Graeme Souness remains very much in the frame for the Scotland job, though we will find out over the next five days if he has been successful or not. Much more intriguing, though, is another Souness scenario that more than a few Rangers fans hope might one day be realised.

The remarkable revival of Kevin Keegan at Newcastle United has stoked football’s imagination over what happens when a former messianic figure in the game goes back to a club that adored him. In the case of Souness, there is only one such team to be quoted. If time and fate ever allow it, Souness could be the Keegan of Ibrox, a man the Rangers fans would embrace passionately were he ever to return to the club.

One week ago such a scenario seemed utterly preposterous. Now, however, we have been reminded again that nothing in football is impossible. If Keegan can go from the relative obscurity of a kids’ football factory in Braehead straight back to one of the lustrous positions of English football, then Souness can return to Rangers. It would be the dream of many among the club’s support to see it happen. The rights and wrongs of such a move are merely for pub debate.

Souness, to put it bluntly, has not covered himself in glory in his managerial career. Of his trophy-laden time at Ibrox between 1986 and 1991, I am reminded of a radio phone-in I participated in recently, in which one caller said of Souness: “Let’s not kid ourselves... a chimpanzee could have won the trophies he won at Rangers with the kind of money he had against such inferior opposition.”

There is more than a grain of truth in that. Moreover, you only need to go to Liverpool, a club where Souness was revered as a player, or Newcastle, the club at which he most recently operated, disastrously, to discover what diehard football fans think of him. The truth is, there would be a collective shudder by the Mersey or the Tyne were it ever announced that Souness was returning.

Yet it was different for Souness at Rangers. He was iconic at Ibrox and you cannot take that away from him. Moreover, as Keegan is currently confirming once more, quite often in football it is the equivalent of an evangelist’s fervour that a manager triggers among supporters which galvanises a club.

Souness would certainly do that at Ibrox. There may be a discerning group of Rangers fans who, having looked at his track-record, would doubt his true ability, but a vast throng of other supporters would simply swoon at his return.

Could it ever happen? This is where it gets complicated.

Rangers are currently restored under Walter Smith, but even Smith acknowledges that he will be lucky if he leaves Rangers under his own terms rather than the club’s. Divorce will eventually come between Smith and Rangers - maybe next year, maybe in two years - and that would offer Souness an opening.

The current Scotland situation is a further complication. Souness still has a chance of beating Mark McGhee to the Hampden Park job but it would provide the possibility of the ultimate nightmare for the Tartan Army - should Smith in time be sacked by Rangers, would Souness then walk out on Scotland to take up an offer from Ibrox? If that offer was ever made, you can bet your house he would.

Souness is a fascinating case. One former Rangers player, who played under him, told me last week what is now pretty well-known about Souness: that there were no great tactics under him at Rangers, no illuminating instructions from him as manager, except this - go out and play. He is also a man whose faintly tyrannical methods in management have probably had their day in the dressing-room.

Yet Souness’s vast footballing experience can still carry him along. Perversely, though I have grave doubts about his track-record, I can see how he would be good for Rangers if the club needed a touch of glamour restored to the dugout. It would be intriguing to witness the return of Rangers’ very own Kevin Keegan.

Heroes to ...?

A footballer’s reputation, to quote my old chum, Reg, is a bit like a candle in the wind. Was it not Tony Fitzpatrick, quite some years ago, who, while exhaling a deep breath over the skills of Ricky Gillies, said that “Ricky is good enough to play in Italy, for AC Milan, for anyone...”?

For the record, Gillies, now 31, has just joined his local Junior club, Neilston, having been released by Stranraer.

I’m reminded of golfer Rocco Mediate’s famous proclamation, while being feted by the press after taking a first-round lead in the US Masters, that “the slums of Chicago are full of guys who once led in the Masters...”

Get climbing now

Official charities of football clubs tend to be dutifully ignored by the media, but I have to admit to being impressed and even excited by something currently unfolding at Rangers. Connal Cochrane, the manager of the Rangers Charity Foundation, is planning to climb 100 Munros in 2008 in the hope of raising at least £20,000 for the foundation. Friends of Rangers - staff, players, fans, basically anyone - are invited to join Cochrane on his climbs, such as a hike up Ben Lomond on May 25.

I’m not sure if Walter Smith will be found puffing his way up the Ben on this occasion but, having been introduced to the joys of hill-climbing myself by friends in recent years, I might just sign up for the experience and get myself some sponsors.

The Rangers Charity Foundation is all the more impressive due to some of the club’s top-brass being happy to dirty their hands for the cause. For example, Martin Bain, the club’s chief executive, has recently run the New York Marathon and even climbed Kilimanjaro in order to raise funds for the cause.

Rangers will dole out more than £100,000 in charity this year, to such noble causes as cystic fibrosis research, the British Red Cross, and the Beatson research centre for cancer at Glasgow University. Anyone who wants to help Rangers and their Munro-bagging effort can do so at www.justgiving.com/M100Challenge.

Still no takers?

At the risk of sounding like his personal agent - I’m not - I repeat again: how come Andrius Velicka remains beneath everyone’s radar during this transfer window? Every time I look up, Velicka has scored, just as he did again in the Edinburgh derby. The Lithuanian is no world-beater but this is a player who would wreak some havoc for Rangers, Celtic or anyone else. I’m still wondering if anyone is going to bite with 11 days of business left.