Football: Rangers search for season's redemption with Hearts and soul

TODAY Rangers have the chance to salvage something from the most confusing season in living memory. If they do beat Hearts and win the Scottish Cup at Parkhead, it will be a fitting finale to Walter Smith's reign at Ibrox. Having recently steered the club to a record-equalling nine championships in a row, helped the club to previously unimagined economic strengths and coaxed top international stars from all over the world to come to Glasgow, he has decided to quit. Amazingly, some of the Ibrox faithful have branded him a failure because they were pipped at the post this time.

Over in the east end, Celtic fans are almost in mourning after this season's championship and Coca-Cola Cup double. This follows the departure in acrimonious circumstances of their manager, Wim Jansen. So, just days after one of the most important and satisfying titles in the club's history, fans are calling for the resignation of the managing director, Fergus McCann, and the general manager, Jock Brown, because of their part in the Dutchman's departure.

Down at the bottom, however, Alex McLeish, the new manager of relegated Hibernian, was being feted as a hero after his team had drawn their last game of the season against the mighty Kilmarnock. In this climate Craig Brown had better not lead Scotland in a successful World Cup campaign or he will be sacked before the end of June.

Back in domestic reality Hearts have in many ways provided the story of the 1997-98 season. Jim Jeffries, their manager, kept his side up alongside the Old Firm for 90 per cent of the season, using a fraction of the resources. For the first time in a decade, the effortless domination of the Glasgow giants was seriously challenged.

The Tynecastle club's progress has been the healthiest aspect in the whole of the Scottish game this year. While challenging for the league they also managed to produce a number of talented home-grown players. With Neil McCann and David Weir they have begun to mine a seam that many up here thought had offered up its last nuggets.

Hearts and their fans only now appear to have almost fully recovered from the trauma of their last serious assault on the championship. In 1988 they lost the last game of the season to an inferior Dundee side, conceding two late goals, and so handed Celtic the title on a plate.

This season title hopes had evaporated a month earlier and since then they have been able to coast along, concentrating their thoughts on the Cup final instead. This may well be their biggest advantage today. They will be fresh, focused and perfectly prepared for the last game of the season this time, and the spectre that has haunted the club for a decade could be banished for good.

Rangers, on the other hand, have a few more recent ghosts to exorcise. Even though they stuttered in the run-up, memorably (for me anyway) losing against Kilmarnock at home in the second to last game of the season, they still had hopes of gaining that record 10th championship in a row up until the last moment.

This tortuous run-in caused more than the obvious psychological damage. They have run themselves to exhaustion chasing Celtic, incurring injuries and suspensions to key players on the way. The latest casualties are Jorg Albertz and Jonas Thern. Their talisman, one Alastair McCoist, looks to have finally lost his battle to feature in the World Cup, having been left out of the Scotland squad which will soon fly off to America for final preparations.

A few years back I remember the cheeky smiling one withdrawing from a Scotland friendly because he was "mentally bruised" after losing a Scottish Cup tie. I think he could well be mentally broken by this late blow from Craig Brown.

Paul Gascoigne, meanwhile, is still sorely missed at Ibrox and Brian Laudrup has fallen out with the club on the eve of his departure to Chelsea.

With all this turmoil Hearts may well just have the edge in this one and it could leave Rangers without any silverware for the first year since Boy George was the new kid on the block.

For years the Scottish press have bemoaned the standard of the game because no teams were nearly strong enough to challenge Rangers. Now those same people are complaining at the paucity of the standard because Rangers cannot even be sure of beating Aberdeen, Hearts and Kilmarnock. You just can't win with some people.

Of course there is a problem with the standard up here. Purely for financing reasons the English leagues should be better than their Scottish equivalents; they would be abject failures if they were not. However, with the new Premier League set-up and the certain increase in money available through TV revenue, sponsorship and advertising, there will be a wonderful opportunity to raise the standard.

There will be an increase in quality foreign imports but it is imperative also to invest a good chunk of the extra money on the development of young home-grown players. Hopefully those in control of Scottish football will be able to behave in a sensible and imaginative way. Keeping the most talented and successful coaches involved in the game would be a good start.