ANDY and Jean McCall didn't live quite long enough to see their son named manager of Rangers.

But at least plenty were prepared to pass on their pride in his appointment by proxy. "My mum and dad passed away last year and I got some texts saying how proud they would have been," said Stuart McCall, a matter of hours after his installation as caretaker boss of the Ibrox club. "My dad wasn't a Rangers man, he was from Hamilton. He just loved football and he'd come and watch me when I had games here. Thirteen managers in 142 years, most clubs have that in 20 years."

McCall doesn't need to embellish his credentials or play to the galleries by gushing about his undying affection for the club. But he just can't help it. The memories are flooding out of this 50-year-old like a torrent as he looks back on an involvement with the club which has lasted the best part of half a century, but only really took off when he joined from Everton in the summer of 1991 for the princely sum of £1.2m. Did you know, for instance, that he was pretty much the only member of the 'nine in a row' team prepared to venture to Easter Road on that fateful last-day shoot-out in 2005 which has become known as Helicopter Sunday? Even though, as assistant manager of Sheffield United, the escapade required the fabrication of an elaborate cover story?

"Durranty says he was there too, in near the main stand because he had just come on to the staff," says McCall. "But I got a wee train from Harrogate to York, a little carry out, four cans, went into Edinburgh station and met four of my pals and went to the game, under the premise that I was scouting for Sheffield United. I claimed I was watching the boy [Derek] Riordan. I said I would get the last train home but I got a text from the missus afterwards saying 'see you Tuesday'. I think it was Wednesday when I actually got back."

What about those first, few priceless words of wisdom he received on his first day at the club? It was essentially an irony-free beginners' guide to how to stay on the right side of Scottish referees ... from Terry Hurlock no less.

"My first day certainly wasn't here at Murray Park!" said McCall. "I think it was a minibus to Jordanhill. But I can remember Terry Hurlock coming over to me. I was actually coming up to take Terry's place but he was brilliant to me. I had some battles with him when I was a young kid playing in England but he shook me by the hand and told me I'd love it and wished me all the best. Then he tried to give me some advice about not getting into trouble with referees! That's true, honestly. I'm thinking 'Tel, I know all about you!'"

For all his closeness to the club, there is a distance there too. Born in Leeds to Scottish parents, McCall had a dual citizenship of sorts. At first, supporting Rangers was as much a holiday pastime as an everyday hobby. "Listen I was brought up a Leeds fan because that was where I stayed, but I would stay in Hamilton for three or four weeks during the summer holidays," he said. "My cousins, my uncles, used to drag me along to Rangers ... I couldn't get a ticket for the Accies because it used to be sold out in those days! I am not saying I am all this or all that but if you look at my book, if any of you manage to get a copy - it sold out very quickly - I have a thing in the brochure there. Favourite player: Tony Currie. Favourite team: Glasgow Rangers.

"The love for it, though, really comes when you come in the door, and play for the club," he added. "I do have a lot of affection for the place, but I have great affection for Bradford, Leeds United, all the clubs I played for. Somebody texted me today, somebody on the staff at Motherwell, and said 'I'm glad to see you are at the club that you love', but I grew to love Motherwell. I will always look out for their results. I am not saying that light-heartedly."

The only problem for McCall - or at least the main one - is that the Rangers he arrives at today is hardly recognisable from the one he left in 1998, some 200 appearances later. The Ibrox caretaker boss might be in good form, but in truth the Ibrox side have been in the kind of prolonged dip which seemed unimaginable back then.

"I had a bad 20 minutes against St Mirren one time!" he joked. "No, listen, the first few months I was in the door, we got beaten by Hearts, and not long later we got knocked out of the European Cup by Sparta Prague. We lost at home to Aberdeen and got knocked out of the cup by Hibs - all in a short period of time. I remember I scored two goals in that Sparta Prague game and I thought 'you've set your standards far too high here'. I was two a season, not two a game!"

McCall knows all about the setbacks this current squad have endured. For a start, he was employed as a BT Sport pundit for some of them. He refutes the suggestion he has been somehow over-critical. "I was paying the bills," he said. "Quite critical? I think I was being honest. I don't think there is a Rangers player who would say any different - there has not been a level of consistency and nobody has performed at a level they are capable of. There is also a lack of confidence but that can be turned round with a couple of decent performances and results. It doesn't matter what happened 20 years ago or even yesterday - this can still be a good season."

Among the myriad of minutiae which McCall has to deal with is deciding the fate of support staff such as teammates Gordon Durie and Ian Durrant, the former having replaced the latter's first-team coaching duties. "Funnily enough, we had the boys in training at half two on Thursday," McCall said. "Durranty took Under-20s then I had a million things to do. I came back in and he had gone. It was nice to come in on Friday morning and see a little note on my desk saying 'Hi, my name is Ian Durrant, you can contact me on this number...' So I texted him saying 'that's good, pal, but I was looking for you from 4 o'clock onwards last night. I didn't realise you'd gone part-time."