The new bid: Standing up for what Rangers fans believe in

There was desperation in Green's frantic attempts to court Scottish businessmen for money, and even as late as Monday he was seeking £1.8m. Sevco had briefly managed to raise £8m, until a major blue-chip investor did due diligence on Green's other backers and decided to pull out last weekend, taking his £4m pledge with him. By that stage, Park and McColl were considering their own plans.

Phone calls grew more earnest 10 days ago. Park was still in discussions with various members of the Blue Knights and Brian Kennedy, while McColl was monitoring events closely. All had received legal advice that Green's agreement with Duff & Phelps was binding, so that, even if the Company Voluntary Arrangement proposal failed, there was no way to prevent him buying the business and the assets for £5.5m. But they also knew he was struggling to get the funds.

Park, McColl and others were prepared to present an alternative offer, and McColl brought with him the trump card. Despite having been courted by all of the various bidders for the club since last February, Walter Smith had already agreed to support McColl's group.

Fans were growing increasingly wary of Green, whose rhetoric is colourful but lacks substance – he has variously talked of raising £30m, and signing Rino Gattuso, while in private his investors were discussing sale and leaseback deals for Ibrox and Murray Park – and the presence of Smith will galvanise them. His two trophy-laden spells at Ibrox raised him up alongside Bill Struth as perhaps Rangers' most revered manager, and the role he seeks now is to help rebuild the club from scratch. None within the consortium wanted Rangers to exit administration through the newco route, but all are determined that this opportunity to properly restore both the team and the institution should not be missed.

The £6m bid, which was lodged with Duff & Phelps, liquidators BDO and Green's people yesterday, is fully-funded and is not a loan but instead a capital injection. Funds are already to hand to meet initial running costs, while other Rangers-supporting businessmen will step up. When the club's new strip was launched earlier in the summer, sales were significantly larger than normal and supporters are still prepared to spend their own money to save the club. With Smith at the head of this new consortium, the expectation is that season tickets will sell rapidly. Yet during the past week, the ticket office has been fielding calls from fans to cancel their season tickets because of unhappiness with Green, and no fans will sign up now until he sells to Smith's group.

Even although McColl is one of Scotland's richest men, and Park is an extremely successful businessman in his own right, this will not be the beginning of another period of extravagant spending. The club will live within its means, focusing on good corporate governance, full transparency, youth development and worldwide scouting. The intention is to restore Rangers, but without previous owners' lack of restraint.

Smith, as chairman, will oversee this rebuilding process, while McColl will be a non-executive director. Along with Park, he will assist Smith in appointing the key corporate management figures, with the first priority being a new chief executive. With that figure, Smith will begin to negotiate with the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football Association to determine the fate of newco Rangers in Scottish football. The presence of Smith should help to ease the tense relationships between the club and those governing bodies.

"Our overriding objective is to ensure that the stadium, the history and everything else magical about Rangers is protected and nurtured back to good health and provide a platform for Rangers for generations to come," Smith said. "Let's be clear, this is an acquisition designed to stabilise the club and ensure history does not repeat itself. We are not in this to take money out of the club but to do whatever it takes in a turnaround plan to ensure within a few years the club can be passed on intact and to the right people.

"The supporters should be under no illusion that it will be extremely hard but with their support we can overcome financial hardship that lies ahead by lending their support to what we feel is the correct way forward – for Rangers people who know the club inside and out to control its destiny."

Once the club is stabilised and beginning the long, slow process of recovery, a share issue will be launched to allow fans and other investors to make their own contribution. McColl, in particular, had been a reluctant bidder. His stance was that he did not want to see the club go out of existence, but he has no intention of running it. He decided to step back in at this late stage because he feared that Green's reign would end in further financial calamity. Green's bid is a classic danger in liquidation scenarios: an underfunded buyer who sees an opportunity to exploit a struggling business, but who does not have the funds to meet running costs or restore revenue streams. These cases almost inevitably lead to a second insolvency event.

"The question we will be asked now, [which] I was certainly asked by the administrator, is why didn't we come forward before," McColl said. "The answer is no-one wanted to own the club. When we see the way it is going, everyone has been forced to say, 'Look, we have to do something'."

Green was aware of the willingness of Smith's consortium to take over before yesterday morning's failed CVA vote. With the players unlikely to allow their registrations to be transferred to the newco under Green and relations with McCoist strained past breaking point, there seems nowhere for Green to go. He has the stadium, the training ground and the Albion car park, but no fans or players.

Negotiations continue, but even if a new bidder entered the scene, they do not have the leverage of Smith, Park and McColl, who have the team, and the fans, at heart.