Tom English: Few at Ibrox will shed tears over this Boydian tragedy

Here he was, this largely immobile and thoroughly limited footballer who still managed to rifle in record amounts of goals for Rangers, a player who was often the source of rumour within the club, some of these tales – real or exaggerated – being told by apoplectic colleagues who spoke of an epic surliness on the striker’s part. One insider at the club once promised that he would reveal a medley of Boydy’s classic unruly moments just as soon as “we sell the b******”.

From the outside looking in, Boyd looked a pretty joyless character, coming alive only when he had the blue jersey on his back and the ball in an opponent’s net. Then we saw him in his element, taking the acclaim of the very same people who, not a minute earlier, were barking at him to shift his fat arse. It was always complicated between Boyd and the fans.

I’m writing about him now, well, because the big man seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth. He is, apparently, on the books of Eskisehirspor in Turkey, but there’s no sign of him making an impact. He has scored no goals in his time there, which is no great surprise given that he has only started one game and has been on the field for a sum total of 76 minutes.

In Eskisehirspor’s second-last game in the Super Lig, at home to bottom-placed Ankaragucu, Boyd was a substitute. Eskisehirspor gave up a 2-0 lead in the match and in seeking to get a late winner they brought on two attackers from the bench, neither of which was Boyd.

The people who signed him are scratching their heads as to why their big outlay hasn’t worked out. Boyd is on significant money in Turkey, money that his club have now accepted has been flushed down the toilet. The other week his chairman was said to be perplexed about the conundrum of his lost striker.

These are turbulent times in Turkish football. The game is in the grip of an investigation into match-fixing. There are 93 suspects stretching from the boardroom to the dressing room. One of those under a dirty grey cloud is Boyd’s team-mate and fellow striker, Mehmet Yildiz. Last Saturday, prosecutor Mehmet Berk filed a request to the Turkish police that all those under suspicion would not be allowed inside a football stadium until their cases were heard. Yildiz would have been in the Eskisehirspor team to play Bursaspor on Sunday, but he wasn’t allowed inside the ground never mind in the team.

Boyd’s big chance, then? No. He didn’t even make the bench. Maybe he was carrying a knock, but if he was then it wasn’t reported. He never got a mention in the previews. Nobody’s paying him any mind any more. Paying him vulgar sums of cash, yes. Making him feel wanted, you suspect not.

It’s fair to say that not everybody at his old club in Glasgow is welling up amid this Boydian tragedy. Plenty have not forgiven him for taking the money and running off to Middlesbrough, but that’s a harsh assessment. Boyd had every right to try and test himself in the Championship. It’s called ambition, not treachery. His big offence was not to leave Ibrox, but to fail dismally once he did so.

The other week I tweeted about Boyd’s goal-scoring record compared to Nikica Jelavic’s. The Croat had just completed his 40th game for Rangers. His goals ratio was impressive, but not as impressive as Boyd’s had been in his first 40 games for Rangers. The object of the exercise was to test the water about the faithful’s feelings for their old striker. The response was emphatic. Boyd had made his bed with £50 notes and now he could bloody well lie in it. They didn’t want him back.

It was all hypothetical, of course. In the absence of Steven Naismith and the unhealthy burden that has been placed on Jelavic there is a significant need of another dependable goal-scorer at Ibrox. But that guy, whoever he is, won’t be Boyd. If he was a bit of a grumpy old soul at Rangers then it’s hard to imagine what he’s like right now – and what the Turks are making of him.

Seventy-six minutes of action in six months. Somebody put this to music for goodness sake. The Ballad of Boydy would make a hell of a lament.