New Rangers chief has chance to set fire to outdated bowling club committee and drag club out of a pub – Keith Jackson

Any question is only as valuable as the response it elicits. And, more often than not, that in itself depends entirely on the calibre and credibility of those giving out the answers.

Yes, over time, what they say may eventually provide a retrospective stick with which to beat them but only once it’s become obvious that they weren’t to be properly trusted in the first place. And usually, by then, it’s already too late.

The damage has been done. The question was not worth the breath required to make it. And, after all these years of attending all varieties of annual general meetings, few should know this to be true better than the well-meaning and long-suffering fans and shareholders of Rangers Football Club.

Regular attendees over the last decade or so will concede this yearly yah-boo gathering marks the start of panto season for a depressingly regular reason. And they will know too that the 2024 version is unlikely to be any more meaningful than the rest, given that the top table will be almost entirely made up of men who are doing no more than holding the fort, waiting for their successors to take up the temporary seats at the head of the boardroom.

That should not in any way be taken as a dig at caretaker chairman John Gilligan who had to be shoehorned into the position after the strain of the job impacted so heavily on the health of John Bennett that doctors advised him to step away for his own good.

On the contrary, Gilligan deserves a standing ovation for his efforts at holding the club together at this stage in his seventies at a time when Rangers were toppling towards another full blown, underpants-on-heads crisis.

Bennett too deserves to be shown gratitude and considerable empathy given the vast amount of money