IBROX supremo Sir David Murray is confident it would work but, for the life of me, I just can’t imagine Ally McCoist, pictured, managing Rangers.

Forgive me but, after his successful stint as the joker on the BBC’s “Question of Sport” team, every time I see him doing his day job as Walter Smith’s right hand man, I expect him to burst out laughing. It’s the smirk and the twinkle in his eye that prevents me from taking him seriously.

Fair enough, every football manager I’ve ever come across has had a sense of humour – wicked in some cases – but they can be deadly serious when they have to be.

Sam Allardyce and Peter Reid honed their wits in the same Bolton dressing room and can be hilarious company. But we’ve all seen TV footage of their paint-blistering dressing room rants and there’s no doubting who is the boss when they are around.

I believe Sir Alex Ferguson laughed - once – but, having seen first-hand how angry he can be if he’s having a bad day, I’d hate to be on the wrong end of one of his famous hairdryer blasts.

There is no doubting McCoist’s passion for Rangers Football Club – being their record goalscorer and all. He’d probably still be playing the clown on QoS if any other club but the Gers had come calling.

And he has certainly impressed the powers that be since his appointment as Smith’s assistant in January 2007 – so much so that Murray, who celebrated 20 years’ ownership of the Glasgow giants last weekend, sees him as a natural successor when Smith steps down – provided they’ve managed to end Celtic’s three-year dominance of the SPL.

“I would have thought, all things being equal, that he will become manager,” Murray said.

“If we are successful, if Walter is successful then the natural successor would be McCoist.”

Murray knows such a move would be questioned by those who only see McCoist as a comic character who brought hilarity to a popular TV show, but he believes that beneath the light-hearted public persona lies a fiercely ambitious individual: “You wouldn’t have thought of him as a manager 20 years ago, would you? But he has a very strong mentality, so why shouldn’t he become manager?”

Murray knows best, but, if I were a Rangers player copping for an earful after dropping a clanger in an Old Firm derby, I’d be inclined to take the Chuckle Brothers more seriously than Ally.