Russell Martin shares heart warming story of Jimmy Bell joining him in the dignified jacuzzi

Over the last seven years Russell Martin has cherished one special memory of an Ibrox legend.

He never scored a goal, kicked a ball but there is no denying the status and reverence that Jimmy Bell is.

A lifetime was devoted to driving buses and washing y-fronts has created legendary status for someone who wasn’t a vegan, a Buddhist or a member of the Green Party.

You could say that Jimmy was anti-WOKE before WOKE became a thing.

And for that he is adored by Ibrox supporters, more fondly remembered than any of the duds and flops that have played for the Tribute Act set up in 2012 by Charles Green.

The Ibrox PR machine know that they have their work cut out making Martin acceptable to the biggest and most vocal section of their supporters.

On Wednesday, the day before he was announced as Phil Clement’s successor the loyal messengers revealed previously little known stories about what a brilliant manager and player Martin was.

A dozen different tales were revealed, coupled by the standard ‘he spoke very well, I was really impressed  by him’ following Thursday’s media conference the process is well underway to win over the angry bears.

Adding to the campaign the Herald was handed a one-on-one with the bearded sandal-wearer that now occupies the office used by Bill Struth, Jock Wallace and Sir Walter.

Joshua Barrie laid it on thick, opening his Herald story with:

It will be a full-circle moment for Russell Martin when he drives back through the training ground’s blue gates and embraces an old friend and well-known club employee in David Lavery, better known internally as ‘Disco’.

“I said to Disco at the time when I was here as a player, I want to manage this club one day,” Martin says, talking in Ibrox’s Thornton Suite on a busy day after being unveiled as the new Rangers head coach.

“He texted me last night saying, ‘You’ve made it happen, well done, I’m proud of you’. I told him I was really grateful for that.”

That was just the warm up, Barrie was laying it on thick as he recalled this emotionally charged encounter:

When Martin departed Ibrox after an underwhelming loan spell in 2018, few would’ve hastened him back. On his final day, perhaps subconsciously dragging out the final moments as a player of this unique club and sensing it was coming to the end, he describes a scene with the late, and great, Jimmy Bell.

The legendary club kitman, who was so much more than that until his passing in 2022, was the last man in the building alongside Martin that day. Bell brought the teetotal Martin a glass of whisky and told him story after story of what this club, as unrecognisable as it was at that time, could be, should be, one day would be. It is a regret of Martin’s that the pair cannot toast again as new ownership marks welcome new beginnings for this sleeping giant of a club and Martin returns with the responsibility to deliver what Bell worked so hard in service of, making this club winners.

“For the first week or two I didn’t have a clue and Jimmy hardly said a word to me apart from to tell me off about kit and stuff,” Martin says of his relationship with Bell.

“By the end, we got on really well. I was really sad when he passed. My last day at the training ground, he brought in a bottle of whisky and I was in the jacuzzi and I was the last one there.

“He brought in two plastic cups, and I don’t drink, but I felt obligated because it was Jimmy, he’s a Rangers legend. I was already a bit dehydrated, I’d been in the jacuzzi too long.

“He poured me a couple and, as I said, I don’t drink, I felt obligated. He told me so many stories and it was honestly a beautiful moment. I’m really glad I shared that with him.

“I was really grateful at the time because I felt that meant that he’d accepted me. It hadn’t gone well on the pitch, but he understood that I’d tried my very best.”

There you have it. If you share a bottle of whisky in the jacuzzi with Jimmy Bell you must be all right, one of the boys, a proper bear. Which fan is going to call out a man that shared intimate bubbles with Bell?.

He might be a tee-total vegan, a Buddhist and a member of the Green Party but if you have drooled over Bell’s stories  in the Murray Park jacuzzi then you are clearly made of the right stuff.

Further content like this is expected over the coming weeks to ensure that all bears are on board with their new Head Coach even though their anti-WOKE ideology has UEFA watching and listening to the fans in the Copland Stand with a two year suspended sentence in place.

Martin won just two of his last six matches wearing kit washed and ironed by Jimmy Bell with that run including a 4-0 defeat to Celtic at Hampden and a 5-0 title clincher at Celtic Park.