Kevin Muscat is making Rangers managerial history with never before seen process that led to him - Hugh Keevins

Muscat is the frontrunner on a process of elimination after two men turned Rangers down

I understood the extent to which Rangers fans had been taken beyond the limits of their endurance and driven to distraction when a radio caller demanded that 49ers Enterprises be removed from his club.

The call came in the wake of Steven Gerrard making it known he would not, for whatever reason, be going back to Ibrox.

What had been promised to be a “rigorous and thoughtful” search for Russell Martin’s replacement had, at that precise point, turned into a tortuous and fretful recruitment strategy.

I pointed out there was no feasible likelihood of the 49ers vacating the premises, given that the American owners had taken charge of a business which had fallen into internal difficulty and was in acute need of their form of financial resuscitation.

But there is a case for saying Andrew Cavenagh and his cohorts have so far flunked the fit-and-proper test at Ibrox.

The argument is made against them by examining the damage being done to Rangers’ credibility and image over the appointment of Martin’s successor.

If Kevin Muscat takes his place in Rangers’ history it will be as the first man in charge of team affairs – the title of manager appears to have fallen into disuse – to be appointed by a process of elimination.

He was the last man standing after others, such as Gerrard and Danny Rohl, had used then discarded the club for their own reasons.

If there are others in the background, two weeks after Martin’s dismissal, they couldn’t be said to have been at the forefront of anyone’s mind when the vacancy arose.

It is a confused picture and a look unbecoming of the post in question.

There is a mural on the ceiling of the Blue Room inside Ibrox that depicts the managerial giants since the birth of the club.

It starts with the founding fathers like William Wilton and Bill Struth, to others of great distinction like Willie Waddell, Jock Wallace and the late, lamented Walter Smith.

It is a symbol of the past as well as a visible indication of the way the club thought about itself in terms of being an institution, like Celtic, within Scottish society.

Martin was, for example, mocked for his state of dress and criticised over his refusal to wear the club’s standard outfit on match days because these things are seen as central to the club’s being. But the old ways have fallen into disrepair along with the team on the park.

There is a culture clash surrounding those who now have the controlling interest in Rangers.

Far from being recipients of any kind of gratitude for keeping the lights on at Ibrox, 49ers Enterprises are on their last warning where the fans are concerned.

They have lost one line manager after just 17 games.

They have been turned down by two others who are currently out of work.

Their own recruitment of key figures within the club, a CEO and a director of football, has been ridiculed.

The squad of players they hired is bloated and the wage bill is soaring, contrary to best business practice.

Now they are being confronted by the terms and conditions of everyday life within the football community they have signed up to join.

The city of Glasgow does not do long-term.

It does short fuses.

Muscat, or whoever is to be in charge, must motivate a dressing-room that has shown, with a few exceptions, an inability to respond to pressure over the season so far. And that must be achieved quickly on a domestic and European level.

If it isn’t done to the satisfaction of a demanding public, the successful candidate is in trouble and those who invested their trust in him will be in even deeper bother because they will be conceived as contrary custodians of questionable, not to say risible, judgment.

History will judge them, and history is part of their problem when it comes to the significance of adding a name to what the fans believe should be a roll of honour – and not a raffle.

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