Giovanni van Bronckhorst has paid tribute to Rangers legend Jimmy Bell.
The Dutchman returned to Ibrox this week after being named as Steven Gerrard’s successor at Rangers.
And the 46-year-old has been reunited with Bell, the long-serving kitman.
He has been an ever-present figure at the Gers for the past 30 years, meaning that his time overlaps with Van Bronckhorst’s spell as a player in Glasgow.
Here’s what the newly-appointed Rangers boss said about Bell via the club’s official website.
He said: “Jimmy Bell is a special person, in the first days of my time here at Rangers, I couldn’t have met a [better] true Scotsman from the beginning. It was very difficult for me to understand him but, for me, he is one of the pillars of what the Rangers identity is.
“So it is good to see that Jimmy has been with the club for many years and I am looking forward to seeing him again.
“I probably will understand him a bit better than my first time.”
Going nowhere
When it was announced last season that Jim McAllister would be joining Rangers, there was a little concern for whether Bell would continue at Ibrox.
But here is what the light Blues tweeted out at the time.
This is a man who is very much part of the furniture at Ibrox and Van Bronckhorst’s description of him being ‘special’ rings true.
Bell has seen his fair share managers come and go in Glasgow down the decades and it’ll be fascinating to see how successful the Dutchman is when all is said and done.
Gerrard, his predecessor, only won the one domestic trophy out of a possible nine in Scotland and Van Bronckhorst will be expected to better that going forward.
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