Rangers face bittersweet end to season McCoist, though, will be unable to avoid mixed feelings about the occasion, because of the tumultuous - and at times grotesque - consequences that were unleashed by the financial default brought about by Craig Whyte, which cast Rangers into what had been previously regarded as the outer darkness of the lower leagues. "I'm hoping it's the end of probably the two weirdest seasons of my life and we can start afresh," he said. Football wise it's been everything we expected it to be - there were bizarre moments, happy moments and sad moments. We knew it wouldn't be the cake walk a lot of people thought it would be and that was certainly the case. There's a lot of things that club can be very proud of this season. We brought full houses to places that probably haven't had it for a good number of years. It would take some clubs seasons to earn what they did in their two home games against us. We should be very proud of that - plus in the vast majority of cases, our supporters have bonded fantastically well with the people in the towns they've been visiting. If someone had told me what my first two years as Rangers manager would be like, I just wouldn't have believed them. Right at the start we had a rough idea things weren't right then when the players we were looking for were getting knocked back. We were promised all sorts of money to spend and we've been promised money to spend again [by Charles Green, the recently departed chief executive] and - I don't know, maybe I'm turning into an old cynic - I'm not sure that £10 million will be there. It's terrible how football does this to you. This glass half-full man is getting battered but I shall not turn into a pessimist. Some of the off-field stuff quite frankly has been an embarrassment. You just wonder what the great Rangers people would have made of it - not a lot I would have thought. We just need to get back to some form of normality which we don't have at the moment. McCoist's strategy meeting with Craig Mather which, as Telegraph Sport revealed, was scheduled for early in the week, had to be postponed because of a funeral attended by McCoist, but the pair sat down yesterday to begin planning for the close season and beyond. Asked if - supposing it were available - a £10 million transfer kitty would be appropriate in the humble context of SFL2 - McCoist replied: "Probably not, but, if I am going to be totally selfish about it, I would have to spend it to get out of the division and keep me, Ian Durrant, Kenny McDowall and the rest of the staff in a job. You can't have it both ways. You can't not spend it and then be criticised by everybody. I didn't spend any money this year, with the exception of David Templeton, and, whether we like it or not, we were criticised heavily for our performances. The objective was to get out the league and it will be the same next year. There won't be a massive, massive improvement. Look at the players we lost - Whittaker, Naismith, Jelavic, Lafferty, these were all £3 million or £4 million signings that went out the door. Since then we have brought in a couple of £500,000 players. Even a marquee free transfer would cost you bundles. That is the only reason they will come to SFL2 and that isn't going to happen. Your top, top players aren't going to be in SFL2. We are not going to get the top youngsters at the moment because, simply, they are under contract. The ones not under contract won't want to come to SFL2. We won't be back until we spend money. People say you can build a team from youth, but has it ever happened in the last 20 or 30 years? Manchester United brought through five or six youngsters at the same time, but we have had kids coming in to the side one or two at a time over the last 15 years. We have never had seven or eight. I don't see any reason why that would change. You bring seven or eight youngsters into the division we are in, and they would struggle to survive. We'd struggle in the SPL, that's for sure. I think we'd probably stay up, but in terms of competing? There's no reason why, when you lose 30 players, you should be able to get a team who will challenge the league you've just left. So it's not a surprise. It's going to take time before we're up challenging again. McCoist keen on Clark Rangers manager Ally McCoist has confirmed his interest in Queen of the South striker Nicky Clark. McCoist has already held talks with the player's representative and his father, former Gers player and current Palmerston assistant Sandy, about a switch to Ibrox next season. McCoist now hopes to meet with the player, who has netted an impressive 40 goals for the Irn-Bru Second Division champions this season, in the coming days. He said: "I've spoken to Nicky's agent and I've spoken to his father, who I know reasonably well, just to let them know that we have an interest in talking to Nicky and meeting up with him and seeing if there is a possibility of him coming to the club. We are no further down the line than that, but I spoke to Sandy and I'm very keen to meet up, as are Sandy and Nicky, so hopefully we can get a meeting in the next couple of days. His goalscoring record is fantastic and we certainly need strengthened in forward areas, as we do all over the park.