As a lifelong Rangers supporter, John Gilligan’s natural habitat at Ibrox is his seat in the stand watching his team play or operating quietly behind the scenes from where he has contributed time and money to the club over many years.
Facing the media is not really his bag, but as interim chairman in the midst of what his one-time pal Dave King calls a crisis, he felt it was something he needed to do. And he did it on Monday.
It was an honour to be appointed to the role, he said. Nobody could doubt his sincerity for a second, but with that privilege comes pressure and there is no end of that at Ibrox right now.
No chief executive, a stop-gap chairman, a former chairman scorned and creating mischief in the media, a playing squad with considerable holes in it and, at the same time, Celtic full of money and momentum and apparently disappearing over the horizon.
When asked about the gap between Rangers and Celtic, Gilligan said these things happen. “Sometimes we are ahead, sometimes Celtic are ahead.”
The reality is that Celtic have won 12 of the last 13 Premierships and are overwhelming favourites to make it 13 out of 14.
Previous chairman John Bennett is a cautionary tale about the stress of life at Rangers at the moment. A man who spent most of his professional career in the unforgiving world of high-finance, he was a senior figure in companies holding investment portfolios in the billions of pounds.
Bennett thrived in asset management but not much of what he learned there readied him for the brutality of being the guardian of Rangers in a time of struggle.
Even before it was announced he was standing down for health reasons, he spoke about the complexity of life in football. It was challenging and all-consuming, especially when things were going wrong and the support was in uproar.
And now Gilligan, another proud Rangers man and another Rangers investor, has put his head above the parapet. Well, somebody had to.
What was the point of his press conference? There was no update on the identity of a new chief executive, there was no clarity on who might be taking over from him as chairman and there was nothing of any substance about fresh financial investment coming into the club.
In the main, it appeared to be a vehicle for him to tell King, his one-time ally, to stop sniping from the sidelines about the club being in crisis and lacking direction. He hit the target repeatedly on that one issue.
King, former chairman and still the club’s major shareholder, has been the main character in a footballing pantomime this past week – not for the first time.