A SHIVER of schadenfreude swept across the country as news of the plight of Rangers Football Club surfaced.

At our local newsagent's I bumped into an old friend with whom I used to play the beautiful game in the days when balls were made of leather, like Gladstone bags.

My friend, a much-scarred Hibs supporter, could barely contain his joy. Rangers, he reckoned, had for too long used money they didn't have to poach the best players from teams such as his own in order to prevent them winning trophies. That the Ibrox side could soon disappear like Woolworths or the News of the World troubled him not a jot. In his Pavlovian opinion, it was no more than they deserved.

I can see where my friend and countless others are coming from. One of the many crosses clubs outwith the Old Firm must learn to bear is the knowledge that if ever they discover a Thierry Henry or a Carlos Tevez – which I concede is unlikely – the chances are they will soon be heading towards Glasgow. For my sins I am a Hearts sympathiser, which has not always been an easy burden to carry through life. Time and again, when we threatened if not to best the Old Firm then at least to split them up, our most talented players were wooed away with golden carrots. And there was nothing we could do about it but take it on the chin.

Of course, when I was a boy football was a much simpler and poorer game. Players' pay was not much more than that of a skilled worker. There was little in the manner of pampering – beyond a rub down with Deep Heat – and even in the era of George Best star players often stayed in digs where landladies made rules that you broke at your peril.

The contrast with today could hardly be more stark. Not only do players and managers and everyone associated with top clubs make a fortune, so too do those who feed off them. For example, for every appearance he makes on Match of the Day, Alan Hansen is believed to receive £40,000, which is not bad for a few platitudes.

Such mind-boggling sums are commonplace in modern football. However, they do not produce the same ire as that directed at bankers and fund managers. If you listen to the pundits, their logic is that if someone thinks a player is worth £200,000 a week then why should he accept less? It's a sellers' market, or so we're constantly told. When teams need a player they are prepared to pay whatever it takes to get him, irrespective of the damage it may do to their financial health. If you want to win a league or avoid relegation you've got to be prepared to spend and spend big. Not for nothing is it said that the quickest way for a billionaire to become a millionaire is for him to acquire a football club.

Nor are the fans innocent bystanders, the hapless victims of crooks, con men and fantasists. Whenever their team is underperforming their solution invariably involves the excavation of a cash mountain. Either pressure is exerted to sack managers or they demand the injection of fresh blood into a squad that couldn't score on a street corner in Baltimore. Oblivious to the long-term implications of this they excoriate owners who are disinclined to dip deeply into their pockets. What every club needs, it would appear, is an insanely rich sugar daddy who is willing to indulge the fans' whims.

Ultimately, though, that will never be enough. Come days like those seen this week at Ibrox, the need to identify a villain always prevails, which more often than not is the owner. As one fan told this newspaper, "This has been on the cards for a while now but we've never been fully kept in the loop by the club ..."

Whether he would have paid any heed if he had been kept informed is a moot point. Certainly when journalists did raise concern at what was happening at Rangers they were often bullied by the owners and subjected to volleys of abuse by fans who accused them of bias. In that respect, following a football club is like religious adherence. For true believers there can be no doubt, no questioning, no irreverence. You are either on side or not, with us or agin us. It is the classic stuff of rivalry which those who champion the Old Firm say is so necessary to the wellbeing of the Scottish game. Take Rangers out of the equation, and what's the point of Celtic winning the league? Surely the two need each other like Ali needed Frazier.

Perhaps. Then again, in my more jaundiced moments, I find it hard to see what all the fuss is about. As things presently stand, whether Rangers beat Celtic or vice versa is only of significance to the two sets of supporters. Thereafter neither team poses much of a threat to the likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester United. Long gone are the occasions, enshrined in silverware, when teams of such ilk would regard a visit north of the Border with foreboding. What's left are franchises which abuse nostalgia and loyalty to milk dry those who can least afford it. That's the reality of the Old Firm rivalry which, as The Herald's legendary sports reporter, Ian Paul, once observed, gives Glasgow "a parallel image to that of the city itself".

As someone who is not from Glasgow but who doesn't get a nosebleed whenever I enter its precincts, I think that is a pity. One might have thought that with the decline of Celtic and Rangers as teams able to instil fear, the importance of football would be put in perspective, and that there would be a recognition that there is more to this great city than 22 boy-men chasing a ball.

I fear that I may be living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Since the city's deindustrialistation, Glasgow is no longer obsessed with what it makes but what it plays. It is a city desperately seeking amusement in a game steeped in enmity. But it needn't be like that. If Rangers survive, as I trust they will, it is to be hoped that they will redefine themselves as a club which takes its responsibilities, both fiscal and societal, seriously.

As it is, on the days of Old Firm matches, those of us who are not involved have little option but to take the advice of Les Gray, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, and stay at home.