JOHN GREIG is unlikely to recognise the Rangers he once knew and still loves when he walks back up the marble staircase at Ibrox and out to a hero's welcome this evening.

 

The ground, albeit a little tatty and tired, still looks broadly the same and there will be a full house of jubilant supporters eager to believe that the return of their greatest-ever player at the behest of the new board is just the first step back on the road to recapturing former glories.

Behind the roar of that crowd and the smell of the pie grease, though, Greig will spot the changes, note the missing faces, sense the rawness that still exists.

Rangers is a club that has had its heart torn out. So many of the characters, the workers, that made the stadium such a special place have been tossed aside like used ticket stubs during round after round of redundancies.

It has become a hollow shell, used and abused over four years of the most heinous maltreatment, and it is going to take time for Dave King, Paul Murray and John Gilligan to restore it to anything like its former self.

Greig has only been back twice since resigning from the board in October 2011 after being ostracised by Craig Whyte. He returned for the club's 140th anniversary celebrations and was at the Hearts match at the start of this season when the Govan Stand was renamed in honour of his late friend and colleague, Sandy Jardine.

Kenny McDowall, on the other hand, has been consumed by the place and the poison that has seeped through it. He has called upon Greig's advice to help him through these last few months and it is the callous removal of so many familiar faces from the staff, something understood to have shocked those now in charge, that pains him as much as anything.

"What has gone in here in the last four years is nothing short of scandalous," said McDowall ahead of tonight's league visit of Queen of the South. "This place has been decimated.

"The sad thing about it is that there are people who have given a lot of years to the club and love the club who are no longer part of it through no fault of their own.

"A tornado has appeared and ripped the heart out of this place. It's sad."

We can all point to the usual suspects in charting Rangers' demise such as Whyte, Charles Green, Imran Ahmad, Brian Stockbridge, et al. McDowall, though, will clearly never forgive rival clubs and the game's authorities for the role they played in ensuring the Govan side, in its 'newco' guise, would be made to start again in the Third Division after Whyte had led the business into administration and liquidation.

"The fact is we shouldn't have been put down as far as we were and the Scottish game wouldn't be in the situation it's in and the state it's in," he said.

"In our role at the club, we tried to keep distractions away from the players, but there used to be a lot of staff over at the stadium because it's a big company.

"They got wiped out. On a regular basis, we would hear: 'There's another five away' or 'There's another four away'. That's just totally unacceptable, shocking."

The return of Greig, however, should not be underestimated.

"Just to have Greigy back tells you exactly where the club is at," said McDowall. "It's fantastic. Long may it continue that Rangers people come back to the place.

"I spoke to him about two weeks ago. These guys have all been great to me in terms of keeping my spirits up and telling me how to go about what I do, so I have a lot of people to thank for giving me a lot of advice."

Tellingly, McDowall does believe, in the wake of last week's events, that the club is already on the way to regaining its soul.

"Absolutely, because you now have Rangers people (in charge) who care about the club and want to take it forward," he said.

Lee Robinson, first-choice goalkeeper in his second spell at the club, will also be delighted to see Greig back at the ground after an apprenticeship served under the great man's gaze.

"John was good for me when I first came to Rangers at 17," said Robinson.

"He would speak to you after Under-19 games. He'd encourage you and give you a kick up the backside if you needed it.

"Sandy Jardine was at the club with John back then and those two were classed as legends.

"John was the only person who had his name on a door at Murray Park. He is what Rangers are all about and it was a sad day when he walked away from it. That tells you how bad things must have been."

Things have been bad. They still are. The SPFL Championship is in Hearts' hands and only the brave would bet against this current Rangers side getting through the play-offs.

"We all know what we are paid to do, but it would have been nice if we had some backing and the players had some backing," said McDowall. "We had all this in-fighting and it has not helped this season at all."