Mark Warburton has gone from city trader to saving fallen giants Rangers... 'It amazes me that clubs scrimp on staff, then pay players £12,000 a week' says the Ibrox boss

• Rangers top the Scottish Championship with 12 wins from 13 games
• Mark Warburton, the club's first English manager, took charge in summer
• Former Brentford boss is keen to build something 'very special' at Ibrox
• Warburton was convinced to take charge after his son showed him a video of the famous atmosphere created by the Scottish giant's supporters 

By Ian Ladyman for the Daily Mail

Published: 17:30 EST, 18 November 2015 | Updated: 08:15 EST, 19 November 2015

Three months into the season and Rangers supporters are already thankful for the first Englishman to manage their club. Top of the Scottish Championship with 12 wins from 13 games, the fallen club appear to have been set firmly on an upward trajectory by Mark Warburton.

What the 45,000 who still pack into Ibrox every other Saturday probably do not realise, however, is that they perhaps owe a debt of gratitude to Warburton's son, too.

Without time spent watching young James in the Watford youth set-up 10 years ago, Warburton may never have made the remarkable transition from City trader to football manager. That in itself is a remarkable story.

Mark Warburton became the first Englishman to manager Rangers and has made an impressive start

Warburton's remarkable rise from city trader to football manager has seen him arrive at one of Britain's giants

Rangers have won 12 of their 13 Scottish Championship games this season under Warburton's stewardship

Earlier this year, meanwhile, it was footage James dragged from the internet that persuaded his dad that Rangers was the right place to resurrect a coaching career derailed so unjustly at Brentford last season.

'I have never been to an Old Firm game,' Warburton told Sportsmail, 'but when I was thinking about the job my son showed me something on YouTube. Rangers fans singing their song at a Celtic match. James just said, "Dad, look at this. You have to go there". I had met with Rangers once already and was thinking things through but all the things in my head were moved to one side when I saw this footage.'

Warburton, 53, is an analytical man. He would not have taken this job had his own research not told him Rangers were no longer the basketcase club of recent years.

Sometimes, though, emotional buttons need to be pressed, too.

'I had already had my appetite whetted from the interview,' he recalled, 'but the video blew me away. It was the nudge I needed.'

Warburton was convinced of the move after his son showed him a video of the unbelievable Ibrox atmosphere

We meet on a foul winter's day at Rangers' Murray Park training complex. Warburton's greeting is warm, though. He is impeccably mannered. Already the restructuring job has been significant. Sixteen players left when last season ended in a play-off final defeat but this is how Warburton likes it. A blank canvas.

Here, he has a chance to implement ideas that first came to him as he worked the trading floors of banks in London, America and Asia and were then developed at Watford's youth academy and subsequently at first-team level at Brentford.

The west London club seemed set fair for a crack at promotion to the Barclays Premier League last season. For a while they were the good-news story of the English campaign. Subsequently, however, differences between Warburton and owner Matthew Benham saw the man who had taken the club from League One to the brink of the top division become surplus to requirements.

Certainly there is scope for bitterness. Warburton had previously been Brentford's sporting director and much of what the club has now is down to him.

'Yeah, it was frustrating,' he said. 'We really could have built from there. So it was a great shame but it happens. I'm not bitter.

'You just have to learn from it and be better for it. Everyone told me to take six months off but I am not made that way. This is perfect for me here.'

Warburton left Brentford at the end of the last season following difference with Bees owner Matthew Benham

Warburton was advised to take six months off after leaving Brentford but admits Rangers if perfect for him

Warburton brought his assistant, David Weir — a former Rangers captain — with him from Brentford and then former Liverpool academy director Frank McParland.

'We had to look right through the club and make sure we have the best guys to enable the players to learn and thrive,' he said.

'There were some really good people here but the club has had some terrible times and resources had been cut right back. So it was time to start again and I like that.

'It amazes me that clubs will scrimp and save on a staff position — pay someone £25,000 a year —but will put a player on 12 grand a week.

'That player is depending on the support network to develop so why not spend on them, too? It worked very well at Brentford where we had a great back-up team. So we took staff from there. We had the best kitman in the division but we didn't bring him because they have a great one here. Jimmy Bell has been here for years and is a legend. Top drawer.'

