There are those who have been witness to the exhibitions provided at Ibrox this season who would regard a ban from its precincts as an act of charity comparable to being given a reprieve from solitary confinement.

I did not witness the sight of the BBC's Chick Young, pictured, making his way down Edmiston Drive after being shown the door at Ibrox on Saturday before a ball was kicked, but since I know the man to be a connoisseur of the good things in life I suspect he was not a doleful sight, although professionally angered; I suspect, in fact, he might have indulged in a little hop, skip and jump at having been released from having to endure the final chapter of Rangers' plodding rite of passage to another league.

In essence, his banning was more beneficial to him than it was to the club. And so it is with most bans which have been heaped on broadcasters and journalists. Banning doesn't mute views, it oxygenates them. Banning doesn't lower people from view, it elevates them. I recall the famous ban which the Scottish Football Association imposed on the football writer John Mackenzie in the World Cup in 1974.

He was to be regarded as a carrier of the ebola virus and not permitted on any official flight. It made him a hero and gave his newspaper such mileage that they must have passed his expenses claims without a glance. Other journalists were sick with envy and were queuing up to see what they could write to be banned as well. By that token, I have to shamefully admit that I was never banned by a club. Although in defence of what would appear, by that account, to have been a rather anodyne career, I came through an age when managers and chairmen preferred arm-to-arm combat. Jock Stein would vaporise you with one lash of the tongue. Jim McLean could make you feel you like you were just out of the cot. And Fergie could put you in that twister that sent Dorothy to Oz. It was all up front, and sometimes brutal.

An enraged Ally McCoist in confrontation with Chick would have been a much straighter, more honest grappling of the subject. The only danger of such a meeting of minds would be that it would have overshadowed what purported to be entertainment in the subsequent 90 minutes of football. Ally has come out with dignified statements to counter much of the conjecture surrounding the club and from which he has gained immense credit.

But the cheery chappy image needs to be supplemented by the more severe challenger to any person or organisation than has a go at him; personally, and up front. Being shielded by a ban is no alternative to that, the clinical issuing of which carries the inevitable corollary that it is going to defeat its purpose anyway. Folk might now pay closer attention to the undercurrent of unrest which underpins this bizarre leaked report and study its contents rather than dismissing it readily as simply a gratuitous insult to the Rangers manager as portrayed in other media outlets.

Of course, it is in many ways delusional. It is written in the terms of a kid writing out his list of presents to Santa Claus. It presents a world of tinselly make-believe. But you can equally understand why the author bothered to concoct it.

This has not been an edge-of-seat season in Govan. It was the season of the slouch, whereby out of an admirable sense of duty and obligation fans sat sullenly, far too often, to protect their own heritage, not just the club's. They did so because although wins came regularly they were often stupefied into watching what was proclaimed to be a youthful side playing much of the time at a geriatric pace. It is something of a triumph on their part that despite the utter banalities of what they had to endure, it worked to an extraordinary extent, just as the rest of Scottish football deserted their initial wildly optimistic Sell-Out-Saturday concept after only a few weeks.

But, at the same time, if you were to listen to many disgruntled Rangers supporters you could tell that it wasn't just Charles Green and the Baron Munchausen of this report who were expressing disquiet about the manager and his coaching squad. It was common currency in the stands. Why shouldn't it have been? A loyalty card at Ibrox ought not to offer discounts for silence on any issue. That is why the BBC were perfectly entitled to use the leaked document. It certainly carries with it the need to issue caveats of one kind or another about it as I have identified. However, Saturday's decision by Rangers was muddied by the recent history where the image of Ally as the plunging man was portrayed on the screens.

We should not let bad taste, like that, get in the way of reasonable argument, and certainly not stifle comment. Rangers are still in the melting pot in more ways than one and with it carries the need to be rational. If they are they will realise that no manager, not even the highly likeable Ally McCoist, is immune from criticism. The only ban they should implement is on issuing bans.