SEVENTEEN years ago, David Low sat on a milk urn and successfully negotiated the transfer of Celtic shares from a South Fermanagh farmer into the hands of Fergus McCann.

It was yet another small step on the journey that was to take Celtic from imminent financial collapse to an ownership that revitalised the team, built a modern stadium and placed the club on strong foundations.

Yesterday, he sipped coffee in a Glasgow bar and reflected on the financial pressures that threaten to reduce Rangers, a once-proud bastion, to rubble. Low believes strongly that not only will Rangers survive but that the club may represent value to a buyer once the debt is cleared.

Taking the share capitalisation of Celtic as a benchmark, the financial analyst believes Rangers could be worth about £48m but may be available for half that sum after a period of considerable financial turbulence.

The key to any bid for the club is, of course, the clearing of a debt that has forced Rangers into administration. Craig Whyte, the owner, is a preferred creditor owed £18m, season ticket sales have been mortgaged to a company, fans holding debentures are owed £8m, and the tax authorities are pushing for a sum that ranges from £50m to £80m, depending on the source. It is now up to administrators to find a way out of this financial maze but Low believes this is possible and there will be real interest in a ''clean'' Rangers, that is a club stripped of debt.

''Rangers could reasonably be valued at £48m using Celtic as a yardstick. The total market capitalisation of Celtic is £41m, plus it has a debt of about £7m, thus giving it an enterprise value of £48m,'' he said. ''If a price of £25m was placed on Rangers, there would be a lot of interest.''

First, Rangers must undergo the painful process of administration and Low is blunt about its effect.

''This will all take some time,'' he said. ''I do not believe this will be a quick fix. I believe this could rumble on for a year. It will be deeply painful with everyone from the tea lady, through coaches and on to players being affected.''

He added: ''It is possible to save Rangers. It is possible because the club is so big, it has so many fans, so many stakeholders. There are so many people who want it to survive. But for Rangers to survive it requires the agreement of people who are owed money.''

He admits the co-operation of HMRC is the "£50m question'' in this area but points out that the precedent is that clubs come out of administration.

Of Rangers owner, Low said: ''Whyte knew what he was buying. It is a matter of speculation as to why he would buy it. What is his game-plan? The biggest Rangers fan would not go into a situation like this for love of the club. He expected to make money out of this.''

He said Whyte would be in a prime position when a company voluntary agreement was settled as he was the preferred creditor. One theory has it that the descent into administration would be beneficial to Whyte as he would see the return of his £18m with him in the box seat to buy a club free of debt.

''That may have been the plan. Who knows? There are no guarantees for Craig Whyte now. His reputation has been shot to bits, justified or not, and that means it is very unlikely that he will emerge as the owner of Rangers when this whole process concludes.''

Low said that the scale of the problem made comparisons with Celtic in 1994 difficult. ''The major difference between this and Celtic is the numbers. If my memory serve me correctly, Celtic were getting a rough time from the Bank of Scotland over a debt of £5m to £6m. Celtic also had a queue of people wanting to get involved in owning it. I am not sure that is going to be the case with Rangers.''

He was scathing about the finger-pointing between directors past and present at Rangers. ''All this slagging between former directors and current directors is pathetic,'' he said. ''All the previous directors, to different degrees and over different lengths of time, are responsible for creating this problem.''

The way forward, he said, was to create a debt-free club, whatever the pain that entailed, and then to run it in a correct manner. ''The finger of blame has to be pointed, first and foremost at the former board,'' he said. ''They have presided over and created this problem. There is a substantial amount of money that has been and gone. There is the £8m of debenture money from fans, there is the £40m from ENIC, a rights issue of £50m and so on. That is a horrendous amount of money to go through. That is not Craig Whyte's fault.''

It may have to be whispered in certain company but Rangers, he said, would do well to adopt the Celtic model.

''Celtic have been run largely in a conservative manner,'' said Low of the McCann era and his successors. ''Celtic have had a robust board. They have had strong financial disciplines and stuck to their strategy with just the one aberration when Martin O'Neill was given £20m. But Celtic generally have ploughed a conservative furrow and that is the correct thing. Rangers now have to follow a similar procedure. It is the directors who are responsible. They could say no in the same way the Celtic directors said no to requests for money. The glory days are over for good. All of Scottish football, including Rangers, have to live within their means.''