Warburton took former Rangers captain David Weir (left) and Frank McParland (centre) with him to Glasgow

After some torrid recent times — financial irregularities saw Rangers enter administration in 2012 and start again in the fourth tier — this great club are inching forward again.

Rangers have a new board and, though complications remain, Warburton believes he can take the club back into the Champions League.

Some things do not change, mind, whatever the circumstances. On Warburton's desk are the Scottish daily newspapers.

'It's amazing,' he smiled. 'There are 14 or 15 pages every day. That mirrors the expectation. But I like that.

'Someone said on my first day here that if we were playing Barcelona the next day at Ibrox then the fans would expect to win. They can be booed off at half-time even if it's 1-0, even though they will be cheered back on again.

'This club has been at its lowest ebb and is on its way back now. The task was not so much getting new players right for the level but right for the ideas we want to get across.

After financial irregularities saw Rangers start again in Division Three in 2012, the club now appear on the up

'Another tip I have had from a friend up here was to never under-estimate Scottish football. The players always give 100 per cent.

'Down south you will get the odd player who may slack. Not up here. They may lack in terms of technical areas or in terms of the depth of the squad but they don't in desire.

'We play in front of 50,000 at Ibrox one Saturday and then just a few thousand somewhere else. You need players who can handle it.

'I have taken some players I know from England and then I have tapped up the local market. They have the desire and hunger.

'It's up to the football department to perform in such a way as to bring the whole club back into line.

'So there is your responsibility, we say. Now relish it and enjoy it and lets build something very special.'

Warburton is keen to build something 'special' as the club looks to return to the summit of Scottish football

There have not been many occasions when Warburton has regretted leaving a very well-paid trading job with the Royal Bank of Scotland for the even more unpredictable world of professional football.

Changing a spare tyre on a minibus in the rain on the hard shoulder of the M25 eight or nine years ago certainly came close, though.

Warburton left a very well-paid job in the city before making his way up the managerial football ladder

'I would have taken this, definitely,' he smiled, looking out of his office window on to immaculate Rangers training pitches.

'But I do get frustrated when people paint a rosy picture of leaving the City and doing a few exams and then finding yourself in full-time football.

'It didn't work that way. It was a massive risk and probably wasn't very realistic of me. I started right at the bottom at Watford, coaching kids, pumping up footballs and filling the minibus up.

'Sean Dyche (Burnley manager) was a youth-team coach with me and we were ferrying boys around and across London for two hours and back.

'Stuck on the M25 for hours... sorting out a flat. It was hard work. Nothing romantic about it.'

Warburton began his own playing career as a trainee full back at Leicester City but spent his senior days in non-league with Boreham Wood and Enfield.

His subsequent days in the City made him financially comfortable but the itch that was his desire to become a coach was never fully scratched.

'My son, James, was a young player at Watford,' he recalled. 'I was working in the City but I was always there watching him.

'I got talking to one of the coaches and told him my background and he asked me to come and coach one of the teams. That was where it really started.

Warburton and current Burnley boss Sean Dyche would ferry boys across London during their time at Watford

'Wherever I worked in the City — Carolina, Chicago or Asia — I always coached, whether it was a girls' team or a university team or whatever. But I suddenly realised that I needed my badges so I came back home and did them.

'I had a senior position on the RBS trading desk, doing my badges and doing coaching. It was a huge demand on the family. Long hours — getting home at 10.30pm and up at 4.30am — but I had no choice.

'I didn't have the playing career to fall back on and open doors. I would be at my desk by 10 to six every morning. I would leave at a quarter to five, get to Baker Street and head out to Watford.

'I would do a session from seven until 10 then get home, have a bit of dinner and go to bed. Same again the next day.

'As you can imagine, my brownie points at home were at an all-time low but luckily it got noticed by Aidy Boothroyd (then Watford's manager) and he offered me full-time.

'That was a risk. It was decision time. Big pay cut. If you are doing well in a job with a six-figure salary and six-figure bonuses then it's hard to leave, but I had to do it. It was what I wanted.'

Warburton worked tirelessly - coaching after leaving the office - and was given his chance by Aidy Boothroyd

Asked what his target was when taking his leap into football's unknown, Warburton apologised for being vague.

