ON Saturday it will be exactly a year since Ally McCoist rocked Scottish football by handing in his notice as Rangers manager on the morning of a match.
There were chaotic scenes at Palmerston Park, home of Queen of the South, that night as the media scrambled in vain to get a handle on the story.
And as Richard Foster, who played all 90 minutes of the 2-0 loss to Queens, recalled, the players involved in the match were as dazed and confused as anyone.
He had run the gauntlet of disaffected Rangers fans, first while with his son at a Christmas carnival, then at Glasgow’s Clyde Auditorium for An Evening With Al Pacino.
Foster admits: “We didn’t need any telling that we had a lot of bad results last season.
“We had lost to our rivals at the top end, Hearts (twice) and Hibs, and struggled against the likes of Alloa (who knocked Rangers out of the Petrofac Cup and drew twice at Ibrox in the league).
“But the odd thing was that throughout all our troubles, Ally remained the same cheerful self he has always been.
“He would come into training every day with a smile on his face, and leave the same way.
“As players, we knew things must have been getting to breaking point with him.
“When you join Rangers, you know you are signing up for a pressure cooker environment because of the sheer size of the club, the history and how much it means to so many people.
“Sometimes you have to leave, as I did last summer for Ross County, to really appreciate the difference there is from being at Ibrox and at a smaller club where things are less intense.
“But as players we knew all about pressure.
“And by this time last year, many of us had got to the stage where we were steering clear of the newspapers, the radio and the internet for fear of reading of stuff which would be upsetting.
“You would catch it out on the pitch it when we lost, though, and I was unlucky enough to be the target of some nasty stuff when I was out with my son at the carnival something I found completely unacceptable.
“So to be the Rangers manager when things are going wrong, especially in a year when everyone though the club would get promoted, must have been close to unbearable.
“But Ally had not shown any outward signs of the stress he was under, so the resignation itself was a big surprise.
“Especially as it came on the morning of the match. That was very unusual.”
It would be nine more days and one match, a 2-0 home league win against Livingston, before McCoist physically left the club.
Yet as far as Foster was concerned, the real weight would have come off his shoulders the second he tendered his resignation.
“I study psychology at the Open University.
“But even if I hadn’t, I would have known Ally must have been hiding his true feelings from us in order to try and protect us.
“To stay as seemingly happy as he did wasn’t natural.
“Even at the best of times, all of us are going to get out of the wrong side of the bed at some stage and be a bit grumpy.
“When the pressure is on, then something has to give at some point. I don’t know, maybe he had his own way of letting off steam.
“Maybe when he left Murray Park at night, he would go away and explode in private.
“I do believe the guys he had around him, Ian Durrant and Kenny McDowall, would have been a big source of support.
“Likewise, that the difficult bit won’t have been the act of resigning or the days that followed.
“For Ally, it will have been internal wrangling that went into the decision.
“Everyone knows Ally is a real Rangers man, and having survived the crazy times of 2012 when it was ridiculous the things he was being asked to answer to, he will have been desperate to make good on his dream of leading the club right up through the divisions.
“Letting that go won’t have been easy.
“But when he did I am sure there will have been a lot of relief there too.”
With a severance deal having been agreed with Rangers, McCoist is free to manage again and Foster reckons it won’t be long before he is in the dugout again.
“Football is his life so I am sure he will be feeling the itch to get back in amongst by now,” said the Ross County player.
“He has been doing some media work at games since agreeing the settlement, which will have given him the taste for it.
“From the bit of it I have done myself, I know punditry is enjoyable. But it doesn’t give you the same buzz you get from playing and, I am sure, from management.
“Ally had an amazing TV career before he agreed to go to Rangers as assistant to Walter Smith, what with his time at Question of Sport and everything.
“With the love he had for the club, he couldn’t have turned that offer down.
“But I honestly think he would have done better if he had gone off to a small club first and worked his way up.
“He still has time to bounce back, though, and be a success as a coach.”
That’s something 30-year-old Foster harbours ambitions for himself.
“I am pretty busy right now, what with playing for County, which has been great, and doing the Open University course,” he said.
“Long term, though, I do fancy coaching so it is case of making time to get my badges done.
“I wouldn’t put off by the experience Ally had with Rangers, or by any of the struggles my other managers have had.”
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