled off a 4-1 win over Aberdeen.

Within a month Beale was taking training at Murray Park appointing his coaching staff and planning for the transfer window.

Straight away people were putting two and two together about Beale’s ‘fan trip’ but the rookie boss insists that it his visit was all perfectly innocent.

Answering the suggestions put to him by The Sun he replied:

It’s disappointing people think that. In previous years, Rangers had played Sundays and Thursdays with the Europa League.

I’d been away a year. My plan was always to come back and do a game as a fan, really.

I’d always wanted to come up and watch Rangers as a fan over the years then found myself working here inside. That trip was planned five or six weeks previously. If that’s the perception, I hope Gio doesn’t think that because it certainly wasn’t my intention.

I just came back to watch the game and see a few people I hadn’t said goodbye to in the community I lived in.

Beale could have revisited his beloved community last season to catch up on old times, the Thursday and Sunday schedules cleared the decks for the former Aston Villa first team coach to visit pubs he’d never been near while officially on the Ibrox payroll.