UEFA Champions League Group E: Rangers v Manchester United"No experience in nearly 40 years as a professional player and manager has created a scar comparable with that left by the treatment I received at Rangers" - Sir Alex Ferguson, Managing My Life, 1999.

To understand how Ferguson really feels about returning to Rangers, whether his grievances are with certain individuals or with the club as a whole, last night was possibly not the time or the place.

Back at Ibrox for the first time since he was a plain Mister, his performance was the charm offensive of a man in a state of denial. Every question was straight-batted or deflected with humour. He did not want to talk about his days at Ibrox because he "didn't have time; there were too many goals to talk about".

There was mock hurt that he did not appear in the club's Hall of Fame.

Listening to Manchester United's manager it was as if he was worried about inspiring a newspaper cutting that could be pinned on the Rangers dressing-room wall or saying something that could be held against him if his former club beat his present one.

If he is being truthful, his childhood reminiscences of sneaking over a back wall into Ibrox, of being passed over the adults' heads to the bottom of the vast terraces, have long been diluted by the shabby way in which becoming one of the few Govan boys actually to play for the local club ended with regret and resentment.

It is just that he has been around long enough to know how and when to disguise feelings that everyone knows are really there. Being back, he said, was "great".

What is indisputable, though, is that signing for Rangers was the culmination of a dream he had cherished since his days playing street football, but what should have been the pinnacle of his playing career was instead a deeply chastening experience, scarred by people he describes as "religious bigots" and "diseased zealots".

What caused this current of rejection is a matter of dispute among his Rangers contemporaries. Even Ferguson's closest friends recognise his occasional paranoia and many of his old team-mates at Ibrox challenge his version of events.

Ferguson, a notorious grudge-bearer, has spoken of "poisonous hostility" directed towards him from bigots who supposedly hated the idea of a Protestant employee being married to a Catholic. He suspected a vendetta and more than once it ended in confrontation.

He is said to have thrown away his loser's medal from the 1969 Scottish Cup final and it shows how strongly he felt that, when one despised Rangers official confided he had contracted cancer, he admits "he did not feel a crumb of pity".

These days Ferguson, usually a man who loves nothing more than holding court with a glass of red in his hand, sends his apologies when the Ex-Rangers association has one of its functions. "We don't often see him although, to be fair, he's a busy man," says Alex Willoughby, his former team-mate and the old boys' co-ordinator.

Willoughby, the self-proclaimed "biggest Bluenose of the lot", is still close to Ferguson's family, particularly his brother Martin. But he is sceptical about the levels of bigotry his former colleague claims he faced.

"I never particularly understood that. An awful lot of people latch on to that Catholic-Protestant thing and it can be very easy but, as far as I'm concerned, it was never in question with Alec. Hand on heart, really and truthfully, if you asked me, or any other Rangers players of that era, nobody was ever asked about their relatives, Catholics, Protestants, Freemasons, Orangemen - nothing like that. I think the whole thing with Alec has been blown out of proportion.

"All that stuff that came out about questions being asked of Cathy (Ferguson's wife), I just didn't get that."

Certainly it was a small miracle, if the atmosphere was as loathsome as Ferguson alleges, that he managed to keep the number nine peg in the dressing-room as long as he did (scoring 36 goals in 68 appearances from 1967 to 1969), although it is difficult to overstate how much it had meant to him to play for Rangers in the first place.

It was because of this he opposed the club's initial attempts to sell him and, when he finally left for Falkirk, he used to wince when he read newspaper reports about "Alex Ferguson, the former Rangers player".

"I just think Alec was the right player at the wrong time," adds Willoughby. "Sometimes these things don't work out. If you were looking for a striker guaranteed to score X amount of goals, he was your man. But you have to appreciate that Scot Symon signed him. How many times does a new manager come in, in this case Davie White, and he doesn't fancy one or two of the players?"

Whatever Ferguson now thinks of Rangers, there can be no disputing his affection for the region that defined his character. The sign on his office wall says "Ahcumfigovin" and there is a Govan coat of arms with its motto: Nihil Sans Labore.

"I've got grandchildren not far from us and we're settled in England," says Ferguson. "But I must say that I love coming back to Scotland. Glasgow and Aberdeen are great cities and it's a great country."

It was revealing, though, to visit The Angel on Paisley Road, where Ferguson was once the landlord and a mile or so from Ibrox, and not find a single photograph of him among the many pictorial tributes to the local club. Tonight will be anything but an exercise in mutual appreciation.

Ryan Giggs, meanwhile, has recovered from a bout of sickness and is available for United tonight. Quinton Fortune is a doubt, however, after he was forced off against Leeds on Saturday and will have a fitness test before the match.

Kick-off: 7.45

On TV: Net 2 and Sky Sports 2