If it’s crash, bang, wallop you’re after then a night of stock-car racing at Cowdenbeath’s Central Park will be right up your street.

Should Jermain Defoe make his Rangers debut on William Scottish Cup duty against the Blue Brazil in this multi-purpose arena on Friday night, meanwhile, then the on-loan former England striker may end

up as battered as the jalopies that career around the pitch side.

“If it’s Jermain’s first game then he might decide to head back down south right after the final whistle,” said former Cowdenbeath manager Colin Cameron with a smile.

“He might come in and see Central Park and say to himself ‘what have I got myself into here?’ I’m sure it’ll turn out fine but it’ll certainly be an eye-opener for most of the players at Rangers.”

Cameron is well aware of Central Park’s nooks, crannies and unique, ahem, charms. Defoe and the rest of the Rangers players are used to the finer things in life but the very nature of cup football means the draw can often fling you into the kind of uncomfortable territory that possesses all the luxury of a blocked toilet.

You can find beauty in the strangest of things, though. “I loved my first sight of Central Park because it is where I made my debut for Raith Rovers,” Cameron recalled. “I went from playing on public parks, so it wasn’t too much of a shock.”

By the time Cameron was managing Cowdenbeath, however, the quirks and absurdities of the Fife club’s home were wearing a bit thin.

“I remember picking up nuts, bolts and parts of cars that had been left from the stock-+car meeting before the game,” he added. “The cars would sometimes go on the park as well so you would see these tracks where they had done donuts.

“It drove me nuts when I was manager there. I like to set up a team to try to pass. Asking them to do that when there were rutted tyre marks on the pitch wasn’t great.”

Rangers will have to tread carefully on Friday night but Cameron, who led Cowdenbeath to the old Second Division title back in 2011 during his spell at the helm, is confident Steven Gerrard will have his players well warned about Central Park’s perils, pitfalls and general penury.

“It’s down to the preparation of the bigger clubs nowadays, the prep is so much more indepth now than maybe it had been in the past,” Cameron suggested. “Steven will have had Cowdenbeath watched, he’ll have had videos of them and really looked at them.

“I don’t know, he’s maybe been to Central Park himself to take a look at the place and will be telling the players what to expect. So I think they’ll be prepared.”

“But Cowdenbeath have to try to take advantage of the situation and hope that the Rangers players take one look at the place and think, ‘I don’t fancy this’.

“I also don’t think there will be enough space for all the Rangers players to get changed.

“The kitman will lay the strips out and then he’ll need to get out, it’s so small. There isn’t even space for all the bags. You couldn’t swing a cat in there. It’ll be compact, but not really bijou.”

“If Cowdenbeath can get in about them and upset them that way, then stranger things have happened.”