Barry Ferguson has thrown his gift back in faces of Ibrox fans

Apr 5 2009 Gordon Waddell

TO GIVE anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.

A phrase emblazoned on the wall as you walk along the corridor at Murray Park.

Accompanied by a picture of Barry Ferguson.

One that will presumably be removed from the premises as quickly as the captain this weekend. And all you can say is Hell mend him.

Ferguson stuck two fingers up to his nation, his club, both his managers and his supporters.

The only fitting response is for them all to do likewise to him.

Allan McGregor? You almost expect it of him. He's an irrelevance to all but himself.

If ever there was a case of football and fame bloating a player's opinion of their status beyond their ability he's yer man.

Ferguson though? He's captain of club and country. He should be a national institution. A stonewall Hall-of-Famer.

Not an embarrassment to the primary school playground.

I wrote a piece on January 7 2007, a couple of days after Barry had won his stand-off with Paul Le Guen, saying he should never be handed back the armband the Frenchman had stripped him of.

Not because I didn't rate him as a player or like him as a guy. I do. But because if he was re-instated as skipper the dressing room officially became HIS domain. Not the club's, not the manager's. HIS.

Yet they did it...and guess what? The Monster Munch bunch have ruled the roost - but no more.

The really stupid thing for Ferguson is that he's handed his head to his critics on a silver salver and so has McGregor.

After the lock-in on the Loch last Sunday I understand Walter Smith spoke to a pal on George Burley's staff and said he was fearful sending the Rangers pair home would make them martyrs the minute they walked back into Murray Park, just like Kris Boyd.

Then on Tuesday night I'm also led to believe Walter spoke to them both and told them in no uncertain terms to take their punishment, get their heads down and avoid any more headlines.

Only for him to pick up his papers on Thursday morning. They weren't just flicking the V sign at you or me - they were doing it straight at their manager.

Each of their brain cells must get lonely with nothing to cuddle at night.

They knew they were made available for sale in January. They survived only because there were no takers.And yet they STILL blow their last chance.

Again Ferguson is the biggest shocker of the lot. He used to hate Johnny Watson stereotyping him as the "Awrite, byraway" ned on Only An Excuse.

He'd grown up, he's a dad of three, a husband and captain with responsibilities. Where did they go?

Rangers fans have been getting it tight for years for some of their conduct. And this is their captain setting an example to them.

Mind you, let's not see the Rangers hierarchy as the ultimate guardian of the nation's morals.

This dovetails nicely with their agenda, the one where they would happily have taken anyone's dough for the pair in January.

It's the easiest judge and jury decision they'll ever have made because they know the fans will back them on it as well.

Still, at least they've acted.

Which brings us to the Scotland hierarchy and their tail-end Charlie response to a week of chaos. I've rarely felt happier for a manager in victory than for George Burley on Wednesday night.

Good on him for putting out a brave team and giving us something worth shouting about.

But on so many other levels he drove me nuts. He was right to bin the Rangers duo, wrong to succumb to player power to keep them there and even more wrong to put them on the bench.

What if Craig Gordon had broken a leg 10 minutes in? Burley would have had no choice but to throw a keeper on who'd be booed through one of our most important matches in years by 45,000 angry punters.

Think McGregor would have been inclined to make those saves in the last five minutes?

Then on Thursday morning, despite staring straight at the pics of the two with their fingers up, the manager refused to accept they were doing it deliberately and described it as speculation.

Not that Gordon Smith emerges with much credit either, drawing a line under it when his president was busy erasing it right behind him.

Ironically George Peat is the only man to emerge with any integrity.

But the fact he does means both Burley and Smith now have to consider whether their positions are tenable. They've been undermined - and rightly so.