Sir David Murray never entertained the prospect of a bleak outlook.

He was restrained only by the scope of his ambition, and by the extent of his financial brinksmanship. His father was a gambler, and that deterred Murray from becoming a betting man, but he thrived on being a bombastic figure, taking bold decisions and, often enough, remaining disdainful of the risks. He sold Rangers for £1 last May, but the consequences of his ownership are still being felt now; it is Murray's decisions that have left the club on the brink of administration.

He revelled in the sense of being a daring businessman. Murray would not be constrained by the limits he encountered, but extravagance ultimately caused the club's downfall. It was during Murray's ownership that Rangers began to use Employee Benefits Trusts which, although not illegal, were subject to precise regulations. The crux of Her Majesty's Revenue and Custom's claim against Rangers is that they were misused, leaving the club facing a significant bill, and penalty payments, of up to as much as £49m.

The potential tax liability became the fear that stalked Rangers, but the current scenario is as much a reflection of the full range of Murray's stewardship. He dispensed with the old boundaries, so that his reign could be celebrated for the signing of Maurice Johnstone, a high-profile Catholic, and so ending an unwritten sectarian signing policy at Ibrox. He also appointed Walter Smith, who completed the pursuit of nine consecutive league titles, and then sought to establish the club as a European power by bringing Dick Advocaat to Glasgow.

Murray collected prizes, but the spending reached its reckless zenith under the Dutchman, whose transfer outlay during his spell in charge was £80m. Tore Andre Flo became the symbol of this time of excess, arriving from Chelsea in a £12m deal that was supposed to be a killer blow to Celtic's resurgence under Martin O'Neill. Under Advocaat, the club was also prepared to spend £1m on Marcus Gayle, even although the Dutch manager had never seen him play.

This was the great hubris of Murray, the conviction that reward, and justification, lay in outspending rivals. He taunted Celtic when the Parkhead club was recovering from its own brush with financial ruin, and it was egotism that was the businessmen's greatest strength, but also his inherent weakness. He loved the cut-and-thrust of owning Rangers, of making deals, of pursuing signing targets in his private jet, of belittling the club's greatest rivals. Yet it could not be sustained.

When Advocaat was replaced by Alex McLeish in 2001, Rangers embarked upon a drastic wage cutting process, and the club posted losses of £32m in 2001/02, £29m in 2002/03 and £19m the following season. Money was haemorrhaging out of the club. Murray stepped down as chairman in July 2002, but returned two years later with the club's debt upwards of £70m. He launched a share issue to try and raise £50m, but had to underwrite it himself, further tying Rangers up into the wider fortunes of the Murray Group.

At times he was an audacious character, persuading billionaire Joe Lewis to invest £40m, only to buy back his stake in the club for almost £9m eight years later. The revenue streams could never keep up with Murray's sense of Rangers as needing to be at the forefront of the Scottish game. He did not grow up supporting the club, but quickly embraced the nature of the rivalry with Celtic, and the reflected glory that came from accumulating trophies.

As McLeish struggled to maintain a title challenge while downsizing, Murray was still capable of being impudent, and he replaced him with Paul Le Guen, at the time one of the most admired young managers in Europe. When he could not bankroll the Frenchman's plans, and the players began to rail against the manager's style and commands, Murray returned again to Smith. The global economy was faltering, and Rangers were still heavily in debt, but there was still a spending spree: Kevin Thomson for £2m, Lee McCulloch for £2.5m, Steven Whittaker for £2m, Steven Naismith for £2m, Kyle Lafferty for £3m, Madjid Bougherra for £2.5m, Pedro Mendes for £3m, Maurice Edu for £2.6m and Steven Davis for £3m.

These signings were the bedrock of the Rangers teams that won three consecutive league titles, but at the same time Lloyds Bank were taking over control of the club from Murray. By then, the bravado of Murray's reign seemed a hollow, almost poignant sound. He once estimated that he spent £100m of his own fortune on Rangers, and remarked when he stood down as chairman that of his last 200 phone calls he had made, 170 of them had been on Rangers business. The club was a small part of the Murray empire, but also the most high-profile.

Mostly, this allowed Murray to revert to his classic posturing. When journalists were granted access to his Charlotte Square office in Edinburgh for one-to-one interviews, they found a man who had done his homework on them, and who would then embark on a bravura display, banging his fist on the table as he made points and generating a sense of relentless self-belief.

Many of those who worked under Murray at Rangers continue to pay tribute to him. He was a generous employer, if you were loyal and effective, and he allowed some of his managers and players to reach emphatic career highs. Yet many fans were quicker to doubt the boldness of Rangers' financial dealings and began to grow suspicious of Murray. He owned the club for 23 years, and the current financial turmoil is a direct result of many of the decisions that he made during the last decade of that spell.

Murray became powerless at Ibrox, which must have been an indignity to a man used to making the world bend to his will. So, too, must be watching Craig Whyte take the club into administration. Yet despite his business acumen and the years of triumph and success, Murray could not save Rangers. His legacy is mixed, a combination of high-drama, glory, haughtiness, but also angst and a terrible financial reality.