SUCCESS, particularly when it comes to Rangers in recent years, is not only relative but highly subjective.

At least from the outside looking in. David Weir, as former captain of the club in his playing days, knows all too well though that finishing second will never be good enough for the vast majority of Rangers supporters.

That being said, he is vehement in his assertion that his time in the Ibrox dugout under Mark Warburton, winning promotion but falling short of the club’s stated aim of ‘going for 55’ before the duo’s acrimonious departure in February of last year, was anything but a source of personal pride.

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“I will argue with anyone that we were successful,” Weir said. “When we came to the club we had nine players, the club had finished third in the Championship and there was a lot of work to be done. We wanted to build a team to take Rangers into the Premiership and a lot of work went into that. We were on the right route getting Rangers back to where we wanted to be. But the next season was more difficult back in the Premiership.

“There were obstacles in our way, and some things did not work out the way we had hoped.”

The exact circumstances around Warburton and Weir’s departure from Ibrox remain as clear as mud, and Weir himself is still digesting what exactly happened as he found himself cut adrift from the club after such a long association.

“It does take time, and probably still you’re not really sure how it happened and what happened,” he said.

“But that’s football, you can’t live your life full of regrets, you move on. That’s kind of how I see it. You’re not happy with the way it ended, and you want to get your side of the story out, but what is the point of that? You can’t change the past, you can’t change what’s happened and the circumstances, so why worry about it?

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“You’ve just got to learn from it.”

Letting go of that regret has left Weir with happy memories, as well as a fair few medals, from his time at Ibrox as player and coach. And the Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic that looms large this Sunday has given him the perfect chance to cast up one of his fondest recollections.

In hindsight though, he concedes that Rangers’ penalty shootout victory over Celtic in the Scottish Cup in 2016 made a rod for their own backs – and for the Rangers managers since – due to the raising of expectations.

He said: “It was a watershed moment for a lot of people and there was an outpouring after that of ‘Rangers are back.’

“The game itself was really exciting. But being honest, Celtic should have won it. They had the better chances. Things went our way, even the penalties. (Tom) Rogic slipped at his penalty. It just seemed it was going to be our day.

“We were a Championship team with a lot of lads who were having their first experience of Rangers and were learning about the club and the expectations. Beating Celtic probably heightened a lot of people’s expectations in terms of where Rangers were really at that time because we had just beaten Celtic.”

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Weir is now hoping that the current occupant of the Rangers dugout can mastermind another Hampden triumph over their great rivals this weekend. He has been impressed by the way in which Graeme Murty, who was brought to the club as a youth coach while Weir was number two, has handled everything that has come with the step up.

“I think he’s been put in a really difficult position,” Weir said. “When we brought him in as Under-23 coach he’d only ever been an Under-18s coach and that was maybe a year or 18 months ago. To be thrust in as manager of Rangers is a massive jump and a big ask but he’s done really well.

“Until you have experienced coming to Rangers and Celtic and playing, you don’t appreciate what it involves. It engulfs you, it overcomes you, it becomes part of your life. Life is never the same again.”

*David Weir was speaking at a William Hill media event. William Hill is the proud sponsor of the Scottish Cup.