He is the electrician who rewired his career path through a love of football, facilitated by a willingness and enthusiasm for hard graft.

Let it be made clear and indisputable: the careful, considered and impassioned clarion call from an increasingly exasperated custodian of Rangers’ values represents his greatest legacy to the club.

Criticisms of tactical conservatism, of questionable signings and of increasingly curmudgeonly behaviour (the latter being the only accusation for which he has no defence) are now of such little consequence to an ailing club in the here and now that they are irrelevant.

Without Smith’s pride for a club that has afforded him personal satisfaction and financial comfort as he approaches retirement, without Smith’s loyalty to those unfairly and inaccurately depicted as the enemy within, and without Smith’s profound sense of duty, Rangers would have lurched into a kind of internal cannibalism long before now.

The statement released this week by Lloyds Banking Group was not only an insult to those supporters who, through government intervention, now have a 43% interest in their business, but an embarrassment to a figurehead within an increasingly fractious club with the guts and gravitas to speak out.

Without saying as much, Lloyds have, in Smith’s eyes, accused him of telling tall tales by stating that Rangers are now controlled by the bank and their fate influenced by the new addition to the board, Donald Muir.

In the absence of Sir David Murray from the spotlight, it was left to his son, David Jr, the managing director of Murray Capital, to emerge as an impromptu spokesman and explain that the Rangers manager was simply speaking out of “frustration”.

That is a difficult conclusion to draw for those well aware of Smith’s media savvy. Does anyone really think that the manager spoke on a whim and that he has spent his time since regretting his comments or, as one report put it, showing contrition “like an errant schoolboy”?

Significantly, he was given the platform to retract his statement or at least soften his stance on Monday, at a media conference to promote last night’s Co-operative Insurance Cup tie against Dundee. He did neither.

Instead, he has emerged as a strong, dependable pillar of an unstable institution. Amid the PR patch-up jobs and smoke-and-mirrors propaganda, one thing can be said with clarity: Rangers’ future is being mapped out with the bank at the vanguard. They are in grave danger of losing the men who are fighting, desperately and at risk to their own positions, to preserve the foundations of a club in financial peril and administrative mayhem.

Muir, the turnaround specialist, was recently appointed to the Rangers board as well as Murray’s Premier Property Group. He is employed to overhaul the club’s business strategy and, while the bank say not by them, it has never been Murray’s policy to recruit employees to tell him how to run his businesses.

The bank’s statement has pushed Smith to breaking point. He has, albeit unwittingly, had his greatest attribute questioned: his integrity. He reacted furiously to the insinuation that he lied or misled and, frankly, would have walked yesterday had he not been bound by his moral compass. He simply refuses to leave Ally McCoist and Kenny McDowall to inherit an utterly impossible and potentially damaging situation as comparative rookies.

There is now enough smoke gathering to detect an imminent fire engulfing Martin Bain. The chief executive has seldom been given the credit he has deserved at the club. Since Murray stood down as chairman, by whatever process, Bain has been dogged in doing his best for the club in the face of extreme budgetary recommendations made by the bank.

The speculation about the supposedly imminent appointment of Gordon McKie, the SRU chief executive, has raised questions over the long-term future of Bain at Ibrox.

The timing of Smith’s statement is 
as much in support of a vulnerable ally
as it is to protect Super Ally. If Bain is made the scapegoat, Smith and his
coaching staff are likely to follow him out the door in an instant. And, from the other side of the Atlantic, would Alastair Johnston stage his own protest by relinquishing the chairmanship he has only just inherited?

Dave King, the South Africa-based businessman, has identified Bain’s expertise as a central part of his plans for a takeover, along with various other supplementary investors.

If Lloyds sack Bain, they risk a mass walk-out and the adverse publicity that comes with it. Already, some within the bank have been horrified by the public outcry and are keen to make haste in securing a buyer.

Ultimately, if a sacrifice is demanded, it would leave Muir – a man, it should be stressed, who has the respect, sympathy and co-operation of the manager in his thankless task – to attract a buyer for a club with no stars, no apparent synergy and, worst of all, no soul. It is why Smith’s stance means more to Rangers than any trinket collected during his two terms of office as manager.

In attempting to bring transparency to a murky situation, he has been undermined by those who owe him a debt of gratitude for his dignity throughout Rangers’ thoroughly undignified slide. Smith, at 61, does not need the hassle.

He has achieved his objectives and is now in charge of a team going nowhere; a squad that has stagnated during the period of downsizing. He has had to wrestle with his conscience over Madjid Bougherra’s disregard for protocol and professionalism, especially having adopted a far more characteristic approach to the behaviour of Barry Ferguson that was deemed unbecoming of a Rangers captain.

When Smith decides to go, Rangers will lose far more than their most successful manager. For the club’s sake, they can only hope that he reaches a natural conclusion, and that he, along with others, does not opt for the symbolic departure that pushes a proud club closer to the precipice.