Once upon a time, long before the Three Bears, there was Goldiepockets and the Silver Fox.

They were better known in the world of business and football as Jim McColl, the force behind Clyde Blowers, and Walter Smith, the nine-in-row completist and the 21-trophy manager who took Rangers to a European final in the dim and distant past of 2008. McColl, also in 2008, successfully led a billion-dollar takeover of the Fluid & Power Division of Textron Inc, an American Fortune 500 multi-industry.

A mere four years later after these events, McColl and Smith joined Douglas Park, and others, to launch a takeover of Rangers. They failed.

It must be tempting for Rangers fans to dream of a parallel universe where the McColl-Smith axis held power at Ibrox. Instead, the businessman gave away his 10,000 shares to a fans group last week. Smith has still to make public the destination of his shares but they will not be the foothold on any climb back to power at Ibrox.

Smith will return to the stadium, but only as a supporter with his grandweans. McColl will similarly remain on the sidelines. Park, their former colleague in the takeover plans, continues a bid for power with fellow Three Bears, George Letham and George Taylor.

It was instructive to listen to Smith yesterday as he drew a line under his professional involvement at the club and talked with regret of becoming involved in a saga that may have several plot twists but has the sustained narrative of inflicting anguish on Rangers supporters.

The failed takeover attempt was one setback but Smith was also pained by his short spell as chairman in 2012 that ended with his resignation.

Did he regret going back? "Yes," he replied.

"I did what I thought was best to try and help out. I think that if you were seen not to be trying to help after what happened with [former owner] Craig Whyte then people would have said: 'You know a bit about the club and should go back in.' But it turned out that wouldn't have mattered anyway," he said.

Smith's departure as chairman has been followed by a series of events that see Rangers needing money quickly just to survive. "I don't think anyone would have thought all this would have carried on over three or four years. It has been turmoil more or less throughout this time," he said.

He has no desire to return to the board, whether it is led by Park or Dave King, the South African-based businessman who has bought 15 per cent of the club.

"I found it was an environment I wasn't particularly comfortable in," he said. "I went on for what I felt were the right reasons. I thought at the time I could maybe help. As it turned out, I was wrong.

"I had resigned on two occasions and then eventually, being more or less the last man standing, I took the chairman's position for a wee while to see if I could help.

"I quickly realised that wasn't going to be the case. There was nothing I could do to make any difference so I stepped away. I wouldn't become involved as a director or anything like that again."

Asked whether he would consider a role such as director of football at the club, he said: "Walter Smith as a manager would never have had anything to do with a director of football. If you are a football manager you run the club.

"I'm not going back. I'll go back as a supporter. The current board ask me along to the games and I've been to a few. That's really what I'll be doing now, taking my grandkids to the games. I hope they can maybe support a Rangers more like the Rangers I used to support myself."

He has sympathy, of course, for Ally McCoist, his successor as manager, but it was tempered with the blunt observation that circumstances can conspire against any manager at any club.

McCoist has been placed on "gardening leave" after enduring three and a half years at a club where chief executives came, made plans and then made plans to leave, where the journey started in the bottom tier of Scottish league football and where crisis should have been adopted as the club motto.

Was he surprised his former assistant stayed so long?

"No. I think he made it perfectly clear that he wanted to be Rangers manager." Smith added: "I think he would have stayed on a bit longer to see if the thing settled down."

But Smith accepts McCoist may now feel a sense of relief after an ambition became a job that became an ordeal. "It gets like that. I had a kind of similar circumstance on two occasions at Everton. In the end, it is a bit of a relief when you do get away from it," he said.

"If you go and work at any club under good circumstances and come away having done a good job then it's great. Equally, if you are in good circumstances and don't do a good job, then football managers more than most face the consequences of the results of their work.

"I still feel a bit disappointed about how I did at Everton. I would have liked the circumstances to be a bit better to see if I could make an improvement, instead of having to fight relegation all the time."

He hopes McCoist will find employment as a manager. "The circumstances and the work of the last three or four years would hopefully benefit him going somewhere else. It might not seem like it at the moment, but hopefully it will. I hope he does get an opportunity to go somewhere where he can work in a more stable environment," he said.

Smith's departure as Rangers manager preceded the "journey" that involved stepping up through the Scottish divisions. Did he believe he could have coped with that?

"I don't think anyone could have envisaged that was going to happen - or the subsequent turn of events. When I left [as manager] and Craig Whyte took over, the club was in a good situation overall.

"After that, it was just downhill. You often think what it would have been like. But at the end of the day, I was glad not to be involved in that."

Now 66, he may have settled for retirement. Certainly he has settled his professional account at the club he has always supported.

His private concerns for Rangers are understated but deeply held. He knows this is yet another moment of crisis. He accepts, too, there are calls for "Rangers men" to come to the rescue. But the Silver Fox always had a leaning towards pragmatism as a football coach. This trait has been strengthened by his boardroom experience.

Asked if he supported the Three Bears in the wake of the departure from the scene of Robert Sarver, the owner of the Phoenix Suns, Smith replied: "Whether they're American or whether they're Scottish, they have to bring an element of trust back into the club again and get the trust of the supporters. Trust is a big factor."

It is in short supply in Rangers' ranks. The club needs money in the short term but trust is the commodity that will ensure it survives.