Ferguson won his first prize of note in football in May 1980, when Aberdeen claimed the SPL title by beating Hibernian at Easter Road.

Having just won his 13th English Premier League title with Manchester United - and 47 other trophies since his first in 1980 - that makes for 34 years of consistent success in football.

Can a manager - past or present - anywhere in the world match this feat for sheer excellence and longevity? I would severely doubt it.

Green was interviewed last weekend and, in highly unfortunate remarks, came over as some kind of cross between Alf Garnett and Bernard Manning. He actually sounded as if he had travelled in a time-machine straight from 1972.

Green confessed that he referred to Imran Ahmad, his business partner at Rangers, as “my Paki friend”. Warming to his theme, he also recalled that, when he was a footballer with Worksop Town, there had been another striker on the club’s books called “Darkie” Johnson.

The first report card is not good: played two, lost two. And not so much of a whiff of the new Scotland manager having made any impression on his players thus far.

Strachan’s team was fairly abject in losing 2-1 to Wales in Glasgow, and on Tuesday night went down 2-0 to Serbia in Novi Sad.

In the Balkans, Scotland actually competed in parts more convincingly than they had four days earlier, but the outcome was just as depressing.

For a club whose turnover for 2012/13 will be lucky to reach £25m, and given the long road back to full health facing Rangers, Stockbridge appeared pretty brazen in stating his aims to The Herald.

Nonetheless, he is undeterred. “It would be nice to get to £100m…and it could go beyond that point,” said Stockbridge.

I was there that day at Ibrox as a 12 year old kid, and can still recall the episode, though the details of it that afternoon completely passed me by.

Rangers suffered a series of riots and setbacks involving their fans in the 1970s, and the latest incident had occurred in Birmingham, when a friendly against Aston Villa had been marred due to further delinquent behaviour by the Rangers hordes.

Celtic were nowhere near as poor as their 3-0 home defeat to Juventus suggested, though Neil Lennon will look back on this Champions League match and rue his team selection.

Efe Ambrose has looked an excellent defender since his arrival in Glasgow from the obscurity of Israeli football last summer. That said, Lennon would know with hindsight that he shouldn’t have selected the player to face Juve, given the numerous mistakes he made.

There is much to admire about McCoist, as a person and as a football man, and his legend-status among Rangers fans will prove untouchable.

But his gifts as a manager? His team's performances on the field are severely undermining his case.

There is always a knee-jerk reaction after defeats such as that suffered by Rangers against Dundee United on Saturday - this must be acknowledged. The knives are coming out for McCoist, who may well prove his growing army of critics wrong.

I don’t often draw a parallel between Lincoln and Andy Murray, but I did this weekend, watching Judy Murray once more excitedly root for her son in a Grand Slam final.

Judy is not a phenomenal mum. And she would certainly baulk at any use of Lincoln’s “angel” terminology as a description. But through something simple and unadorned – just being a sporty parent - Judy gave Andy a precious gift that is now reaping its rewards.