Captain Pugwash, Master Bates and Seaman Staines Have The SS Rainjurrz On The Rocks

IT MAY well be something primal, deep inside their DNA, but, perhaps more than most – and it is wide-spread across the game – Rangers fans NEED a strong and stable leader at the top of their club.

Even these two could make a better job of running Rangers

In football, every successful club seems to require a guiding light – someone who is seen as: The Man. Sometimes, that man is the Chairman, going back as far as old Bob Lord, who was Mr Burnley during their successful spell in the 1950s and 1960s, or Sir Robert Kelly, during his long stewardship of Celtic. But, more-often, The Man is the Manager.

British football has a history of successful, seemingly all-powerful managers – from Willie Maley at Celtic, via Bill Struth at Rangers, Herbert Chapman at Arsenal, via Matt Busby, Bill Nicolson, Bill Shankly, Jock Stein, Don Revie and Brian Clough, to Alex Ferguson and Walter Smith in more-recent times.

Perhaps the ideal scenario is a firm relationship between Manager and Chairman – Stein and Kelly being perhaps the best example, or, Alex Ferguson and Dick Donald at Aberdeen, or David Murray and Graeme Souness and Walter Smith at Rangers. When you have one hugely-competent Chairman, holding the purse strings and making strategic decisions, and an equally-competent and perhaps more-charismatic Manager as the public face of a club, it's a fearsome combination.

 Celtic's dynamic duo

Right now, Celtic has that. While Derek Desmond is the ultimate ruler, he is quite happy to cede a certain level of strategic command to the hugely-competent Peter Lawwell, while, downstairs in the engine room, Brendan Rodgers is keeping the good ship Celtic sailing along at what mariners call: “top of the green” - making the most-efficient use of the available horse power.

Compare that with the chaos across the city. The SS Rangers hit its iceberg back in 2012, just after the long-serving Master handed the wheel to an untried nobody. Since then, the hulk of this once great craft has drifted helplessly on a turbulent sea.

The current Master has been unmasked as, probably a pirate, while the Pilot is unused to navigating in these waters, and, there are serious doubts as to the competency of the crew.

The ship is seriously holed below the water line and the guys manning the pumps are getting somewhat sick of bailing-out the boat, while the Master promises much, but does nothing. I can see another iceberg approaching.

As a Kilmarnock fan, I was delighted with yesterday's win, but, the reality was – that was a Rangers' tribute act, although not wearing the strip. But for a series of good saves from Wes Foderingham, Killie would have won even more convincingly than they did. I fear, Rangers' Winter of Discontent is set to last for a lot longer than Ra Peepul and all staunch Real Rainjurrz Men would wish.

Of course, the King over the Water needs to be toppled, but, even then, the cancerous cells eating-up the club seem to have too-strong a hold for any short-term “sticking plaster” patch-up job to work.

Rangers can be rebuilt, but, it will take an awful lot more the six million dollars to do this. Coming up on six years of time have been squandered, the Ibrox famine now seems set to last longer than a biblical seven years.

MEANWHILE, we are all wearing smiley faces around Rugby Park. Of course, yesterday's victory was great, and highly-enjoyable. Even back in the day in the 1960s, we didn't get to celebrate too-many back-to-back wins over Rangers. Aye, yesterday made for a happier than normal Christmas.

 Stevie Clarke - doing a great job at Rugby Park

And, we might be suffering nose bleeds, being back in the Top Six for the first time in yonks. OK, getting there has been the hard part, staying there for long, in this very-competitive Scottish League (well apart from the one team head and shoulders above the rest), is the more-difficult follow-up.

Stevie Clarke has been a breath of fresh air. We have to accept, he will probably not linger long back in his home county – he's been too-long in the South to not return there when he has rehabilitated his reputation. So, we must enjoy having him and hope when he does go, his legacy is not squandered.

He has turned the club around, now, let's hope it continues to head in the right direction.