Matthew Lindsay: Rangers can boost their recovery and close the gap on Celtic - by selling the Ibrox naming rights

Oh how they applauded. Their beloved spiritual home was safe. Everyone could sleep soundly at night.

Would those in attendance that day have been quite so ebullient had they known what lay ahead? Just three short years later the club was put into liquidation with estimated debts of £134 million.

It is highly doubtful whether following the lead of so many other major clubs in the top leagues across Europe and bringing in a sponsor for their stadium at that time would have made a difference to Rangers’ plight given the gravity and complexity of the financial issues they were dogged by.

Yet, the colossal sums which have been banked by clubs which have done so both before and since suggest that it would certainly not have done them any harm.

Arsenal, for instance, have banked a cool £250 million from Emirates since 2004 in exchange for both shirt branding and stadium naming rights. Many of their Barclays Premier League rivals have benefitted to the same extent after striking similar deals.

Of course, taking that course of action at a newly-built stadium with no history has long been considered acceptable in football. In fact, it is unheard of not to. Doing so at a traditional ground, on the other hand, is regarded as being nothing short of sacrilegious.

Rangers have been based at Ibrox since 1899 and have won the vast majority of their world record 54 league titles, 27 League Cups and 33 Scottish Cups while playing there.

But what would their fans have preferred? Their club to bring in millions of pounds of fresh revenue from a blue chip multinational company to ease their money worries? Or their club to fall into the hands of individuals with dubious motives, go out of business, be forced to reform and placed into the fourth tier?

Never mind non-negotiable, that would have been a no brainer.

They would not have been the first major football club to do so in order to fend off the very real prospect of financial oblivion. Borussia Dortmund took that step back in 2006 when they sold the naming rights to the world-renowned Westfalenstadion to insurance firm Signal Iduna.

Many of their followers were appalled and to this day refuse to recognise the official name of the 81,360-capacity arena. But Dortmund have won the Bundesliga three times and come runners-up twice as well as reached the Champions League final since. It is fair to say the ongoing partnership has worked out rather well.

There was much tittering in certain sections of Scottish football early this week when it was announced that Partick Thistle had struck a deal with an energy efficiency firm to rename their stadium for a six figure sum. The Energy Check Stadium at Firhill? Really?

It was certainly an unusual, if not unprecedented, step due to the fact that the Maryhill ground has housed Thistle for over a century and met with the immediate disapproval of many traditionalists.

But what is wrong with safeguarding their future by opening up a lucrative new revenue stream in a time of austerity when many football clubs are struggling to break even and stay afloat? It is a bold and groundbreaking move for which everyone responsible should be warmly applauded not chastised or ridiculed.

The sponsor will gain welcome exposure for his investment, the club will take in much-needed income and fans of all teams will continue to refer to the ground by its original name. What is not to like?

It is something which Rangers directors, including Johnston, who returned as a non-executive director this summer six years after departing, should seriously consider revisiting.

They could bank large sums of money which would allow them to operate at a profit and challenge Celtic more closely than is currently the case on the park.