IT was with great sadness that I read about the death of the penalty king, Johnny Hubbard, yesterday.

The man was a real legend at the club and a class act, both on and off the park.

Unfortunately, I had to rely on the word of others about his ability as a player, but anyone you ever spoke to who had seen him play left you in no doubt about just how good he was. When you met him, you sometimes wondered how he could have been a footballer given how small he was – he can’t have been much more than 5ft tall really – but by all accounts he had no problem making his presence felt.

Johnny was one of the first foreigners to ever come over to the club, and he once told me about how difficult it was for him to adjust to the Glasgow weather after coming over from the South African sunshine. But he soon shook that off, and there was no doubt that the impact the club had on him made him all the more determined to get over that as soon as he could.

Once his playing days were over, he was a near constant presence around the club on matchdays. He lived down in Ayrshire, and he would get the bus up to Glasgow to come to Ibrox every week without fail right up until the end almost. You could tell just how much Rangers had got under his skin, and because he did alright by the club, the club did alright by him.

His presence was a delight for the supporters who would meet him in the boxes and in the stands, with those who remembered him as a player sharing tales of the old days with him and those who only knew him by reputation getting the same time of day regardless.

He was an absolute gentleman, and there are so many lessons that modern-day players could take from the way he handled himself.

Quite late on in Johnny’s life, he told me that even though he was getting on in years and couldn’t get about the way he used to, he still loved that walk down Edmiston Drive on a matchday. It usually took him a fair old time to make it down the road, and not just because he wasn’t quite as mobile as he once was.

It was because he never turned down a request from a fan for a photo, an autograph, or simply just to spend a bit of time having a chat. He didn’t have to do that, and especially at his age, but as well as enjoying it, he always lived up to the standards that the club instilled in him.

It was the same in my day. You were taught to respect the supporters, the people who paid your wages.

Not all modern footballers are like this, but there are a lot of them that just have their headphones in and their heads down when they arrive, and then skulk out a side door when they get beat.

We were always told that you came in the front door when you were arriving for a game, and you would leave by the front door and have time for the fans no matter what.

Johnny lived by that. And speaking of that famous front door at Ibrox, he once spoke of how the magic of coming in and seeing that marble staircase in front of him when he first arrived at the club had him hooked on Rangers from the first moment he saw it.

When he told me about that walk down to Ibrox that he so enjoyed, he confessed that his favourite part of the journey was when he came through those front doors and saw the marble staircase once again. The magic had never left him, and his memory will never leave Rangers. Rest in peace, a great Ranger.