'You have to have a target that's here (raises his hand) but aim to go in there (lowers hand),' he said. 'Ultimately, though, I knew I wanted to work at a high level of the game in some capacity.'

It is clear that Warburton has a passion for building football clubs, for structures and for root-and-branch long-term planning.

Against that background, it is easy to understand how, at Watford, he progressed to academy manager. A diversion to set up the now defunct NextGen European youth series in 2010 played to the innovator in him but it was a subsequent post as sporting director at Brentford that saw that familiar itch return.

'This sounds disrespectful but it turned out I couldn't just be a coach,' he said. 'Not being able to implement change would have frustrated me. I couldn't be satisfied with a job where my impact would have been so limited.

'I like the opportunity to build something so at least I know that if it doesn't work I could put my hand up and walk away.

'At Brentford as sporting director I worked with (manager) Uwe Rosler and we would speak 10 times a day. I could see we had something and loved building it.

'The problem was that then I wanted to manage. There was this big ache inside — I was thinking, "I would pick him, I would play him." That's when I knew.'

Warburton was sporting director at Brentford but soon discovered an ache to become a manager himself

Almost two years on from his appointment as manager at Brentford, Warburton has managed 97 games. His win rate is an impressive 60 per cent but not so long ago he expressed a concern that his lack of experience could still work against him.

'I have done nothing compared to some of the really top English managers like Sam Allardyce, Alan Pardew,' he said. 'These guys are steeped in the game. So some will still see me as a gamble, but I can't help that.

'What I really enjoy is seeing players responding to the environment I try to create here.

'The world has definitely changed. What worked for a player 20 years ago has now gone. 

'Academies are producing players who want to ask questions. The days of "Drink that, it's good for you" have gone. Now it's "What am I drinking? What's the fat content?" and rightly so.

Warburton insists he has not achieved as much as long-serving bosses Sam Allardyce (left) and Alan Pardew

'I have no problem with a player knocking on my door and saying, "That session was poor" but if he's ever rude to me then it will never happen again.

'You can try to earn respect through fear and trepidation, your achievements as a manager or through the environment you provide. For me, it's the latter.

'You have to understand what makes players tick individually.

'I was on a course recently and we spoke about the number of foreign players who say they find the foul language in English football really offensive.

'It's not directed to them but nevertheless they find it offensive. So how does that impact on them?

'It's about understanding, about communicating and delivering. From that point of view, it's not that much different from the City.'

This weekend Rangers are at Livingston, whose last home game attracted 957 people. Glamorous it is not but Warburton and his players can only keep their eyes on a bigger prize.

'In my first week here I was told, "Don't go here, don't go there, don't do this, don't speak to them" but everyone has been fantastic,' he said.

'There is some banter but very welcoming. Following your club is not cheap. So what can we control? Work ethic, commitment.

Used to playing for 45,000 fans, Warburton and his side will expect to face Livingston in front of less than 1,000

'The fans turn up and you may lose but if you have grafted and been committed then the fans will have that. The key point was to show them we are hungry — and use the media to get that across. All these pages there, use them. David Weir was captain in a UEFA Cup final not long ago — 300,000 fans went to Manchester. That's what they remember here. 

'I told the players early, !There is the fanbase, this is what they expect, this is what we can do to get them onside".'

It seems a reasonable starting place for a season that so far includes only one stain on a 100 per cent league record. 

Rangers supporters packed out Manchester when the Ibrox club reached the UEFA Cup final back in 2008

Ex-Rangers defender Weir gestures during the UEFA Cup final defeat by Zenit St Petersburg seven years ago

And if all else fails, there is always that video. 'Oh yeah, I showed it to the players,' he said. 'The likes of Andy Halliday, born 200 yards from Ibrox, know all about it but all the boys coming in from down south, its different for them.

'So we put it on the big screen, turned it up to full volume and then you see it. It's just magnificent.

'I showed them pre-season and I will still keep showing them. This is what it's about to be a Rangers player. This is what we are here for.'

Local lad Andy Halliday realises the size of Rangers but Warburton has been keen to show the rest of the team

Comments (50)

Share what you think

• Newest
• Oldest
• Best rated
• Worst rated

 View all

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

 View all

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

Add your comment

Enter your comment

By posting your comment you agree to our house rules.

Submit Comment Clear

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now