In the summer of 2016, Martyn Waghorn walked up the Marble Staircase in awe. 

Wowed by his opulent surroundings, he was not going to let this chance slip from his grasp.

He was signing for Rangers.

The now 32-year-old striker, who is these days plying his trade with Coventry in the English Championship, had struggled alongside teammate James Tavernier at Wigan and been told his time was up under new boss Gary Caldwell.

So you can imagine the excitement when the two pals got the call from Mark Warburton asking them to join him at Ibrox.

At £300,000 for both players, there haven't been too many bits of business to better the deal in Rangers' history.

For his part, Waghorn was just desperate to get the agreement over the line.

He recalls: “We knew how big the club was ... well at that point we didn’t really know how big it actually was. We knew of the history but until you’ve been with the fans and playing amongst it you don’t really know the size and stature.

“For me it was about getting it done as quickly as we could. With Wigan being relegated, my value had dropped. The manager believed in me and took a punt.”

While not exactly steeped in the history of Scottish football, Waghorn knew enough to spy the potential of the club.

Like many in England, he had grown up catching glimpses of a successful, powerful Rangers perennially winning trophies.

But seeing the stadium in the flesh, immediately cemented his desire to do a deal.

He said: "As soon as we walked through the doors of the stadium, you saw the marble staircase, the legends’ names on the wall. It’s hard not to be like, ‘Wow. This place is incredible’.

“I was a little starstruck to be honest with you. I thought it was an unbelievable place. Walking out of the tunnel and seeing the size of the stadium.

“It was the challenge too. I always thought, ‘we need to get this club back to the Premiership’. It was something I was desperate to be a part of.

“Once you get up there, there’s no way you are pulling out of a move to Rangers. It was too good to turn down.”

Warburton had arrived after a successful spell at Brentford, inheriting a shell of a club that had to be completely rebuilt from the bottom up.

He moved quickly to secure players he knew could not only take the Championship trophy, but adjust easily to the challenges ahead in the Premiership.

“The way him and Davie Weir spoke about the club and how they wanted to play, it was just exciting,” he said. “I had a difficult year at Wigan and it just fit the mould perfectly in terms of what they wanted to bring to the club, what they wanted to do and how ruthless and relentless it was going to be.

"It was the challenge I needed to get out of my comfort zone and test myself. At the time it was a no-brainer and I was delighted to be part of the squad that was going on to win promotion. Anything else was a failure."

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Waghorn hit the ground running, racking up goals and impressing with his performances. But Warburton operated with a deliberately tight squad and liked to rotate, often bringing in veteran Kenny Miller. This meant Waghorn often ended up in an unfamiliar role out wide on the right. While he wasn’t expected to hug the touchline as a traditional winger and was allowed to operate more centrally, it was a move away from his natural habitat.

“I wasn’t particularly happy there, although I did enjoy learning it,” he recalls. “I always see myself as a number 9.

“I felt like, being honest with myself, I was very limited in that position. I could only do a certain amount of things. I wasn’t a Barrie Mckay who could hug the touchline. I was a centre-forward.

“I tried to learn and get better at it but I more enjoyed playing in the middle, particularly in that formation as it was so attacking and free-flowing. I felt like I was going to get more chances through the middle.”

Regardless of his own concerns about playing out wide, the numbers produced were hard to argue with. Waghorn had blasted 28 goals by mid-February and had become a fan favourite for his smart finishing and tireless work ethic.

A spectacular 40 goal season looked easily within reach when disaster struck.

He was felled by Killie defender Steven Smith in a Scottish Cup tie and his knee was lacerated and bruised as it impacted with the Ayrshire club’s notorious plastic pitch.

While he was able to dust himself down and blast home the penalty, there was clearly something wrong and hobbled off moments later.

"The injury I sustained was an ACL, it’s like a car crash accident. When the solid surface hits your knee, it pushes it back.

“It was a cold night, the pitch was hard and it was astroturf so it’s a solid surface anyway. I think it was a cumulation of things, the elements, the pitch. It was one of those freak accidents.

“I stood up to take the penalty and felt my knee wobbling around a bit. I knew something wasn’t right and had to come off.”

Waghorn was ruled out for six to eight weeks, meaning he wouldn’t get to play in one of the most remarkable games of the last decade that saw a lower division Rangers side inflict Old Firm defeat on Ronny Deila’s much-fancied Celtic.

He returned on the final day of the league season playing 60 minutes of a 2-2 draw with St Mirren.

20 Days separated that last game and the Scottish Cup Final against Hibs.

And while that was a big ask, in truth, the club hadn’t played a competitive game for nearly six weeks when they strutted out at Hampden, having won the league on April 5th with a win over Dumbarton.

They were to lose 3-2 despite leading going into the last 11 minutes. Twice they were to lose goals from the team’s Achillies heel, set pieces.

He recalled: “I think there was a three-week break from our last league game to the final. We only needed a draw in the league after that semi-final win. We got that.

“Looking back now, you always pick bones and suggest you’d do things differently. We went down and played a friendly with Spurs Under-23s to get sharpness and fitness.

