Rangers on road to recovery

Published Feb. 14, 2013 7:15 a.m. ET

foxsports

Rangers boss Ally McCoist feels the club is well on the road to recovery on the one-year anniversary of going into administration.

Valentine's Day 2012 proved to be one of the darkest days in the club's history, starting Rangers on the road to liquidation and their current home in Scottish Division Three.

A recent heavy defeat by Dundee United in the William Hill Scottish Cup led to criticism being aimed at McCoist, his staff and players, but he is happy with the way the season has gone and feels things will only continue to get better as they rise back through the league system.

McCoist told Sky Sports News: "It's obviously not an ideal scenario, that goes without saying, but I think the most important thing was - for everybody involved with the club, the fans and staff alike - that the club did survive.

"Thankfully we've managed to do that with very little losses of jobs within the company itself which was really pleasing.

"All we wanted was an opportunity to rebuild and a chance to get ourselves back where we believe we should be, and that's the top level of Scottish football. It's going to be a long and bumpy ride but we've got that opportunity and for that we are very, very thankful.

"The big concern was the livelihoods of the people within the football club - the one thing about football is, generally-speaking, footballers will survive and they will go and get another club.

"That isn't always the case with the people within the staff, so it was really important. It was worrying, really worrying times for the staff and thanks to the new owners and probably the biggest thanks of all will go to the quite unbelievable and outrageous support we've had from our followers this season.

"We're now in a position where we can start the long road back. We turned up last season losing in the region of 30 players, and the majority of them were proven internationals. We turned up for pre-season training with six players, so we had to build a squad.

"We didn't have a licence to play, we didn't play a pre-season friendly, we cancelled two pre-season tours and with some trialists and some young boys we had to get together a team capable of starting off a Ramsdens Cup tie against Brechin and going into Division Three.

"The wage bill is totally incomparable to what it was, as you would expect. Make no mistake, the players are still well paid but the wage bill would be down in the region of 75 to 80 per cent.

"But that's fine, because the most important thing is that we have the opportunity to get out of the league that we are in and get ourselves prepared for the next league, whatever that might be.

"When Charles Green came into town it was a blessing for me as we needed new owners, new allies, people who would step up to the plate and help fight for the club. Charles certainly did that and he's continuing to do it - long may that be the case."

To read more about how Rangers are getting on one year on from administration, visit the club's official website here.