IMAGINE a sort of Rangers Mount Rushmore, with four enormous figures carved permanently on to the Ibrox facade.
Now imagine them somehow uprooting themselves from the red brick and leaving. John Greig, Walter Smith, Ally McCoist and the late Sandy Jardine: all Rangers men through and through. But although their circumstances were different all four became estranged from their club.
There isn't exactly a need to find something which sums up Rangers' collapse - liquidation, lower league football, gross mismanagement, chaos, humiliation, the consequences have been everywhere - but for Stuart McCall there was something about Greig, Smith, McCoist and Jardine which perfectly captured the club's implosion.
Greig and Smith have stopped attending games at Ibrox. Jardine did too, for a spell, before his health deteriorated and he sadly passed away last year. McCoist is on gardening leave but isn't likely to ever return while the current regime is in place.
"John Greig stayed away, which for me is hard to get my head round," said McCall, the Scotland coach and Rangers nine-in-a-row favourite. "Walter left the board and, again, alarm bells started ringing. If Walter is walking away when you need somebody there, it must be bad. Obviously the great Sandy Jardine passed away, unfortunately. And now 'Coisty' is away. So there are four great Rangers men who have departed the club.
"That would be like Bobby Charlton at Man United saying: 'You know what? I've had enough of the club'. Then Sir Alex Ferguson departing because something was going on, and then Ryan Giggs leaving. If that happened at Man United imagine how everyone would react. They'd be asking: 'what is going on?'
"What is going on at Rangers? Yeah, football is a business now. But is there anybody in there actually doing it for the sake of the club or are they just in to make a few quid then disappear into the night? Over the past few years, that has been the case."
McCall immersed himself in the joy and innocence of football yesterday. He took in a primary seven football festival at the Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility where 350 boys and girls were put through their paces as part of the selection process for the SFA's national performance schools. It was cruel to haul him from such a bright, happy environment to ask about events at the poisoned club where he had the most successful years of his playing career.
His former captain, Richard Gough, is among those who have endorsed Dave King's attempt to oust the current board of directors. Douglas Park, George Letham and George Taylor, all wealthy supporters, want in too. McCall was supportive. "I don't know any of these gentlemen, but if you believe what you read, they have Rangers at heart. Now, I'm not saying that just because you have Rangers at heart you are going to be successful and the club is going to make money. But you do know that, whatever they are doing, they are doing it for the right reasons. They are not in there just for 'we can do this, we can do that, we can earn this and we can get out'. What you want are people that the club matters to and will do their best for the club, not for themselves as individuals.
"Was Fergus McCann a Celtic fan? Yes. But he was a businessman. He did it as a business. What Rangers need is someone at the club who doesn't just have business sense, but is actually doing it for the love of the club, because they've got ties to the club. It's just been one calamity after another."
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