IT began with a kiss and ended in a second coming.

There was also betrayal, banishment and even a moonbeam. Paul Le Guen’s time at Rangers, which ended ten years ago today, was nothing short of a surreal and dismal failure, and there were few who emerged from the mess with any credit.

The Frenchman, a proud and clearly intelligent man, was simply a wrong fit for the club at the time, although had he walked into another dressing room, one which were more open to his ideas, then who knows what might have happened.

As it was, Le Guen sacked Barry Ferguson as captain on Hogmanay when the club sat 17 points behind Celtic, and fourth place in the Premier League. He was booed by his own supporters at Fir Park and then within days was off. Walter Smith returned to Ibrox and within 18 months led Rangers to a European Final.

This all began when Rangers had ushered Alex McLeish out the door with a lack of class even if his last season saw him finish 17 points behind Celtic. They never even got second. That went to Hearts. So something did need to change.

David Murray announced his appointment of Le Guen as a “massive moonbeam of success" for the club and promised, “big plans."

To be fair, Le Guen enjoyed success at Lyon and had a reputation as a coach who specialised in bringing on youngster and signing bargains and then developing them into top rank players. It did make sense. Lots of it.

Le Guen led Lyon to three consecutive Ligue 1 titles whilst guiding them to two Champions League quarter finals in successive seasons. He was out of work having taken a year-long sabbatical. The supporters were understandably delighted with Le Gaffer.

I hardly missed a match of Le Guen’s time with Rangers. I was at his unveiling, went to South Africa for their summer tour and watched every European game both home and away. My newspaper at the time even sent me to France to get an exclusive interview with him before he came to Scotland; something I utterly failed to do.

I was in Belfast at Windsor Park for his first game during pre-season, this was June 2016, when Linfield manager, David Jeffrey, planted a big smacker on Le Guen’s head. It was all very optimistic and jolly but it didn’t take long for things to go wrong.

Only a few days later, a group of footballer writers from Scotland, and that included me, were sat around a table in a Johannesburg restaurant with some fine wine watching the World Cup Final when one by one our phones started to ring.

Fernando Ricksen had been sent home for an incident on the plane. Rumours quickly spread. He had taken all his clothes off, was drunk, got caught watching porn on a laptop. This was Fernando. It could have been all of these things.

It meant we had to leave the vino, head back to our rooms to do some work. The first time this has ever happened!

We were due to see Le Guen the next day. He would not speak about Ricksen on or off the record and even seemed slightly surprised that we wanted to know what had happened. This was the team captain and Player of the Year 12 months ago. The supporters were due an answer. It didn’t bode well.

And then he started signing players.

Dean Furman, William Stanger, Antoine Ponroy, Libor Sionko, Karl Svensson, Jeremy Clement, Lionel Letizi, Makhtar N'Diaye, Lee Martin and Sasa Papic. At least he got one right.

And there was Philippe Sebo, a man whose surname even a decade on is used whenever a striker puts his shot ten miles past the post.

There was also Phil Bardsley who along with Martin arrived on a loan from Manchester United. Le Guen didn’t like his players to tackle in training, the first sign he had walked into the wrong movie, but Bardsley ignored those orders, put a challenge in on Thomas Buffel which is seen every day at clubs. He had his contract ripped up.

Le Guen wanted to change everything. The way Rangers training, played and ate. Too many, he believed, drank too much and didn’t pay attention to their diet. He detested laziness. Kris Boyd, even with all his goals, was never going to be a favourite.

The Scottish players in the dressing room soon feared the manager wasn’t for them. It didn’t help that his English wasn’t great. It’s hard enough to lead a revolution when it’s not done through a translator.

And the results were hardly brilliant. They drew with Dunfermline and Kilmarnock. They lost to Hibernian and Celtic. Rangers were leading 2-1 at Kilmarnock and allowed a late equaliser. When asked afterwards why this team had done this, he said: “I don’t know.”

Le Guen didn’t get that in Scottish football, putting in a tackle is a must. Also at Rangers, you don’t get knocked out of the League Cup by a lower league team. That happened for the first time thanks to St Johnstone.

And then came a defeat at Inverness, Rangers were 1-0 up and yet again contrived to lose. This was the day when captain Ferguson couldn’t keep his mouth shut any more.

"At that stage we'd had a couple of bad results, home and away.,” he recalled in an interview last year. ”Paul Le Guen came into the dressing room and said 'don't worry, it'll be all right if we all stick together'.

"It was about the sixth or seventh time we'd had a difficult result and I'd just had enough. I said 'we're Rangers and I got brought up with winning as the only thing - a defeat is never acceptable.”

During these difficult months, Le Guen was hardly helped by Murray’s ridiculous idea to sit beside him at a press conference so he could tell the world everything was okay. It made the Frenchman look weak.

It was all over after just 31 games. With Ferguson sacked and probably on the way out of the club, Kris Boyd scored at Motherwell and held up six fingers as a public backing of his pal who wore that number on his shirt.

Le Guen left and Smith was on his way back, an unusual chapter closed in the history of Rangers.