Richard Gough reveals the Dundee United chat with Walter Smith that saved his career after military plan
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With a haul of 19 trophies stockpiled over two decades, Richard Gough’s career came stamped with a shimmering silver lining. The sergeant major who led Rangers to nine-in-row under Walter Smith and a Scotland colossus with 61 caps, Gough was hardly a low-profile contributor to the game in this country. But up until now, only a handful of people had any idea just how close he came to throwing it all away before it had even begun during one of his first heart-to-hearts with the man who would later become his Ibrox mentor.
Speaking in the latest episode of our Off the Record podcast , Gough reveals how, as a homesick teenager in Jim McLean’s Tayside boot camp, he confided in Smith he had decided to hang up his boots for good and return to South Africa to embark on a career in the military. It was December. In Dundee. And a baby-faced Gough found himself scraping the mud off Dundee United’s first-team bus with freezing fingers as part of his duties as a youngster in McLean’s notoriously hard-knock school.
“It’s a good analogy – a sliding doors moment – because it really was,” Gough nodded as he recalled the moment he decided a future in football was simply not for him.
He went on: “When I was in my first year at Dundee United I went to see Walter Smith. I was cleaning the bus. I was 18 or 19 years old and it was Christmas time and I thought to myself, ‘I’ve had enough of this!’.
“So I went to see Walter Smith and said, ‘I’m retiring!’. He looked at me and said, ‘How can you retire, you’re only 18-years-old?’. Wee Jim McLean stopped me leaving but I just got on the plane the next day down to Johannesburg.
“Wee Jim was phoning my father every day saying, ‘Listen Mr Gough, I believe your