Blew me away- Barry Ferguson on his life changing meeting with Proper Manager Clement

Barry Ferguson had the pleasure of a 20 minute meeting with Philippe Clement and was left blown away by the former Monaco boss.

Alongside Ian Durrant the former Alloa boss was invited on the La Manga trip to provide some staunchness for the corporate bears that were kept at arms length from the current squad.

Based in a run of the mill hotel and cycling to training every day Clement’s squad were spared the worst excesses of the fat cats as they laid siege on the buffet facilities and kept the bar staff busy long into the night.

That aspect of the trip has been left to social media to comment on despite several legacy reporters being on the trip.

Ferguson’s invite was to spread good news to Go Radio and the Daily Record while fans wait around for new signings and the dream of Lawrence Shankland arriving from Hearts.

Fergie doesn’t need much encouragement to drool over the Tribute Act, in classic fashion he shares the good news with the Record‘s ageing Army of Readers:

There are some people in life who you meet one minute and instantly forget about the next. And there are others who leave a lasting impression.

It’s hard to put into words – they just have that aura about them – and, in my experience, these people don’t come around all that often. But let’s just say, I caught up with one of them the other day. I was over at the Rangers training camp in La Manga last week and I had the pleasure of bumping into Philippe Clement at the team hotel after dinner last Saturday night.

It was the first time I’ve had the chance to introduce myself to the manager since his appointment and I’m certainly not going to go into any detail about what was discussed over those 20 minutes or so. It was a good chat about football and life in Scotland in general.

But what I will say is I walked away from that conversation with a smile on my face because it confirmed to me what I had already suspected just by watching on from afar.

Trust me when I say it, this guy really gets what Rangers are all about. And I can think of no bigger compliment to pay him. He’s a straight talking man who doesn’t use big words or any fancy dan phrases.

He’s just a down to earth football man who understands what it means to be in charge of this club and the demands that come with the job. Most of all, he realises that the key to life as the Rangers manager is to be a winner.

I’ll be honest here, I’m not easily impressed. But I walked away thinking to myself, ‘That’s one impressive individual – this guy really does get what it’s all about!’.

I’ve also met more than a few managers in my time. Some good. Some others not so much. So I know a proper one when I see one. He fully understands the club, the demands and the expectations. And I was left with the feeling that my old club is in really good hands.

The line of a ‘proper manager’ seems almost compulsory to use in relation to Clement, it suggests that from Coisty and Warbo through to Micky Beale the club had been managed by counterfeit bosses.