The bottom line is that they lost to the poorest team in Scotland – and, for me, that makes this defeat arguably the worst in the club's history.

This result will have reverberated around Europe over the weekend and I doubt that people reading about it across the continent will be able to believe that Glasgow Rangers were beaten by a part-time team who were bottom of the Scottish Third Division and whose manager was not even present because he was off getting married.

Perhaps the most telling thing about this result is that it wasn't even a shock when you look at what went before at Peterhead, Berwick and Annan.

But, right now, there will be no-one hurting more than Ally McCoist, and he will know that something must be done to ensure the players start dealing with the reality check which is football in the Third Division and playing at tiny grounds dotted across the country.

But the time to judge Ally as Rangers manager will be at the end of the season. The club must gain promotion and win the division and, if they don't, then Ally will know himself that it has not been good enough.

But there is no way that Charles Green will have given the remotest thought to sacking Ally right now. That is just a no-brainer, and Ally is here until the end of the season regardless.

Clearly he has earned some respite after the way he stuck with the club through the torture of administration and the way he played a key role in galvanising the support.

But we have a Rangers support following the team all across Scotland and, right now, they are paying hard cash to attend these games and back their team and the players are letting them down.

Right now Ally must find a way to get these players to deal with the trips to Berwick, Peterhead, Annan and Stirling far better – and that is going to be a tough one.

In normal circumstances at a club like Rangers if players are not doing it then they get dropped or they are moved on and new players are signed – the problem here is that because of the constrictions Ally and his coaching team are working within they do not have the depth or quality of squad to do that.

So somehow Coisty and his staff have to get more out of the players they have at their disposal and that begins with the experienced boys.

All across the park the players are losing their individual battles against their opposite numbers.

It is all very well at Ibrox when the players are playing in a great environment in front of 45,000 Rangers fans, but it seems almost like they are shell-shocked by the whole experience of playing at the smaller grounds.

The players must get it into their heads they are going to face that every time when they are away from home and the Stirling defeat has only made this worse.

What Saturday's loss will mean is that the rest of the Third Division will think if Stirling can do it, then why can't we?

The bottom line is these players should be embarrassed about the Stirling defeat and they must know they need to dig deeper.

For Ally, though, he has to find a way to get into his players heads and get more out of them and I am not sure how he will do that. In my day, Jock Wallace would have put the fear of death in us if we had turned in a performance like that – but it is different now.

It may be a novel suggestion, but it might be an idea ahead of the next away game at Clyde to get the players down to Broadwood and have them train there for a half day during the week before the game. But something radical has to be done to get them to cope with these away-day blues.

I really hope these players are hurting at least half as much as Ally will be. Surely their pride must be dented badly.

It is probably a good thing that Rangers have the international break to give Ally extra time to deal with this one and really ram home to the players what is required and expected of them.

It is almost unbelievable to think that, by the time Queen's Park come to Ibrox for the derby on Saturday, October 20, they could be four points clear of Rangers but the big plus in that respect is that the game is at home.

The bottom line is, and Ally will know this, that results and performances like the Stirling one are just not acceptable and that they cannot be repeated.

This Rangers team have to show that they are capable of going to places like Stirling and imposing themselves on the opposition and show they are worthy of wearing the Light Blue jersey and regain their self-respect. They owe the fans and their manager that much – and now nothing less is acceptable.