FROM his seat in the away dressing room, which backs directly on to Edmiston Drive, Neil Alexander heard every venomous shout.
Rangers fans were staging a concerted protest over the running of their club prior to kick-off in the abandoned game against Hearts on Friday night and the former Ibrox goalkeeper understood the strength of feeling.
What he couldn't get his head round, however, as a febrile atmosphere spread, was that he too would soon become regarded as a villain of the piece. Throughout the 24 minutes played before a halt was called to the farcical encounter, Alexander's every touch was jeered by the home fans. Considering his presence had elicited a far more favourable response when the two teams met here back in August - indeed, he was given a touching ovation when leaving the field with a fractured draw sustained in a collision with his own player - there was only one inference which could be drawn.
This, presumably, had something to do with a recent £84,000 award in the player's favour after the Ibrox club were found to have reneged on contractual obligations towards him.
"I was getting pelters from the Rangers fans, absolute pelters," said Alexander, a boyhood Hearts fan. "I was getting booed every time I was on the ball and it was disappointing. Was it the legal case? I don't know.
"But I don't think I deserved it as I always said I wanted to stay at the club and I've never said one bad word about it. I loved playing for Rangers and the five and a half years I had there was the best time of my career.
"The legal case was maybe one thing on top of 10 others, but that's not my fault. Whenever it came out, it came out. It was a legal action, we went to court and they ruled in my favour. That was right and I can't do anything about it."
Events at Rangers continue apace. The Rangers Supporters Trust conceded last night that there was no possibility of taking legal action against the board's decision to grant Mike Ashley 35-day exclusivity over the securities of Murray Park and Ibrox.
However, they may have sensed light at the end of the tunnel when Dave King, the largest single shareholder, requisitioned a general meeting aimed at removing all four current directors, Derek Llambias, Barry Leach, David Somers and James Easdale. There was certainly a new level of outrage and unity from the fans on Friday night.
"We heard the fans outside the dressing room," Alexander said. "It was horrendous and I feel for the players and the people I know at the club. I feel for those who have lost jobs and suffered for what has happened.
"Hopefully the club can see brighter days in the future and become the Rangers everyone once knew. We [Hearts] are the prime example of a club that has gone into administration and recovered. It can be done if you get the right people behind the club. Hopefully Rangers get that."
On top of the off-field turmoil, Friday night was a depressing new low for the Scottish game, a showpiece, TV match proceeding on a pitch which was never playable. "The word shambles sums it up," Alexander said. "Walking out for the warm-up, I couldn't believe it was going ahead. The ball didn't move and you couldn't pass it.
"This is meant to be a showcase game for Scottish football with two of the biggest teams. To play it in those conditions doesn't do much for the reputation of the game. In the end, the ref made the right decision, but it should have been made 25 minutes earlier. Someone could have got injured - it was dangerous out there. There was a point when I thought the game would last 90 minutes. If someone had scored the ref would have been in an awful position."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article