HE departed Manchester United just before the Old Trafford club finally, after five long and difficult seasons of bitter disappointment and deep frustration, came good under Sir Alex Ferguson and won the English title.

But Archie Knox still experienced enough during the time that he spent as assistant to his celebrated countryman at Old Trafford between 1986 and 1991 to appreciate the high standards which had to be attained in order to prevail in the top division down south.

So when Knox, who was tempted back to his homeland to perform the same role for the newly-appointed Walter Smith at Rangers, offers an opinion on how the revered teams which he worked with at Ibrox would have fared in that league it should not be readily dismissed.

The 70-year-old, who was involved in seven of the nine consecutive league victories which the Glasgow club recorded between 1989 and 1997, is adamant they could have emulated the success of the club which he left behind.

Early on, long before the sums of money which the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United banked from the sale of broadcasting rights started to dwarf the amounts which Aberdeen, Celtic and Rangers received, at least.

“Rangers would easily have been in the top three of four teams in England at that time,” he said. “I have no doubt about that. Remember, we beat Leeds United, the champions of England, home and away to qualify for the first ever Champions League at the start of the 1992/93 season.

“That went a long way to showing people in England we were every bit as good as they were. They had Gordon Strachan, David Batty, Gary McAllister, Gary Speed and Eric Cantona. But we had the same level of player.

“Rangers were attracting a very high level of signing. It was fantastic to be a part of. We had Terry Butcher, Richard Gough, Trevor Steven, Gary Stevens back then. It was just the same as United. They had Bryan Robson, Norman Whiteside, Paul McGrath, Gary Bailey, Arthur Albiston. They were all top international footballers.”

Asked if Rangers could have won the English title, Knox says: “Why not? Liverpool were the top dogs at that particular time. United went 26 years without winning it. But you could never disregard a team that had the level of player Rangers had in those days.

“It had goals in it, an abundance of ability, outstanding midfielders, exceptional defenders and a great keeper. It had the likes of Paul Gascoigne and Brian Laudrup, goalscorers like Mark Hateley and Ally McCoist, midfielders like Stuart McCall, defenders like Richard Gough and John Brown and a great keeper like Andy Goram. That team had everything.”

Yet, the record-equalling run which that Rangers team enjoyed – they matched the extraordinary spell of domestic dominance enjoyed by Celtic between 1966 and 1974 exactly 20 years ago today – nearly came to an end in just the second game after Knox arrived.

“I was only there for the last two games of the 1990/91 season,” he said. “We lost 3-0 to Motherwell at Fir Park in the penultimate league game. We then had to play Aberdeen, who also had a chance to win the title, in the final game at Ibrox. Win and we would be champions, lose and they would take the title.

“The club was building the top deck on the main stand at Ibrox at that time. When I came in to work on the Monday morning after the Motherwell defeat the workmen spotted me. One of them shouted down: ‘Aye, Knox, you’ve made a big difference haven’t you?’ I thought I would get the blame if we lost against Aberdeen.

“We had a pretty patched up team for that game. Two or three of our key players were out injured. John Brown had a ruptured Achilles. I can remember Maurice Johnston finished up in midfield. But Mark Hateley scored twice and we won the game 2-0.

“I felt like going back to Ibrox the next Monday and telling that workman ‘well, I did make a difference’. But I was just glad we got it over the line for Walter’s sake. It was vital for him to keep the run going.”

Rangers, very much like Celtic just now, had a far larger budget to spend on players than their Scottish rivals during the early Nine-In-A-Row years. Before the old regime, with their infamous “biscuit tin mentality”, at Parkhead had been ousted and Fergus McCann had taken over in 1994 especially. But Knox baulks at the suggestion winning the league was easy for them at that time.

“That was never the feeling in the dressing room,” he said. “I never thought about it like that. To us, it always had to be done, no matter what the circumstances, no matter who we were playing. We took the same approach in every game.

“Celtic had good teams as well. We just held the upper hand in that era. But we knew we were getting pushed the whole way by them and that kept everybody on their toes. We knew if we had a bad spell that Celtic or even Aberdeen would capitalise on that.

“Every Old Firm game you went into treating Celtic as your equals. That is the way we dealt with it. To be honest, we did the same if we were playing Falkirk or Kilmarnock. Every team we came up against was up for that challenge. There was always pressure on Rangers to perform. There could be no mistakes at home or away.”

There were, though, precious few of those. The ninth title was wrapped up on the evening Wednesday, May 7, 1997, with a 1-0 win over Dundee United at Tannadice that was achieved courtesy of a rare headed goal by Laudrup.

“I can’t even remember Brian heading a ball in a game never mind scoring a header,” said Knox. “He just absolutely refused to use his head. His face told the whole story. It was like he was asking: ‘Did I just score with my head there?’ I don’t know what he was doing through the middle anyway. That was Ally McCoist territory.”

Knox feels Smith, his old Dundee United team-mate who had brought him in when he was chosen to succeed Graeme Souness, and the players he brought in deserve all the credit for the achievement.

“First of all, Walter knew the game,” he said. “He would make adjustments in a game which weren’t evident to supporters, like asking a particular player to do something a wee bit different. He was similar to Alex in that respect. He could lose the rag and let people know exactly what he was thinking of them. But he had a calmness about him.”

“OK, we were fortunate we were able to attract the level of player that we did. It gave us and the crowd a boost. Gascoigne and Laudrup? We never had any issues with those lads. They knew the drill and just got on with it. You would have thought they would maybe have said ‘I don’t fancy training today’ at some point. They knew it wouldn’t be tolerated anyway. But having a lot of good Scottish players, particularly when Uefa brought in the three foreigner rule, was vital as well.

“It comes down to the players. At the end of the day, they are the 11 men on the pitch. They are the ones who decided the games. You obviously need tactics, need to be organised, but it ultimately comes down to the men on the park.”

Strangely, given that no club before or since has managed to better their streak of successive league wins, Knox’s memories of Nine-In-A-Row are tinged with a sense of what might have been.

Ferguson successfully rebuilt his United team on several occasions and enjoyed title victories in three different decades as a direct result. His old associate feels Rangers could, if they had approached things differently in the 1997/98 season, have done exactly the same thing and prolonged their supremacy even longer.

“Rangers could have kept that run going in my opinion,” he said. “OK, everybody was coming to the end of their time at Rangers together. But I think we could have brought in the same level of player and kept it going. Wee Dick (Advocaat) came in and took over and did exactly that.

“We just failed to win 10-In-A-Row. It went down to the last game. But the edge was taken off our play because everybody knew Walter was leaving and a lot of the players were leaving too. That was a wee bit of a regret.”