“I think we did everything right, it was just on the day we switched off and showed a lack of concentration, losing goals at key times that cost us the game.”

While the game marked the first time Hibs had won the cup in over 100 years, it will forever be remembered for the sickening scenes that followed the final whistle.

Hibs fans swarmed the pitch in their thousands, Rangers players were assaulted and it quickly escalated into shameful scenes of fighting when pockets of supporters clashed.

Waghorn, who came off after 75 minutes with the game still very much in his team’s favour, was able to avoid the trouble.

“I was stood at the tunnel with a few of the security guys and staff.

"Watching it, honestly, it was like a schoolyard fight.

"You just saw people jumping everywhere.

“I know Waldo (Lee Wallace) got hit a few times, I know Kenny (Miller) got a bit of it and Andy Halliday too. It’s something I had never seen, been a part of or witnessed in my career.”

And Waghorn is frustrated and angry to this day more wasn’t done to protect his teammates.

“Looking back it should never have happened,” he said. “Security had to do more to protect the players. It could have got really messy and it’s not what you want to see. In the dressing room after the game, football wasn’t even spoken about. It was just pure anger and rage at idiots spoiling it.

“I know it was a big event. It was massive for us and massive for them. Hibs did ever so well and fair play to them but let the lads enjoy it. They completely killed the whole day. It was one of those things, it was disappointing to see.”

While the season ended with a bitter taste it would be hard to characterise it as anything but a success. The team had won the league in style, playing some excellent football and some good players had been signed for a very small outlay. But defeat in the Scottish Cup semi-final was to prompt Celtic to bring in Brendan Rodgers to stymie the threat of Warburton’s energetic young side.

As their bitter rivals were getting their ducks in a row, Rangers seemed to go in a different direction in the summer.

While Jordan Rossiter was a talented, if injury-prone, youngster most of the other signings were at the opposite end of their careers.

Joey Barton, Niko Kranjcar, Clint Hill, Phillip Senderos and Joey Garner arrived changing the complexion of the team.

It was apparent from the first game of the season against Hamilton, a disappointing 1-1 draw, that a midfield of Rossiter, Kranjcar and Barton didn’t have the requisite energy to work in the manager’s system.

Waghorn admitted: “The balance wasn’t right. It didn’t work.

“Maybe we got away from what we did the previous year with the energy of Jason Holt and Andy Halliday. That style of play changed a little bit and the dynamics changed. It’s hard to adjust.

“If you take three players out of the middle of the park, it’s going to be hard for anybody if you chuck them all in. It could have been done bit by bit, with different ways and tactics but it probably wasn’t the right time to do it all at once.

“Looking back, when we beat Celtic, the expectations went through the roof and the attitude was ‘yeah, we can beat them’. Celtic were clever. They got rid of their manager and signed Brendan Rodgers who brought in players and a new emphasis and style of play. It freshened them up and it kept them a bit further ahead of us.

“Realistically we should have been trying to chase down the likes of Aberdeen, get them in our sights, pick up points against the better teams and see where we are when we get them at their place. Go stage by stage. If they are too far ahead let’s readjust expectations and the direction and look at how we were faring against Aberdeen and Hearts.

“It was these little things. The manager at the time, being from down south, didn’t really know how to manage the expectations because at Rangers, let’s be honest, you need to win.

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“We knew that. We knew anything less than challenging Celtic wasn’t going to be good enough and we wanted to earn that responsibility. That’s probably where you might need external sources, people from outside the club, staff members who have been at the club a long time to be like, ‘no, you need to be more realistic’.

“But that isn’t the Rangers way. You are brought there to play and win games and that’s what we wanted to do week in and week out. We left ourselves too open and we shot ourselves in the foot at times. It cost us some big points in big games.”

Warburton departed in in February 2017 under circumstances disputed to this day. His side were sitting in second place, 27 points behind leaders Celtic.

Waghorn feels that Rangers were on the right track the previous season but the choices taken in the summer made a parting of the ways more likely.

Asked if Warburton’s exit was expected, he said: “Yes and no. You never want your manager to get sacked. You always feel accountable but you’re at Rangers and we weren’t winning games.

“We weren’t playing the football that we were used to. We made a lot of changes. We weren’t as convincing or confident on the pitch as what we had shown previously. We got away from a lot of the things we had done and a lot of grumbling was going on about the change in our style of play. We adjusted things to accommodate other people.

"When you're in there as a player you can sense when it’s going to happen. It happened and then for us it’s about getting your heads down and cracking on.”

When a successor eventually arrived, the name Pedro Caixinha took everyone by surprise.

A trophy winner in Mexico, Waghorn was initially impressed by the charismatic Portuguese, but the wheels quickly came off.

Caixinha has a complex training methodology based around the Tactical Periodisation academic theory often favoured by coaches from Portugal. Complex, multi-faceted and vastly different to the standard UK model, the squad simply didn’t buy into it.

He said: “When Pedro came in he was a breath of fresh air. He was very passionate and energising. He spoke well and I was was thinking, ‘I’m buying in’.

“But no disrespect, to then translate a training model like that was very, very different to what we were used to in Scotland.

