Derek Lyle once offered to do a job up front for Rangers for free as the side were ascending up the lower leagues.
The Queen of the South hero claims his agent told then-Rangers manager Ally McCoist his client would volunteer his playing time to help reduce wage costs.
Lifelong fan Lyle, still playing aged 39 at Peterhead, was honoured by Queen of the South in a testimonial game with a visiting Rangers Legends side featuring Barry Ferguson and Peter Lovenkrands.
But he has never played professionally for the Glasgow team.
He reckons he could have ‘done a job’ for Rangers to get them up the leagues and helped with the club’s finances – but ‘it just wasn’t to be’.
Speaking on the Football Daft podcast, Lyle said: “I actually asked my agent to ask [Ally] McCoist when they went down. I would play for nothing, because I was obviously a Rangers man and I would have loved to have played for them.
“Just to go there and play. I said I’d play for nothing, and I know that when they’d come up the leagues they would have been looking for a wee bit better quality going into the SPL, obviously trying to win championships and leagues.
“It wasn’t to be, they brought the likes of Kenny Miller and Kris Boyd and that in - good players, so it just wasn’t to be for me...
“And not taking anything away from McCoist, I know what he’s tried to do, he’s tried to get your Kenny Millers and just to get through the leagues and go into the SPL, but he could have probably done with a few people in the standard of myself going through the leagues just to get them up.”
