ALEX'S STORY

ALEX RAE was ready to relax in the sun and enjoy the good life after the end came for him at Rangers last season.

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ALEX RAE was ready to relax in the sun and enjoy the good life after the end came for him at Rangers last season.

He told me: “I’d started to visit our family home in Portugal on a regular basis over a three-month period.

“I wasn’t in need of being on my own or anything like that. I had simply reached a stage in life, in my 50s, when I wanted to appreciate the finer things in life.

“I was actually at the top of a 10-foot-high ladder while trimming a hedge when Willo telephoned me about joining him at Firhill.

“I’d always been impressed by him as a person when we worked on the radio.

“I was so taken by the idea of a new challenge that I accepted his offer without even asking about personal terms, length of contract or anything else.

“And I’d never even climbed off the ladder during our discussions.”

There were times in the Superscoreboard studio, before Alex joined Philippe Clement on the front line at Ibrox, when a pen would occasionally fly through the air and the rest of us would duck to avoid it.