AS A child of the sixties, I think I know my pop music. I've always been a fan of Roy Orbison and one of the Big O's iconic numbers: "It's Over" is surely apt this morning; certainly the clearing-up has still to be done - and may take years - but, in effect, for Rangers, it's over, bang bang, you're deid, as we said during our games of cowboys and indians back in the day.
Another of my favourite sixties numbers comes to mind - "Heroes and Villains" by the Beach Boys. For in the case of the decline and fall of Rangers FC, we poor wordsmiths, who toil in the fields of sports journalism invariably look for heroes and villains, and in the case of the late Rangers FC and how they died, there are no heroes, but plenty of villains.
The list will be long, but at its head will be David Murray, whose reputation as one of Scotland's "great" business men will surely be trashed once all the details of his mis-management of the club are revealed. Then there will be Craig Whyte, the spiv/chancer/con man/crook/misguided dreamer (delete as appropriate) who took the club into administration; Duff & Phelps, the administrators who apparently botched the administration, the various Rangers' directors who failed to give the club direction during the Murray Years and the Whyte Months, the various managers - Souness, Smith, Advocaat, Le Guen, McLeish and McCoist - whose idea of managing was basically spend, spend, spend and to hell with where the money comes from. The various bankers who allowed the spending to get out of control, the fans who gloried in the days of: "for every £5 Celtic spend - we will spend £10" and whose "We Are The People" mantra encouraged the madness to continue.
One might even add HMRC to all this, perhaps if they had acted sooner, pulled the plug quicker, the damage might not have been as bad - but, that, like so much which has happened over the past season, has been pure speculation.
Even the "good guys" come out of it less-well than they might have. Alistair Johnson, the former Chairman is a high-flyer with IMG, one of the biggest players in corporate sport. IMG can put together deals which set-up multi-million dollar golf and other sports tournaments. As one of its main players, Johnson has connections amongst the money men of London and New York - yet he couldn't or maybe wouldn't put together a deal which might have saved Rangers. Nobody will ever convince me that there isn't, somewhere in corporate North America a sort of Rangers Fergus McCann, a genuine off the radar super rich "Bear" who could have come in and put a stop to this nonsense.
Nobody will furthermore convince me that Johnson couldn't have found that man and made it right - but maybe that's the son of a Rangers fan in me speaking.
Anyway - what happens next. Well, in the short term, very little. BDO will come in as official liquidators and they will take some time to do their due diligence, to go through the books, find out what assets there are and how best to use them.
The trouble is, in football terms, they don't have a lot of time. This is where the SFA comes in. That body now has to show real leadership,by knocking heads together and sorting-out the footballing side of Rangers, while BDO handle the money side. I can see no legitimate means whereby Rangers, even as a new company or "newco" can be allowed to continue in the SPL next season.
This brings us to the thorny question of status. The Celtic-minded, as they party on down in celebration of the demise of their bette noir have been shouting that 140 years of tainted history has just died. Let's look seriously at this. As I have said before Rolls Royce was started in 1906 by Messrs Rolls and Royce; it became a public company, owned by share holders; the company then took over rivals Bentley and diversified into aero engines as well as other forms of propulsion.
It was briefly nationalised and therefore owned by us - the British people. It was then taken over by Vickers Ltd and today while the engines division continues as a separate plc, the car-making side is split, with Rolls Royce owned by Volkswagen, who make Bentleys, while BMW makes Rolls Royce cars.
Yet, for all this, whether it was made by Rolls and Royce in Manchester, by the original plc in Derby or Crewe, by the Vickers-owned company or by BMW - to the general public, there is the perception of a continuation from the pre-1906 Royce cars, through the various Rolls Royces - Silver Ghost, Phantoms I to VI - to the Corniche to today's Phantom and Silver Wraith.
Only the small number of still bitter Clydebank fans cast doubts as to the legitemacy of Airdrie United, to the general public, because they play in the white strip with the red diamond, at "New Broomfield" or whatever the ground is called this week, Airdrie United is the continuation of the Airdrieonians of Hughie Gallacher, Bob McPhail, Ian McMillan, Lawrie Leslie, Paul Jonquin and so-on.
Thus it will with Rangers. For as-long as a team wearing light blue shirts, white shorts and red socks with black tops runs onto the field at Ibrox Park, in the eyes of the public there will be a line from Moses McNeill, Tom Vallance and "the Gallant Pioneers" via Nicol Smith, Neil Gibson, Alan Morton and Davie Meiklejohn, Bob McPhail, Jimmy Simpson and George Brown, Dougie Gray, Jerry Dawson, Brown, Young and Shaw, McColl, Woodburn, Cox, Waddell and Thornton, Shearer and Caldow, Baxter, Scott, McMillan, Millar, Brand and Wilson, McKinnon and Greig, McCloy and Jardine, Derek Johnstone, Davie Cooper, Butcher, Gascoigne, Laudrup, the de Boers and McCoist and Durrant to whichever players are on the field.
I have no doubt that a properly managed Rangers, and here I mean management at board room rather than technical area level, can overcome present difficulties and rise again. However, I am equally certain that Charles Green is not the man to provide that level of management - to me he is as big a chancer, if not as rich a one as Messrs Murray and Whyte.
I don't know what will happen next. But, I am certain, the SFA now has to become heavily involved in Rangers. I would suggest that Rangers should be suspended from playing next season - if this means Division Three of the SFL becomes an 11-team league, then so be it.
All the many outstanding questions - double contracts? Lack of accounts? Illegal payments? These MUST be sorted out, something HAS to be done about the football debts and only when these matters have been properly dealt with, should Rangers, new or continuing, be allowed back into the game - starting in Division Three.
There might even be a case for those players and management team members who are still contracted to Rangers, being allowed to play in Division Three of the SFL next season, on a not-for-profit basis, with the team overseen by an SFA-approved management team. This would hold Rangers' position pending the resolution of the outstanding issues and would keep the many decent Rangers' fans who have been badly hurt - and their cash, inside Scottish football.
I know, this is a wee bit off-the-wall, but it could work.
But, for all these different owners
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