“We are very basic people. We turn up, we train, work hard, play a game on Saturday and then go home. It all flipped in terms of what he saw as a day off, a rest day, a work day, a game day.

"We went from a very structured routine of. Play, train, recover to a very detailed, complex plan that took away a lot of the fundamentals of what the team was about in terms of what Warburton had built and Graeme Murty followed on.

“This was the Warburton’s team and to try and flip that and translate his ideas was very difficult. It would have taken him three of four transfer windows to get his ways across and his own players in.

“Don’t get me wrong, some of the players he brought in worked very well. Obviously, Bruno Alves and Alfredo Morelos. He turned out to be unbelievable. A lot of people doubted him at the start. I have to be honest, I didn’t really see it. Gerrard’s did wonders getting him to the level he’s at now and he's producing week in, week out under van Bronckhorst again.

“There were others that didn’t work out so well. You see stories about what happened off the field and people don’t realise how intense it is.”

Waghorn has been open about his battle with depression while at the club and how the intensity of playing for Scotland’s biggest team blurs the lines between work and family life in difficult ways.

And he feels that some of Caixinha’s signing’s couldn’t adapt.

He said: “You live the way you want to live but it’s in this bubble at Rangers. You are in it. You have got to give 100 percent. Some people didn’t buy into it and some people did.

“You’ve gone from, say, South American football to Scotland where it’s a relentless game, it’s a battle week in, week out. You don’t get the time or space.

“Then you had the training plan on top of it. It was a lot for people to grasp. You’d think you got your head around it and understood it then it would change. It was really difficult.”

Rangers ended the season in third place, seven points behind Aberdeen in second and 39 adrift of champions Celtic.

It was clear Caixinha was planning a huge summer clear out but Waghorn wanted to fight for his place and spent the summer working to ensure he arrived in the best condition possible.

But when the manager moved to sign three strikers it prompted an honest discussion between the two.

He said: “As a person, I was very honest with him. He brought some more strikers in, Dalcio, Morelos and Eduardo Herrera. I said, ‘I need to play football. I have come here to play and progress. There’s interest from other clubs. I want to stay but how do you see my future?’

“He said I wouldn’t get as much game time because he’s brought in these players to play. I was disappointed because I thought I still had a lot more to give. I had come back and worked hard in the off season. I’d committed myself to prove myself that I was a fit for the club. I was disappointed with the way it had gone the year before and I was ready to show people I was able to do it at the highest level.

“To be honest though, some managers wouldn’t have been so straight with me and kept me around for the sake of having me around but he said, ‘Yes, no problem, I understand your frustrations, you’re a good enough player to play elsewhere. I won’t stand in your way’. From where I was, I was just looking for honesty so I couldn’t really argue with that.”

Waghorn was to depart for Ipswich for £1m where he was to turbocharge his career.

Under Mick McCarthy in the Championship, and while Rangers struggled under Caixinha, he blasted 16 goals and created 13 in just 44 games. It was the best season of his life and within a year Frank Lampard had stumped up £8m to take him to Derby County.

It was the kind of move that would have left a lot of people feeling like two fingers had been flashed at their old boss but that’s not how Waghorn sees it.

“It wasn’t like I wanted to show Pedro anything.” he laughs. “I always had self-belief. I just needed a platform. Like when Warburton first arrived. He had belief. When you see three strikers come in you know you are not first choice because they are the manager’s signings. A little bit of self-doubt creeps in. 

“I went down south to Ipswich to work under a manager who had loved me previously in Mick McCarthy. He just let me be me, to go and play and I had the best season of my career under him. It was just one of those moves that happens sometimes, where you find the right club and it all works out nicely.”

Waghorn has gone on to have a fine career in England, playing at a good level, playing in big games and making a good living.

But given what transpired in his absence, I wonder if there ever a hint of regret about leaving shortly before the transformative reign of Steven Gerrard began.

“Yes, of course,” he admits candidly. “Who wouldn’t want to live through a league title at Rangers. That’s one of my frustrations because given time and under different circumstances, I think I would have thrived and flourished.

“I know a lot of the players there and how he worked and what his model was. That’s what I love doing. I like to work hard and give 100 percent. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t expect to play week in, week out.

"You could see what he did, he was honest with his players. That’s what I love, that kind of normality in terms of it not mattering who you are but you need to earn your place.

“That’s what the club was missing a lot of the time when I was there. His passion is inspiring. It would have been an unbelievable opportunity to play under him but on the flip side, it game me the chance to play under some great managers like Frank Lampard, Philip Cocu and Wayne Rooney, so every closed door leads to an open one and I’ve been lucky enough to go down another path.”

And Rangers is still a club very much in the striker’s heart.

He said: “Now it’s one of the first teams whose scores I look for. Hopefully, they can go on and finish off the season well. They deserve to, I think they are the strongest all-round team again. Giovanni van Bronckhorst has brought in new ideas, you can see that in the way they play.

“From my time until today you can see that the club has a lot more structure and balance. It’s got a lot more identity than it had. The level of player the previous manager brought in enhanced the squad tenfold. It’s a lot more stable and hopefully, there's going to be a prolonged period of success. The club deserves to be at the highest level.”