The dog days of autumn seem like a lifetime ago, Jack Butland even managing a smile when reminded of the time the Rangers fan vented at him outside Ibrox following a 3-1 loss to Aberdeen in the Scottish Premiership in September.
All captured on camera phone, of course. All very intense.
Butland’s face was a study in contrition. That defeat by the Dons followed on from a pummelling by PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League, a loss to Celtic and a debut that brought a defeat by Kilmarnock. It’s not how he imagined it would be.
He tells a story about joining Rangers and playing in Allan McGregor’s testimonial against Newcastle United at a packed Ibrox last summer. He thought he knew what the club was about, but that day was a bit of an education.
He looked around the stadium and saw the love the fans had for his predecessor. It was powerful and he wanted a piece of it for himself.
“I was thinking, ‘that could be me’. You know what I mean? ‘You could have a bit of that’,” Butland says.
What he got in his early months was a bit of something else. A bit of team confusion and fan fury. A bit of the other side of life in Glasgow when you are dominated and ridiculed by them.
“As a group, we were scrambling,” the 30-year-old recalls of the days under Michael Beale.
“We weren’t in a good spot. It wasn’t going to plan, it wasn’t right. We were running down a cul-de-sac into a dead-end. It didn’t feel like we were getting to where we needed to get to.”
Things have turned in a major way. A trophy in the bag, top of the league, European knockouts to come, tremendous personal form, talk of an England recall and the kind of consistency he has not found since his best days at Stoke City in the Premier League.
Philippe Clement’s arrival as manager was the turning point. It was like a fog lifted and things became clear again.
Winning the League Cup was a seismic moment because it was the first time Butland had ever won anything.
“It was just relief and an overload of emotion that I’d finally got one,” he says.
His two young sons were there to see it. “A special, special day.”
Butland gives little away about his manager but says the Belgian is all about clarity, focus and relentlessness.
“People see him as this big, bad character,” he explains. “He’s not, but he could be if he wanted to be. He’s the big, bad wolf with the media, but he has us in a really confident place.
“Tactically, there are things that he’s been drip-feeding into us all along about how he wants us to play. It’s about being efficient, about creating chances, getting that ball forward effectively and being extremely difficult to break down.”
No bunting at the Auchenhowie training ground when they took over from Celtic at the top of the league then?
“No,” he smiles. “It was the boring cliche – one game at a time. That’s the way it’s been since the manager came in. It’s bred into the lads now. It’s just next game, next game, next game. You’ve no time to breathe.”
In the January transfer window, there was an approach from a Premier League club, which was welcome in the sense that it told Butland that people are noticing him outside of Scotland – but it was a move that was never going to happen.
No temptation?
“None,” he says. “There’s a feeling and a connection here that I haven’t felt at a club for a long time. You don’t give that up easily.
“The eight months I’ve spent here have been a really, really special period in my career. This goes to the top [in terms of happiness] because it’s almost like a reward for the perseverance and patience I showed.”
His story begins as a kid at Birmingham City, where for season 2009-10 he occasionally shared a training pitch with Joe Hart – six years his senior – who was on loan from Manchester City.
Butland wants to say nice things about the current number one with title rivals Celtic, but he laughs at how they might go down.
“As much as I love the guy, he’s on the other side right now,” he says. “He was the England goalkeeper and I thought, ‘I’ve got to be this guy’.
“Joe is someone I looked up to but targeted at the same time. Ultimately, he was where I wanted to be. He certainly was a role model for me throughout my career, someone who I respect greatly.”
Hart returned to Manchester and became England’s number one. Butland moved on to Stoke then joined him in the national set-up. He went to Euro 2012 and was first-choice with Team GB at the London Olympics the same summer.
In August that year, he made his full England debut in a 2-1 win over Italy at the age of 19. He was the 107th man to play in goal for his country and, by 46 days, the youngest.
Great claims were made for Butland in those days, but life didn’t work out that way. Injury, a loss of form, a crisis of confidence, a career in a rut, and a time for self-analysis.
His England stats read played nine, won seven, conceded four with four clean sheets. They are the same now as they were five years ago. Frozen in time.
Butland wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to his dream of playing for England again. Gareth Southgate is watching at least. We know that. The men have spoken.
“It’s as good as I’ve played in that period of time [since his last cap],” he says. “I still know I’m good enough.”
What Rangers have in Butland is a goalkeeper who has found himself again at 30. He flew high and he fell low.
“When things are going well, you never expect a bad situation to come, you never think you’re going to make a mistake, you don’t think about it,” he says. “It was easy, in a way. You’re going with the flow. You’re naive.”
With Stoke, he finished ninth in the Premier League in 2015-16. Two seasons later, he got relegated. The season after that, he finished 16th in the Championship then was involved in a relegation fight to avoid the drop into League One.
He lost his place when that battle was at its most intense. Lost his way as well, he admits.
“It went downhill quick. Important people around me left, there was a lot of managerial changes and player changes and it became a difficult environment,” he recalls.
“It just hits you like a ton of bricks. I needed a fresh challenge. People might say that’s a cop out, but it’s not.
“I tried desperately hard to put things right in that last year [2019-20]. You just start to over-think it and that makes everything worse.”
Butland joined Crystal Palace in 2020 then Manchester United two seasons later. He enjoyed both places but didn’t play much for Palace and didn’t play at all for United. He missed being part of something.
And now he is. Momentum is a precious thing, he says. The Aberdeen game at Ibrox on 6 February, a 2-1 win, was the loudest he had heard the stadium for a league game.
“And I thought, ‘yeah, we’re where we need to be now’. Everybody was with us from start to finish. The noise was like a top, top European night. That was the point when I thought, ‘this is the club firing on all cylinders’.”
Butland says Glasgow is the kind of football city where the game doesn’t stop when the final whistle sounds.
“There’s always eyes on you. Football is a way of life up here. People can say what they like about the league, but every game is meaningful, every game is do-or-die,” he adds.
“It’s not easy to do that every week, but as a player, it’s what you want. No dead rubbers.”
And, under Clement, no respite from the mantra that’s got them to the top of the Premiership. He recounts a line from the late Kobe Bryant that chimes with the mindset at Ibrox.
The NBA finals of 2009. Bryant’s Lakers 2-0 up in the series.
“You not happy?” asks a reporter. “What’s there to be happy about?” says the superstar. “Job’s not finished. Job finished? I don’t think so.”
Butland likes that quote.
“We’re in a good place, but, yeah, the job’s not done. The job’s certainly not done for us yet.”
For Butland, there’s a long way to go but a long road already travelled.
