ON the eve of the 1954 World Cup, with the Scotland national team scheduled to take on Austria in Zurich, Rangers announced the appointment of a new manager and, in effect, replaced one Ibrox legend with another. Bill Struth had retired after suffering from failing health and now, just in time for the start of the 1954-55 season, the club directors gave the job to Scot Symon, manager of Preston North End.

The season just finished, 1953-54, had not been a particularly good one for Rangers. It was indeed “the poorest Rangers team of my time”, observed the veteran Evening Times football writer, Alan Breck, in the course of a pessimistic survey of the domestic game. In a Scottish Cup semi-final, Rangers had lost 6-0 to Aberdeen. In the league (won by their arch-rivals, Celtic), they had slumped to fourth place. They had not finished outwith the top two places since the league competition had begun in its then-present form in 1946-47.

But there is no gainsaying the formidable achievements of Bill Struth, who was the manager for an astounding 34 years. He helped lay the foundations for much of the club’s lasting success and nurtured many of its greatest players. Consider these words from the Glasgow Herald’s football correspondent, in our obituary of Struth in September 1956: “No football club manager has equalled – or is likely to equal – Mr Struth’s record during his period of managership.

“Between the time of his appointment as manager in 1920 [when he replaced William Wilton] and his retirement Rangers won the First (or A) Division Championship of the Scottish League 17 times, the Scottish Cup nine times, the Glasgow Cup 18 times, and the Glasgow Charity Cup 20 times. During the Second World War they monopolised the honours.”

In May 1954 Struth was pictured receiving a TV-radiogram as a farewell present from the club. His successor, Scot Symon, had caught the eye of Rangers directors, and his appointment made perfect sense.

Symon, who in his playing days had been a useful half-back for Dundee, Rangers and Portsmouth, had taken over as manager of East Fife in 1946-47 and in his first full season had guided them to promotion to Division A (they won the Scottish League Cup twice). In 1953 he was lured south, to Preston, and in his first full term there had taken them to the FA Cup final, which they lost narrowly to West Brom.

Symon was in charge at Ibrox until his controversial sacking in 1967 and his distinguished time in office saw Rangers winning six League Championships, five Scottish Cups, and four Scottish League Cups. They also entered European competition for the first time, reaching the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in both 1961 and 1967, losing the first one to AC Fiorentina and the second to Bayern Munich.

The manner of his dismissal was deeply controversial. When he was sacked, Rangers were at the top of the league, but they had been “slightly overshadowed” (in this newspaper’s phrase) by Jock Stein’s Celtic, who that very year had been crowned European champions. In January 1967, Rangers had also suffered an ignominious defeat in the first round of the Scottish Cup at the hands of lowly Berwick Rangers (“the biggest Cup sensation of the century”, declared the Evening Times).

Two years later, in December 1969, after the dismissal of Davie White, Rangers appointed Willie Waddell as manager. He had been a great outside-right for Rangers in his time, scoring 183 goals in 538 matches; he had gone on to manage the Kilmarnock side that won the 1965 league title, and before arriving at Ibrox he was a renowned sportswriter.

“My aim,” he declared on his first day, “is to restore the image of Rangers not only on the field but off it. I want to make the club the most successful in the land – and everybody on the staff will be given a chance to make a success of his football career.” He meant business, and not for nothing did the Evening Times describe him as “the hardest man since the days of Bill Struth”.

Waddell restored much of Rangers’ lustre, steering them to an epic victory over Moscow Dynamo in the final of the 1972 European Cup Winners’ Cup, in Barcelona. Greatly affected by the Ibrox disaster of January 1971, in which 66 people died, he subsequently did much to create a new, modern Ibrox.

When Waddell died in October 1992, John Greig, who had been his captain that night in Barcelona, said that since the Ibrox disaster, Waddell “had a burning ambition to make Ibrox Stadium a place for our fans to be proud of, a place where people could come to watch football in safety and comfort. The stadium now is a testimony to his vision”.

When Waddell became general manager in June 1972, his successor was his long-serving coach and right-hand man, Jock Wallace. A larger-than-life character, a former soldier with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, he had been the Berwick Rangers goalkeeper and player-manager on that famous Cup upset in 1967.

Not only did Wallace take Rangers to the 1975 league title, ending Celtic’s hopes of winning for the 10th successive year, but he went on to create two domestic treble-winning teams in 1976 and 1978. He stunned Rangers by leaving for Leicester City in 1978, where he got the club promotion to the First Division and a place in the semi-final of the FA Cup. John Greig, his successor at Ibrox, won two Scottish Cups and two Skol cups, but for Wallace the lure of Rangers proved irresistible and he returned in 1983 to replace Greig.

Wallace remained in place until April 1986. The board dismissed him with five months still left on his three-year contract. “I leave with honour and dignity,” he said, clearly despondent. His high-profile replacement was Graeme Souness, Scotland’s World Cup captain. By now, Dundee United and Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen had emerged as the “New Firm”. Rangers directors had realised that they needed new blood in order to re-establish themselves as a force in domestic and European football.

Souness immediately promised a new deal – the signing of quality players, regardless of their religion, and an attempt to restore the club to its former glory. His signing in July 1989 of Maurice Johnston, a Catholic who had played for Celtic, was proof of his intent. He was at Ibrox until 1991, and his hard-driving approach saw Rangers winning three league titles and four league cups.

Under succeeding managers – Walter Smith (1991-98 and 2007-11), Dick Advocaat (1998-2001), Alex McLeish (2001-2006) and Ally McCoist (2011-2041), Rangers won numerous league titles and other domestic silverware. Smith won no fewer than 21 trophies, including a straight run of seven league titles in the 1990s; in his second spell they reached the 2008 Uefa Cup final, which they lost to Zenit St Petersburg. And it was under McCoist that the club began, in 2012, the arduous and controversial process of hauling itself up from Scottish football’s lowest division after slipping into administration and then liquidation.

Last November Steven Gerrard, who had guided Rangers to their 55th league title, was replaced by Giovanni van Bronckhorst. The Dutchman won the Scottish Cup and took Rangers to the Europa Cup final. Now he too has departed; and Rangers are once again mulling over potential candidates capable of assuming control of one of Britain’s most successful teams.