IAN Ferguson would be the first to admit that he was, despite the success he enjoyed, by no means the most cultured or celebrated player at Rangers during either the Nine-In-A-Row or Dick Advocaat eras.

Having shared a dressing room with the likes of Andy Goram, Richard Gough and Ally McCoist and then Lorenzo Amoruso, Andrei Kanchelskis and Giovanni van Bronckhorst later on, there was no great disgrace in that.

Yet, few if any of those the Glasgow-born midfielder lined up alongside in the 12 years he spent at his boyhood heroes could match his passion for the Ibrox club or his desire for them to succeed.

Warburton: Rangers focusing on Ross County before daunting tasks ahead

Arthur Numan discovered just how much Rangers doing well, against Celtic in particular, mattered to his new team mate after they were on the receiving end of a 5-1 defeat in an Old Firm game at Parkhead just after he had arrived in Scotland in 1998.

“Ian Ferguson wasn’t in the team,” said Numan. “But he came on I think for the last 16 minutes or so. Within a minute he had picked up a yellow card. I think he tried to kick as many green and white players as he could!

“But I never forget because after the game he came into the dressing room. He went absolutely ballistic and mental for five minutes. Advocaat was standing there and he didn’t say anything. He left Ian to say his stuff.

“He screamed: ‘You f***ing foreigners don’t have a clue what it means to get beat by them!’ For him it meant more to beat Celtic four times a year than winning the league.

“I had a discussion with him. I said we got beat 5-1, but we were still eight points ahead. I told him the most important thing was to win the league. But he said it wasn’t, he wanted to beat Celtic four times. I then realised what it actually meant to come to Scotland and be involved in an Old Firm game.”

If any of the high-profile new arrivals at Rangers, Joey Barton, Niko Kranjcar of Philippe Senderos, was unsure about just how important doing well against Celtic is then Numan believes they will be in no doubt now given the fallout to their identical 5-1 defeat at Celtic Park last Saturday.

“I think they will realise it now,” he said. “I will never forget. Before I signed for Rangers Pierre Van Hooijdonk was my roommate with the Netherlands at the World Cup in 1998.

“I asked Pierre what it was like to play in the Old Firm game. He said: ‘Arthur I can tell you, but I’m not going to because you have to experience it yourself to find out. I can tell you all about the game but you still won’t have a clue’. He was spot on.

“The build-up to the game was also a big surprise when I came to Scotland. Here you have so many papers and it’s all Rangers and Celtic. You have interviews with older players, games from the past then the game itself, and you lose.

“It’s unbelievable what happens after the game as well. After the game, we try to improve, try to forget about it. But it’s impossible because for the next couple of days you get confronted, papers, people in the street. For me it was a wakeup call."

However, the differences between the 5-1 defeat the Rangers team the Dutch left back was a part of and the 5-1 defeat the current one suffered at the weekend are vast.

His side was comprised of expensively acquired overseas players and was some distance ahead in the league. They would go on and sew up the title by a comfortable margin that season.

Mark Warburton’s men, meanwhile, have just won promotion back into the top flight after four long years in the lower divisions and are trying to re-establish themselves as a force in the Scottish game.

Numan, like former manager McCoist, believes that may take some time on the evidence of the one-sided encounter which he witnessed in the East End of Glasgow at the weekend.

“I saw the match,” he said. “It was disappointing. But you have to admit Celtic were by far the better team. You see on Saturday that Celtic were the better team, they had the better players. It was men against boys.

“But you can’t compare it with before. Rangers now are back in the highest division. You can’t expect them to compete immediately with Celtic because the gap is still too big. I think it will be two or three years before Rangers are back and can compete with team in Europe again.

“They are trying to find the balance between some young promising players and the older experienced players who can guide the youngsters. But it is only one game, you play so many games. Even if you lose two games you can still do well against the other teams.

“Hopefully they will learn from it. Maybe they are fired up and can get a result against Ross County this weekend. It is good that they play home. They can get their confidence back. I am sure they will be talking about the game that went on and especially the red card. There are so many more games to play.”

Arthur Numan was speaking at a William Hill media event to promote the draw for Saturday's William Hill Ayr Gold Cup.