Celtic hit the heights in Europe as confusion reigns in Scotland This in turn prompted Green and the seeming majority of Rangers fans to declare that they would rather start again in SFL3. However, Kilmarnock, Motherwell and St Mirren were willing to back Rangers" readmission to the SPL if a powerful and well argued case could be made when the top division clubs met. That possibility was scuppered when Green turned up at Hampden and handed the others a flimsy document - run up on his own PC - while his chairman, Malcolm Murray, made a poor impression on the gathering. After much rancorous haggling - which could not have been surpassed in the Casbah - Rangers eventually ended up in the fourth tier of Scottish football, under the imposition of a year long transfer embargo which left Ally McCoist scrambling to fill his squad, while Dundee, equally unprepared, were elevated to the SPL. The bookies, never slow to accommodate mugs with money to burn, promptly offered odds against Rangers going through the league season without dropping a point. Betting shops were littered with shredded slips by the end of the first afternoon, after Andy Little's last-minute equaliser saved a 2-2 draw with Peterhead at Balmoor. It took Rangers until Oct 28 to register their first away win in SFL3, against Clyde, by which time they had been knocked out of the Ramsdens Cup by Queen of the South. Elsewhere, the Tartan Army were hardly better off than their Ibrox counterparts as Scotland - said by Craig Levein to be capable of winning every game in the World Cup qualifying section - started with two lame home draws against Serbia and Macedonia and saw their chances of reaching Brazil 2014 effectively killed off by defeats in Wales and Belgium. Levein declined to oblige the SFA by quitting and was eventually relieved of his duties. Billy Stark supervised a friendly win in Luxembourg and Gordon Strachan was appointed in time to return to his former stamping ground at Pittodrie to do the same against Estonia, but the weakness of the Scottish squad was emphasised when Wales and Serbia added another two defeats to the qualifying record. By contrast, Celtic's remarkable performances in the Champions League raised Scotland's status in Europe as Neil Lennon and his squad garnered an impressive cluster of achievements, winning four consecutive qualifiers and ending a lamentable record on the road in the tournament by winning successive matches in Helsinki, Helsingborg and Moscow. Their surpassing performances, however, came against Barcelona when they took the Catalan giants to the wire in the Nou Camp - losing only in injury time - and reversing that result when the pair met again on another legendary evening in the east end of Glasgow. That Celtic reserved their best for Europe was not in dispute and with no plausible challenger in the SPL they took their time annexing the inevitable title, failing to win an away game between Feb 3 and May 19. The SPL, in fact, was the last title to be won, after Queen of the South had run off with SFL2, Rangers followed in the bottom tier and Partick Thistle edged out Morton for promotion from SFL1. Off the field, woes continued as Dunfermline went bust and Hearts" parent companies followed, although the Tynecastle club stayed in the SPL. Between times, St Mirren won an excellent Scottish Communities League Cup final against Hearts and Hampden proved no kinder to Hibernian as Celtic efficiently added the William Hill Scottish Cup to their championship trophy. The Hibs support largely stayed the course despite another failure to win the tournament, which must now extend to at least 112 years. And so the summer beckons. But will there be one league or two by August? Will Chairman Wattie finally impose calm on Rangers" squalid boardroom strife? Will Celtic still be in the Champions League when the domestic season returns and will Lennon still be the Hoops boss? Scottish football may resemble a brownfield site - but rust, as they say, never sleeps.