BILL STRUTH died exactly 50 years ago today, on September 21, 1956. After all these years, an almost mystical veil of myth and genius surrounds his memory. A Rangers manager for 34 years, Struth was a patriarchal figure in the history of the club, yet a man whose greatness was not unfamiliar with private tragedy.

There are photographs of Struth today which only partly hint at his personality: a formidable, strongjawed, somewhat grave and solemn-looking man, whose life was devoted to Rangers. It is remarkable to ref lect that Struth occupied the Ibrox manager's office from 1920 through to 1954, until he was 79 years old.

While landing shoals of trophies in his 34-year reign, Struth occupied the Rangers manager's office in the literal sense. His home was actually a flat in Copland Road, just round the corner from Ibrox Stadium, yet for decades on any night of the week any passers-by at Ibrox would see the lamp-light shining from the Rangers manager's office on Edmiston Drive well into the evening. In Struth's real home, it seems, the only thing he made practical use of was his bed.

Almost as one, football historians say that all Struth knew and believed in was Rangers, which may be an unkind testament to the other aspects of his life. Yet the club does appear to have been his lifeblood. Struth died aged 81, a sad, solitary man, stricken with gangrene and other ailments, less than two years after vacating office.

With every passing season the so-called "traditions of Rangers" became less easy to pin down historically, but there is no such uncertainty surrounding Struth. Regularly referred to as a martinet, he was a strict disciplinarian whose principles covered dress-code, manners, morals, and a man's lifestyle in general. It was an ethos he conveyed to generations of Rangers players, who, in turn, related to Struth with a mixture of awe and cowering.

"To be a Ranger is to sense the sacred trust of upholding all that such a name means in this shrine of football. They must be true in their conception of what the Ibrox tradition seeks from them, " said Struth in a heady speech in 1948. These words may seem slightly portentous today - note Struth's use of "sacred" - yet their aloof tone was intended. Whatever else Struth divined by the word "Rangers", to him it implied strength, excellence and the ultimate in high standards.

Struth was no coach or manager in the modern sense. For one thing, he was virtually tactically illiterate, merely a manager of his time, who sent his Rangers teams out on to the pitch with the specific instructions to a captain such as George Young to keep it all together.

The bounty of this simple, austere style of management was magnificent. Over Struth's 34 years Rangers won 18 league titles, 10 Scottish Cups and two League Cups, making Struth virtually untouchable in European football.

The crowds flocked to watch Rangers in the 1930s and 1940s, prompting Struth to become the impetus behind the construction of a new Ibrox main stand in 1929, a piece of architecture years ahead of its time and still standing today, which Rangers have renamed the Bill Struth Main Stand.

Behind that stern countenance which stares out from his photographs, there was an occasionally vulnerable and emotional man. In Struth's day, it wouldn't do for a man to shed any tears - let alone a man in tough, industrialised Glasgow - yet Rangers captain Davie Meiklejohn recalled that Struth was reduced to weeping in the dressing room as he savoured the club's 1928 Scottish Cup triumph, a trophy that had eluded Rangers for 25 years.

Following the fateful events of September 5, 1931, Struth was also deeply affected by the death of John Thomson, the Celtic goalkeeper, in a tragic accident at Ibrox. Struth, who was friendly with Willie Maley, the Celtic manager of the time, had signed Sam English, the Rangers striker at whose feet Thomson plunged bravely to avert danger during an Old Firm match.

With Thomson dying from his head injuries, English carried the mental scars of that day to his grave, and the seemingly stoical, unbreakable Struth was also cut by it. Thereafter, he always found it difficult to talk about the Thomson tragedy and, following Struth's death, among his possessions was found a small portrait of the Celtic goalkeeper, a memento he had privately nursed throughout his own personal football odyssey.

The very human Struth remains beyond our reach today, though the hints of a slightly obsessive, almost one-dimensional life are there. He had no children and, from Struth's existing comments and legacy, you would hardly know that he had a wife, either, though he had been quietly widowed in 1941 aged 66. Even then, from all the available evidence, there seems little discernible change in Struth's lifestyle: his life remained his days and nights cocooned in the Ibrox manager's office above Edmiston Drive, plotting success for Rangers.

Struth signed great Rangers players - Alan Morton, Bob McPhail, George Young, Sammy Cox, Willie Waddell, Willie Thornton, Billy Simpson et al - and built a series of renovated Ibrox sides, each new team evolving from the previous under Struth's astute eye. He also invoked a grave and - from today's perspective - slightly comical interest in his players' private lives.

The way, for example, that Struth openly meddled in the marital status of Torry Gillick seems quaint. Gillick, a fine Rangers striker, had been dating a girl, apparently with considerable ardour, for some months, which in Struth's eyes meant an engagement should be forthcoming.

Short of doing the actual proposing himself, Struth all but pushed the f lustered Gillick into his imminent nuptials, even arranging for a portion of the player's wages to be docked to fund a wedding ring, which was duly purchased. The Gillick case was a perfect example of Struth's ability to be a wholesale distributor of his own private morality.

The current debate among Rangers fans over the club's alleged "Protestant roots" is also fascinating in regard to Struth. For such a towering and inf luential figure in Rangers' history, there is, in fact, scarcely a trace of anything Protestant about Struth or his doings at Ibrox, save for his nominal denominational tag.

Indeed, Struth tried on a number of occasions to sign Catholic players for Rangers - Celtic's Tommy McInally among them - and may have been baffled by the phrase "Rangers' Protestant traditions", which grew almost as a reaction to Celtic's very obvious Catholic heritage.

Struth's time at Rangers brought momentous success, for which the club today is rightly proud. His end, though, for such a slave to the cause, became painful and, in its own way, tragic.

Aged 77, with Struth still beavering away as Rangers manager, an attack of gangrene forced him to forgo the bottom half of his right leg. In the months that followed, Struth had to be lifted up the Ibrox marble staircase to his office by his players. After such enthralling years, his resignation as Rangers manager in April 1954 only hastened his private downfall and imminent death.

With age came sudden infirmity, and by the summer of 1956 Struth was unsuccessfully battling various ailments. He died one day before an Old Firm game at Parkhead, where players and supporters on both sides bowed their heads for an impeccably observed minute's silence. Aptly, Rangers won that match 2-0.

There has been no man, before him or since, who loved Rangers as much.