Alex Rae

Alex Rae
Personnel
Surname	Alexander Scott Rae
birthday	September 30, 1969
place of birth	Glasgow ,  Scotland
position	Midfield (central)
Juniors
Years	station
	Glasgow Rangers
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1987-1990	FC Falkirk	83 (20)
1990-1996	Millwall FC	218 (63)
1996-2001	Sunderland AFC	114 (12)
2001-2004	Wolverhampton Wanderers	107 (15)
2004-2006	Glasgow Rangers	34 0(1)
2006-2008	Dundee FC	26 0(3)
2010	Milton Keynes Dons	3 0(0)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
2006-2008	Dundee FC (player-manager)
2009-2010	Milton Keynes Dons (assistant coach)
2010-2011	Notts County (Assistant Coach)
2013	Blackpool FC (assistant coach)
2014	KRC Genk (Assistant Trainer)
2015-2016	FC St. Mirren
1 Only league games are given.

Alexander Scott "Alex" Rae (born September 30, 1969 in Glasgow ) is a former Scottish football player and current coach . The fierce midfielder won the Scottish Championship and the League Cup in 2005, the only two national titles of his career in the service of the Glasgow Rangers . Since 2015 he has been the head coach of the Scottish second division club FC St. Mirren .

Athletic career

Rae was a youth player in the youth division of the Glasgow Rangers. His childhood dream of also becoming part of the professional team of the "Gers", however, initially remained unfulfilled because the then coach Graeme Souness found him not good enough at an early stage and rejected him . Instead, Rae hired himself in the "Junior Leagues" at a club in Bishopbriggs before he moved to the Scottish first division club Falkirk in 1987 . Although he had to start relegation to the second division there at the end of the 1987/88 season, the central midfielder achieved the status of a crowd favorite thanks to his tackling strength and perseverance skills, which ultimately had an impact beyond the Scottish borders.

For 100,000 pounds, he moved in August 1990 to London to Millwall , who had recently relegated from the English top flight. In the six years that he spent at the club in the south-east of the British capital, with a total of 218 league appearances, he was not only a key player and linchpin in the midfield of the "Lions", but also scored 63 goals - a rate of one goal in 3½ games - above-average accuracy in his position. When Millwall FC relegated to the third division in 1996, Rae hired for a transfer fee of one million pounds at Sunderland AFC . Even after the end of his active career, he maintained his high status at Millwall FC, which was expressed, among other things, in the fact that he was treated in the British media in October 2007 as the new coach of his ex-club.

With the "Black Cats" in Sunderland Rae gained his first experience in the Premier League . After two substitutions in the first two games of the season, he was two days before his 27th birthday against Arsenal (0-2) for the first time in the starting line-up in an English top division game, but from then on only remained a substitute player. This was not only followed by the team's sporting relegation to the second division at the end of the 1996/97 season , Rae also had to struggle with setbacks personally. His alcohol problems worsened and had to be treated in rehab - Rae then became a supporter of the Tony Adams-founded charity "Sporting Chance Clinic", which works for alcoholic athletes. After his recovery and promotion to the Premier League in 1999, Rae was back more regularly at Sunderland AFC and although he only made a little more than half of the possible appearances with 44 league games, he was in the starting line-up in 40 games. Since coach Peter Reid planned in 2001 without the now almost 32-year-old Scotsman, who also suffered from knee problems, the club accepted a transfer offer from second division Wolverhampton Wanderers in the amount of 1.2 million pounds.

Rae quickly became an important player in Wolverhampton and especially with the "veteran" Paul Ince , who was signed in 2002 , he formed a powerful midfield, which was a decisive factor for the club's promotion to the Premier League at the end of the 2002/03 season was. Even in the highest English league, Rae kept his personal good form, was the top scorer of his club with eight goals, but could not prevent the "Wolves" from being relegated back to the second-rate Football League Championship as bottom of the table . He then followed the call from his home country, returned to his youth club, Glasgow Rangers, after almost 20 years, and signed a two-year contract there.

After good performance at the beginning, he was out for more than two months with a calf injury that he sustained in the game against Celtic Glasgow , but still made 32 competitive appearances in the 2004/05 season - including on August 10, 2004 in his first European appearance in qualifying for the Champions League against CSKA Moscow . At the end of the season he won both the Scottish Championship and the League Cup after a 5-1 final win against FC Motherwell . With only one goal for Rangers, however, he was not very accurate and in the following 2005/06 season he came to only twelve competitive games, whereupon his stay in Glasgow ended.

Coaching career

Rae switched to coaching on May 24, 2006, although he has not yet finally ended his active career as a player-coach at FC Dundee . He led the Scottish second division club to third place at the end of the 2006/07 season and improved this result by one place the following year. Although he finally hung up his boots from the 2008/09 season and he concentrated on being a coach, his team had a poor start to the season, only ranked eighth early on and on October 20, 2008 Rae received his discharge papers.

In the following years Rae acquired the UEFA coaching license in Sweden and in July 2009 he received an offer from third division team Milton Keynes Dons to act as assistant coach at the side of his former companion Paul Ince. In the first half of 2010 he appeared again as an active player for three games due to injury problems in the club.

In late 2010, he followed Paul Ince to Notts County , where he worked as an assistant coach in the third-rate Football League One . From February 2013 to the end of the 2012/13 season, he was once again assistant coach to Paul Ince at Blackpool FC . In August 2014 he became Alex McLeish's assistant coach at the Belgian first division club KRC Genk . In December 2015 Rae became head coach of the Scottish second division club FC St. Mirren , his engagement there ended in September 2016 after a weak start to the 2016/17 season.

successes

• Scottish Champion : 2005
• Scottish League Cup Winner : 2005

Web links

• Alex Rae in the soccerbase.com database
• Alex Rae in the soccerbase.com database
• Profile page of sporting-heroes.net

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Rae misses out on Millwall job" (Daily Mail)
2. ↑ Player Profile: Alex Rae. In: 4thegame.com. Archived from the original on December 5, 2004 ; accessed on February 8, 2015 . 
3. ↑ "Rangers seal Rae deal" (BBC Sport)
4. ↑ "Dundee sack Rae and seek new boss" (BBC Sport)
5. ^ "Rae of Sunshine" (Herald Scotland)
6. ↑ "Ince makes his mark as assistant is named" (miltonkeynes.co.uk)