Smith: I burst out laughing when Tommy fell asleep during my Scots team talk

May 17 2008 By Hugh Keevins

WALTER SMITH was at the emotional height of his team talk to a Scotland side 
facing a makeor-break qualifier against Norway for a place at the 2006 World 
Cup when he noticed he had lost one man's attention.

Tommy Burns, his assistant with the national side, had fallen fast asleep in 
the front row as he was exhorting his players to give a last lung-bursting 
effort in the interests of national pride.

And yesterday the Rangers boss laughed affectionately at the memory of the 
moment Burns confirmed his reputation for eccentricity.

There was also the time he left important team charts, detailing the way the 
national side should shape up at set-pieces, under a bed at the team's hotel 
at Loch Lomond.

And his refusal to take life too seriously saw him play a practical joke on 
Celtic players by leaving the dressing room with his belongings after 
telling them he'd accepted Smith's offer to join him and Ally McCoist at 
Ibrox.

The loss of the man who knew football wasn't a matter of life or death has 
affected Smith as deeply as anyone and probably more so because he and Burns 
were Old Firmrivals during a trying time in Celtic's history.

He said: "Rangers were going for nine in a row to equal Celtic's proud 
distinction when Tommy took charge in 1994. It was a difficult time to be an 
Old Firm manager.

"One of us was trying to achieve something that would spoil a record and the 
other one was trying to prevent it from happening.

"It was a tough time, work-wise, but I don't think anyone could have handled 
it better from Celtic's point of view than Tommy.

"There was a season when he lost just one league match and still didn't 
break our sequence of title wins. It was a remarkable achievement and no one 
could have asked for more.

"But we were both up against a unique situation neither of us could control 
and Tommy got the sack. We were a team on a mission and he was a victim."

It was that parting of the ways with Celtic that led Burns, by a circuitous 
route from Newcastle through Reading and back to Celtic Park again, to the 
time when the SFA asked him to work with Smith in the Scotland set-up.

Smith said: "I asked him to stay on when his time working with Berti Vogts 
came to an end.

"I remember Billy Stark, his former assistant at Celtic, saying to me, 'Do 
you know what you're taking on here?'

"What he meant was there was a delightfully harum-scarum side to Tommy's 
personality, which I found out in Oslo as we prepared for a World Cup 
qualifier with Norway.

"I was delivering what I could only describe as my state of the nation 
address to the players when I spotted Tommy fast asleep.

"I had to stop and I burst out laughing when I saw him. I recall saying, 'Is 
my team talk that boring?' "Tommy replied, 'Yes'.

"But I got off lightly compared to Berti. I was told Tommy left team charts 
under the bed in his hotel room at Loch Lomond and only realised when he got 
to Hampden. Wee Berti was prowling around looking for them and shouting 
while Tommy was organising a taxi to retrieve the documents.

"Tommy had a serious side to him when it came to football but he knew how to 
have a laugh.

"That's why, when I left the Scotland job to go back to Rangers with Ally, 
he played a practical joke on the Celtic lads.

"He went into the dressing room with a holdall and told them he had a 
sensational offer to go to Rangers with me and was going to accept.

"Tommy left and the players' jaws were still on their chests when he went 
back in wreathed in smiles."

Smith's comic interlude came with a lengthy tribute to the family man he had 
come to know and who won his unconditional respect.

He said: "I count myself very fortunate to have have had the opportunity to 
work with Tommy. I got to know him well and this is a sad time for me.

"He was one of the best people I'd ever had the chance to work with because 
he was a good man with a nice manner. The more I got to know him, the more I 
liked him for his good humour and his sincerity.

"His death is a sad loss for everybody and my thoughts are with his wife 
Rosemary at this time."

Burns, like McCoist, rose above the Old Firm rivalry by winning the respect 
of both sets of fans.

Smith had a theory about that. He said: "Rangers fans respect a true 
Celticman and vice versa. Tommy was Celtic through and through and didn't 
hide what he was.

"He had a dignified regard for Rangers at the same time and our fans gave 
him back their respect.

"There were few who epitomised Celtic better than Tommy and, for me, he 
showed everything that was good about the club."

The words of kindness should be memorised by supporters who will regard what 
happens next in the title race as a matter of life or death.

Smith knows, in spite of the importance of the coming week to him on a 
personal basis, that is simply not the case.