Change is afoot, our financial position dangerous and our future insecure.
We need at least one rock of certainty to anchor the club in the present stormy waters all around us, and in Walter Smith we are fortunate to have that anchor.
Watching Walter passionately implore ‘Wee Durranty’ to get his skates on to give our bench fresh instructions against Celtic, and then sending him on his way with a scud on the back, convinced me completely that the fire of desire for Rangers Football Club still rages inside the 'Silver Fox'.
In placing Walter at the helm of the club today, the 'Gods of fortune' seem to have conspired to give us our natural leader at the very time in our history when a younger, or less Rangers minded, individual might have foundered under the enormity of the task before him.
Walter has been shaped for the task and it is through a potted history of his previous incumbents that we might get a hint of what makes him the rightful heir to the position of Rangers Manager.
Each manager had qualities that were peculiar to both themselves and the task that they faced at the particular period they were employed by us.
Struth bestrides over everyone else not just at Rangers but in Scottish Football itself. Struth sculpted an institution that rivals, no, probably surpasses, anything else to be found in Scotland, both within and without sport. What is delicious about Struth, is that his colossal achievements desperately irk those who hate everything he accomplished, to such an extent they ridiculously and deliberately ignore the man as if he never existed at all.
But in the end and through gritted teeth they have to live with 18 league championships, 10 Scottish Cups, 2 League Cups, 7 war-time championships, 19 Glasgow Cups, 17 Glasgow Merchant Charity Cups and the list goes on.
Once you take Struth out of the equation of Scottish football the entire thing reduces itself into a pathetic puddle left after the big wave has receded.
Struth didn't just engulf the rest he was a veritable tsunami.
When he said that he welcomed the chase, he was throwing a mere crumb of comfort over his shoulder to the minnows in his wake, a mere platitude perhaps to ease his own conscience for destroying the competition: Utterly.
Before Struth came, we had established ourselves as a real force in football with the love and enthusiasm of the Gallant Pioneers and then being studiously guided by the shrewd hand of William Wilton who carefully laid the ground work for the nuclear devastation that Struth would later deliver.
After Struth, Scot Symon inherited a job in and already changing football world, and one that he nevertheless engaged manfully with, but in the end it changed all too quickly not just for Symon but for The Rangers Football Club itself. I often wonder what a young Struth would have done when faced with the challenge of European football, but it seems the evidence points in only one direction. He would have grasped it eagerly and (if he would pardon the vernacular) made it his bitch.
Jock Stein didn't really do for poor Scot, instead it was the bewilderment of those above him who had never expected the legacy of Struth to be challenged as vigorously as Jock Stein had managed to do from Celtic Park. Like all great generals Stein was nevertheless lucky: lucky in the rapid disintegration of our great early sixties side. Caldow's leg break that saw the diminishment of perhaps our greatest ever full back, Baxter's leg break, Henderson's bunions all culminating later in Berwick where a ridiculous and unnecessary panic saw a loss of confidence in a team who could - even then - have won both that season's league and our first European trophy.
We bought well under a very capable man in Davie White, but sadly for Davie the momentum was overwhelmingly with our rivals and the juggernaut of Stein, who was perhaps the most manipulative and undignified bully ever to compete at the highest level in Scotland. Evil empire indeed.
Willie Waddell was never a great manager for Rangers; his strength lay as an administrator,although he won our only European trophy. Today's modern stadium was really his greatest bequest. But he did groom the great Jock Wallace and I doubt that in the history of Rangers there ever has been a more passionate true blue than Jock. Jock Wallace engineered the end for Stein, and his two trebles in three years was a tremendous achievement that brought back self respect to the suffering Ibrox legions. He should never have left us and that was a huge error that allowed things to slip from our grasp once more.
John Greig was a man thrust into the Ibrox hot seat before he was ready.
In truth he should have served his management apprenticeship away from our great club.Sadly we will never know if he would then have stepped up to the mark. In the end, despite some promise at the beginning, it saw some very desperate times for Rangers Football Club and lead thereafter to a poor return for Wallace.
Dick Advocaat must have an honourable mention. Although I must do it out of historical sequence. He gave us great football and great players. He was a fine man, but for all the money spent, I feel that Dick was a failure in his time. He should have delivered more and yet for the huge sum of expenditure he delivered something that was less. Unlucky? Perhaps. But that is of course the story of most failing generals. Nonetheless, I still love watching the video tapes of us playing under his tutelage.
Alex McLeish is very much still an unfolding management story.He will live forever as a fine Rangers manager who gave me, and I am sure most reading this, two of the greatest days of our lives.
The landmark and historical 'fiftieth title win', on a dramatic Ibrox afternoon that saw us destroy Dunfermline by six goals to one amid the most atmospheric crowd I can ever recall, was a masterclass of delivering when required. The icing on the cake coming later when the deceptive fig leaf of dignity adorned shamelessly by our rivals was once again stripped away to reveal their ugly organ of unsporting bitterness.Alex would actually go onto to top this joyful trick by producing an actual helicopter from his mercurial top hat on a sundrenched Scottish Sunday. Oh how we all clapped at such unexpected chutzpah. As a Rangers man, Alex has imposed himself into the pages of our story with some panache indeed, even if his chapter was not overly long and contained many horror pages.
Paul Le Guen would follow, but somehow the ink never flowed and the pages remain sadly unwritten and will forever be easily skipped over, although a little careful inspection might reveal a trace or two of blood. But that is another story, probably best told when the kids are safely tucked into bed.
But it is Graeme Souness who was for me the most exciting manager in my lifetime. Here was a man in the image of Bill Struth himself. No second best, nothing but the best: Champagne served with a steel fist.
Souness would give us the very best of times as Rangers became the biggest football club in the UK. This was the football equivalent of a rollercoaster ride and I for one never wanted it to end. Every day was a new headline. Each hour even, a new adventure. Bored by football? Now you are 'avving a laff. Sadly, unseen illness was taking its toll and unknowingly would contribute to him seeking seemingly greener pastures elsewhere. What if ... indeed.
Souness had started the bandwagon and Walter Smith would keep it rolling even if in a more understated manner. Walter has proven to be the silver fox, the sleek eloquent statesman, the dapper diplomat and yet beneath it all beats a heart of solid steel. Smith is the ultimate Ranger.
Not the best tactical mind, nor the cleverest football brain, nor the most adventurous or boldest leader, but in everything - just everything - he is the most capable of managers. The safest captain of the Rangers ship and perhaps the man best able to fit into Bill Struth's demanding blazer. As much as Walter frustrates me, as much as he is an enigma to my reasoning, I can never resist him as a leader.
You instantly know that Mr. Struth would have approved of Walter; respected him and trusted him. That is where we are today. In truth, like Struth, in Walter we must trust.