I've always found Paul Murray to be a pretty decent guy. I also find some of the pronouncements of this acting Rangers chairman a bit strange at times.
Murray appears to love Rangers and is steeped in the club. And there can be little doubt, surely, that he has Rangers' best interests at heart and is determined to set a correct course at Ibrox.
But Murray must also bear many regrets. He was a Rangers FC plc director from 2007 through 2011 at a time when the original club was heading for the rocks and dissolution.
I do not intend to labour over old ground here, except to ask this: did Murray do enough back then to avert disaster? Was he sufficiently vigilant and vocal on the tragedy unfolding at the club?
I'm not referring to his open dissent towards Craig Whyte. I mean, in those years when the Rangers FC strategy was heading for an almighty crash.
When asked about this Murray and some others appear to play the great get-out. You know the one: David Murray was a majority-shareholder and an autocrat at Rangers. Apparently there was nothing anyone else could do or say about the fate of Rangers.
I don't doubt David Murray's supreme power at the time, nor his recklessness, but I remain unconvinced about this. It seems to me not good enough for men like Paul Murray - and other directors - to plead their paralysis, powerlessness and impotence back then.
When the disaster which brought down 1872 Rangers is reflected on there is quite a bit of "it wasn't me, Guv" going on these days. There is a tendency to cite the obvious villains of the piece - David Murray, then Craig Whyte, as well as the EBTs saga - and absolve every other director.
It is quite a cop-out.
There is also a case for Paul Murray reining-in some of his vituperation about "the staggering mismanagement of Rangers in recent years", given his own inglorious period as a custodian of the club.
For "supreme mismanagement of Rangers" I'm not sure there will be any other period to match the disastrous years leading up to 2012 liquidation - a period when Paul Murray was supposed to be on sentry duty in the boardroom.
In this context, some humility harnessed to his anger would serve Murray well. For quite a few people his comments come laced with a rich irony.
It wasn't always thus. Previously Murray has displayed quite a self-awareness about the Rangers tragedy. Such as in June 2012 when he said: "I am very clear - the club has had a number of misdemeanours over the years and these have to be faced up to. The club [Rangers] has to be punished, I am 100% clear on that. We have done things wrong."
As for Murray's (well intended) view that he wants Rangers to be "back at the top" in time for 2022�this seems a grossly exaggerated period of rehabilitation to be quoting.
My own view has always been that Rangers might do five or six years of penance - or time in the doldrums - for the sins of the old Rangers FC plc. But 10 years?
This is early April, 2015. Surely to goodness the club can be strengthened and restored well before 2022? It cannot - and need not - take so long.
With a good football manager in place, and the club's finances being carefully nurtured, there is no reason why Rangers could not be back vying at the top of Scottish football and winning the Premiership in either 2017 or 2018.
I know there is damage to be fixed by Murray and his cohorts, but 2022 seems a luxuriously long-term goal. If this board is half-competent they should have Rangers tasting success long before then.
The key to it all at Rangers will be the appointment of the club's next manager. Getting that bit right will be the page-turner, the great catalyst for the future.
A gifted, talented football manager sends a contagious, positive energy right through a club. At Rangers everything else will flow from having a man who can build a team fit for winning titles and competing in the Champions League once more.
At the moment the manager is Stuart McCall. In the future it might be a Derek McInnes, a Billy Davies, who knows? McInnes, I believe, would be a fine Rangers appointment, but getting that decision right should hasten a success for the club long before 2022.
In this I wish Paul Murray well. He seems to me devoted to the task. But I would self-edit some of my criticism of others if I were him.
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