They carried him shoulder high around a stadium re-energised and revitalised in his honour.

His legs lacking the strength to make the entire trip around the trackside perimeter, Michael Mols and Nacho Novo were first to hoist Fernando Ricksen into the air and permit him to acknowledge the cheers of the Copland Road stand at the end of what had already been the most emotional of afternoons.

They made it around 20 yards along the pitch in front of the Sandy Jardine stand before putting the Dutchman back on his feet and handing on the responsibility of transporting him on the next stage of his tearful lap of honour to Thomas Buffel and Ronald de Boer.

Arthur Numan and Zurab Khizanishvili would follow. After that, Peter Lovenkrands, Bob Malcolm, Gordon Durie and James Beattie would all take their turn in what was a powerfully physical expression of the resounding support former colleagues and fans have extended to Ricksen in his darkest hour.

The man of the moment could barely lift his arms in reciprocation of the raw affection coming his way from the stands. His hands are almost permanently cramped due to the effects of Motor Neurone Disease, his body refusing to obey when his brain sends out the signals.

His speech has deteriorated to the degree that he felt unable to take the microphone when all those involved in yesterday's benefit match at Ibrox, watched by 41,349 people and won 7-4 by an All-Star select against a team of old Rangers favourites, had gathered again in front of the Main Stand.

It was left to his friend, Roy Knez, to read a prepared statement on Ricksen's behalf.

"Fellow Bluenoses, thank you for your support today," it said. "When I played here, I gave everything for the world's most successful club. Now, the club and the fans have given me so much more back. I need it now.

"I've never been so proud to be a Rangers man. Thank you. I love you. Rangers forever."

Ricksen, of course, is a shadow of the man he was during a six-year spell in Light Blue between 2000 and 2006. Rangers are a shell of the club they were during that time, too, torn apart by the events of the past three years.

For a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, though, the agonies of the present were obliterated by the warming glories of the past. Heaven knows what the current chief executive, Derek Llambias, must have made of it.

"It was emotional driving in," said Ricksen's former team-mate Neil McCann, during a speech made from the touchline at half-time. "I hugged Fernando and said: 'This feels like the old times.' It would be great to see them back again."

Arriving at Ibrox, it was clear this was going to be the kind of special occasion so infrequent nowadays at this sad, old ground.

Kick-off, alone, would be delayed more than half-an-hour to allow everyone queueing outside for tickets to get in.

Following a build-up that involved recorded messages from the likes of Mark van Bommel and Giovanni van Bronckhorst and both teams forming a guard of honour in front of the tunnel, Ricksen made his appearance to a rapturous reception at 2.26pm.

He had his young daughter Isabella on his right. Wearing the blue-and-white strip of the Rangers Select, with his name and his favoured number two on the back, Ricksen limped through his friends and former team-mates towards the centre circle unaided, but there are clear difficulties with co-ordination. This was shown when making the symbolic gesture of kicking off the action with de Boer.

After touching the ball to his former colleague, Ricksen attempted to take a step back, caught his studs in the turf and tumbled to the floor. The noise from the stands as players from both sides lifted him back to his feet was deafening, the sense of mixed emotions from everyone inside the stadium almost tangible.

To see Ricksen, a firework of a player, appear such a frail, vulnerable figure at the age of 38 is so desperately saddening. One of the most tragic things is that, having dealt with personal problems including alcoholism, he has only recently found true contentment and started to understand its meaning at a time when his life is coming to an end.

"It is so unfair," said Ricksen. "I had finally become a family man, a father, with my wife Veronika and my baby girl, Isabella. I was about to be a normal person after all those years of excess and then this. All our plans for the future, worthless."

Ricksen announced publicly on the Dutch TV Show, The World Keeps Turning, back in October 2013 that he had been diagnosed with MND. Just over a year on, his approach to death is a conversation topic.

"What is going to happen is inevitable," he said. "If death comes, it comes. I don't want to feel too much sympathy. Please, people, don't treat me that way. Okay, I maybe only have a couple of years left. That doesn't scare me. It is just that I would like to live a lot longer.

"I want to see my daughter growing up. That is what I am going to fight for. One person should be the first to defeat this terrible disease. Well, let me be that person then."

Always fighting. That's Fernando through and through.