iain-king.com

In the wake of that AEK Athens defeat I got the break I wanted. French international defender Basile Boli, a Champions League winner with Marseille a year earlier, was puzzled by the team's tactics and wanted to speak exclusively about his struggles to settle in Glasgow.

I scented a scoop and agreed with Basile that we would meet at his plush lodge at the Cameron House Hotel on the banks of Loch Lomond where Rangers lodged their foreign stars when they signed.

Lunch together the next day saw Boli lay into Smith's tactics, bemoaning the fact he was playing out of position and describing 6ft 4ins new striker signing Duncan Ferguson as  "the tallest left winger in European football".

He even criticised the culture at the club where he had to wear a collar and tie into the training ground in what became a scathing rant.

In an era when no-one in the Rangers dressing-room broke ranks I knew I had an exclusive that would make the front page never mind the back.

 

 

Back at the office I transcribed the quotes, wrote the back page news story and the in-depth interview then started thinking of Ken Gallacher's advice.

I decided if he had this interview he would print and be damned just like I knew I had to, my duty was to my then employers The Sunday Mail not Rangers Football Club.

My mistake was not having the nous or in all honesty the courage to call Smith before publication and let him know what had been said.

He almost choked on his cornflakes that Sunday morning, I looked at my mobile phone and by 10am I had five missed calls from him.

When I took a brave pill and agreed to come into Ibrox to speak with the raging Rangers manager it was a chastening experience.

He was seething, not at the fact I had written the story but at my lack of courtesy and respect not letting him know before the Boli bombshell hit the streets of football-mad Glasgow.

I was banished from the inner circle of trusted journalists, a fate that makes life hugely difficult in the vicious battle for newspaper sales in my homeland.

I was 27 when I wrote that Basile Boli exclusive and in my first Chief Football Writer post.

By the time I came off the road as a reporter after the World Cup Final in Germany in 2006 Gers boss Smith was a friend and mentor in what was then a fledgling coaching career.

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I look back now and feel the vital lesson I learned in the fall-out of the Boli exclusive stood me in good stead in the 21 years at the sharp end of Scottish sports journalism that followed.

As a writer I came to respect my privileged position and nurtured a contacts book that would bring three successive Scottish Sports News Writer of the Year awards.

My promotion to Head of Sport at the Scottish Sun meant I took a back seat from writing as I helped to design a top-selling sports section and build what I feel was the best team of reporters in the country.

For a kid from the Murray in East Kilbride to report on two World Cup Finals, two European Championships, the Open golf, so many boxing world title fights? It was a dream come true.

The highlight? Too many to mention but my favourite interview was a three-part exclusive with former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world Iron Mike Tyson.

We spoke about so much that day, his love of the history of the Sweet Science, his lost fortune, the evil influence of infamous boxing promoter Don King.

Most of all I was fascinated by how his coach Cus d'Amato constructed and inspired him as a fighter.

Whether it was coaching or lecturing journalism at the University of West of Scotland - a post I hugely enjoyed for two years - that process fascinated me.

I also knew deep down that, for all I had enjoyed newspaper management, it was the creative joy of writing that still inspired me.

The blog you read on this site is a result of that. No pay cheque, no editor screaming for copy on deadline.

Every month I just want to flip open the laptop and write about what's happening in my new coaching life in Canada or give my take on the issues affecting The Beautiful Game that has dominated my life.

And also just to smile every now and then at our glories and our flaws.

During that Tyson interview I asked the once feared gladiator of the prize ring a key question, it was gnawing at me.

"Mike," I said taking a deep breath for courage.

"I have to ask you how did you manage to blow $300million?"

Then for everyone who has watched The Hangover movies he gave me the classic answer of my reporting career.

"You know, Iain, I really don't know. I just bought tigers and shit!"

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* KEEP a look out for the blog Turnin' Over a New Maple Leaf. I'll be posting one every month on iain-king.com.

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