Scotland legend Ally McCoist has revealed how Sir Alex Ferguson’s decision to reject him as a teenager at St Mirren in 1978 ultimately proved a useful learning experience he then used himself as a manager at Rangers.
Ferguson had released a teenage McCoist at St Mirren for being too small. While devastated, he never forgot how the future Aberdeen and Manchester United boss broke the news gently, encouraging the budding striker to prove him wrong by becoming a success elsewhere.
“I took that message with me so much that I used to say the same to boys I released when I was manager of Rangers,” McCoist tells FourFourTwo about his three-year spell from 2011.
Sir Alex Ferguson taught Ally McCoist important lesson
“That was the most unpleasant part of the job by a country mile, having to sit across the table from a young fella and say, ‘We’re not offering you a contract’. I would echo Fergie: ‘Wherever you go, nothing will give me more satisfaction than if you come back and prove me wrong’.”
How would Ferguson’s career have gone, if he’d actually signed McCoist?
“Before Scotland’s Euro 2024 opener against Germany this summer, I was at this big charity dinner with Fergie – another party before the tournament started, as usual!” McCoist says. “I was interviewing him and said, ‘Gaffer, when you first started out as a manager, you went to St Mirren and failed to sign a future double European Golden Boot winner – but to be fair to you, you didn’t half recover from that mistake!’
“He then went into a 15-minute rant where he destroyed me! He handled his career very well and I don’t think it would have diverted too much if he’d signed me at St Mirren – I think he’d have probably got over that as well!”
McCoist, meanwhile, managed to get over the disappointment of being rejected by Ferguson to excel at St Johnstone. But while a move to Sunderland in the early 80s didn’t quite go to plan, he returned to Scotland, this time with Rangers, in 1983 and went on to plunder 355 goals in 581 appearances.
McCoist’s goalscoring prowess saw him earn the European Golden Boot for the two consecutive season tallies of 34 he managed in the 1991/92 and 1992/93 seasons.