The publishers of Ted McMinn’s autobiography came up with a wizard marketing wheeze – a reversible cover that allows it to be displayed from either side. Pick up the book – titled The Tin Man – in Argyll Street Waterstone’s and Ted will be on the front in the CR Smith Rangers shirt. In WH Smith in Derby, however, the other side will be on display. The Tin Man has turned Tin Ram, and is in Autowindscreens white.
It does mean that shorter stop-offs in McMinn’s journeyman career are not referenced. Not his beginnings at his near-enough hometown club, Queen of the South. Not Burnley (where, from my uncle’s seat in the Bob Lord Stand, I once saw him score when visiting my East Lancs cousins). And certainly not his exotic stay with the rojiblancos of Sevilla, where for a season and a half in the mid-1980s he was a pioneering Scottish football export.
McMinn went to Sevilla primarily because his former manager Jock Wallace did. By then Wallace had had his two spells as Rangers manager – the successful 1970s version, when he dragged them out of the nine-in-a-row shadow of the Lisbon Lions, and the 1980s edition, when he managed McMinn.
That second coming turned out to be the archetypal never-go-back scenario. He dragged them back into the shadow, this time of Aberdeen, and got the sack. Booted out of his spiritual home, this Scottish manager of a dinosaur school hardly known for its cosmopolitan tendencies somehow landed the managerial gig at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán. When McMinn was unceremoniously booted out of Ibrox a few months later, Wallace signed him for the peseta equivalent of £200,000.
And so begins the story of a season or two in the sun for two of the unlikeliest tourists ever to put their footballing handbags in the middle of the dance-floor and give it the full ‘Y Viva España’…
This is a preview of Stephen Walsh’s full article, published in Issue 35 of Nutmeg. It includes:
- A chaotic Rangers exit – how McMinn’s time at Ibrox ended after a series of off-field incidents, including a nightclub fight and a confrontation with Graeme Souness.
- Culture clash – why McMinn’s inability to speak Spanish left him isolated, leading to struggles with teammates and fans.
- Wallace’s downfall – how Jock’s old-school Scottish management style clashed with Sevilla’s expectations.
- A father-son bond – how McMinn and Wallace formed a close relationship amid their Spanish misadventures.
- Touching farewell – why a parting gift showed McMinn’s Seville teammates had come to respect him.
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