It was a story which ultimately amounted to nothing yet still felt significant for the context it offered.
When Carlisle United parted ways with Mike Williamson last month, the fact that the club were anchored at the bottom of League Two didn’t prevent two of the most renowned names in British football being linked with the vacancy.
Mark Hughes and Steven Gerrard were apparently the only two horses in the race from the off.
Even though his days in charge of Blackburn Rovers and Manchester City were a distant memory, the Welshman got the nod.
Clubs naturally never discuss unsuccessful candidates, but Gerrard’s name wasn’t plucked out of thin air.
There was clearly some interest in him in the corridors of Brunton Park – and you suspect the feeling was mutual.
Steven Gerrard, after a troubled start, eventually led Rangers to the Premiership title
The former England star was soon on his way to Aston Villa as he returned to the EPL
After he was sacked by Villa, Gerrard headed for Saudi Arabia… but things didn’t work out
While Gerrard might well have felt the challenge wasn’t right for him at this juncture, you do begin to wonder on which door his shadow will next be cast.
He won’t have needed the money – and he certainly won’t now after leaving Saudi Arabian side Al-Ettifaq by ‘mutual consent’ earlier this year.
But, even if his next move is just about furthering his career by taking a few backwards steps in order to then move forward, he may find opportunities limited.
The ace card of simply being Steven Gerrard took him from a coaching job at Liverpool to the front door of Ibrox and was still powerful enough to get him into Aston Villa.
Pizzazz only takes you so far in this game, though. When the most recent entries on your CV lack tangible signs of success, even less-heralded clubs start to overlook you in favour of those with more substance.
The question of what’s next for the former Liverpool and England captain is certainly much different now than it was three or four years ago.
When Gerrard took Rangers to the Premiership title without losing a game in 2020-21, all roads seemingly led to Anfield.
At the end of 2019, he and Jurgen Klopp signed contract extensions within a day of each other at their respective clubs which were both due to expire on the same day in 2024.
A happy co-incidence? Well, despite the German reiterating that the Anfield icon would manage Liverpool ‘one day’, there was certainly no grand plan for the baton to be seamlessly passed over.
As we now know, Klopp left Merseyside bang on schedule last summer after nine years. Gerrard’s career had gone down a cul-de-sac in the Middle East just as the vacancy of which he had spoken so often finally arose. He was never seriously in the running for it. You can only imagine it will now be Arne Slot’s job for as long as he chooses.
While the bond between Gerrard and the Kop will always endure, it’s difficult now to envisage any circumstance where he would be carried back in the front door shoulder high and eased into the home dug-out.
Too much time has passed for the Hollywood ending. There are just too many question marks about his ability to manage at the highest level.
His stock was high when Rangers won that title, but it plummeted during his time at Villa. Saudi was a gamble that backfired. The Pro League certainly fills a manager’s pockets, but it can trash a reputation.
If he’s to start restoring his, Gerrard badly needs to get a foothold in the managerial game again. At 44, he’s certainly young enough to pick up the pieces, using experiences both good and bad.
Most recently linked with Swansea, he can’t afford to discount any way back into a brutally competitive environment. Any offer which gives him a shot at redemption will be a good one.
One recurring theme of this story is the constant link with a return to the south side of Glasgow.
There was scarcely time to digest Philippe Clement’s dismissal before Barry Ferguson was put in interim charge.
However, Gerrard’s name never really goes away.
He still has no shortage of people championing his cause for a summer return once the American consortium finally get the keys to the place. He’s currently joint favourite for the post alongside Russell Martin.
Perhaps that is given more credence by the fact the directors he felt sold him short are now working their tickets.
But the prospective new regime will surely see the risk in such a step. Even those fans who worship the ground Gerrard walks on would surely concede that things have gone awry for him since the days when succeeding Klopp on Merseyside seemed eminently possible.
While the Englishman did win Rangers their coveted 55th title and restored the club’s reputation in Europe, a domestic record of one trophy from a possible nine was hardly startling.
Gerrard left Al-Ettifaq earlier this year – and has been linked with a return to Ibrox
He certainly brought star quality and restored the ‘big club’ feel to Ibrox. He put Rangers back on the map, his name alone persuading players like Connor Goldson to sign on the dotted line.
But while the progress made under his watch was certainly more evident than that witnessed under predecessor Pedro Caixinha, everything is relative.
Any sober assessment of Gerrard’s experiences since departing for the Midlands would render a return to Glasgow a huge gamble by a club who have got so much more wrong than right in recent years.
When Gerrard was fired by Villa in October, 2022, following a loss at Fulham, the team were sitting 17th in the Premier League.
Even more damning for him has been the club’s subsequent trajectory under his successor, Unai Emery.
The Spaniard lifted Villa into to the top four of the Premier League and secured a return to the Champions League in less than two years, using many of the players who Gerrard couldn’t get a tune out of.
Emery remains the modern-day poster boy for average footballers who prove to be exceptional managers.
If Gerrard believed the move to Saudi would allow him to wipe the slate clean in the eyes of Premier League chairmen, then he was sorely mistaken.
By the time his £15million-a-year contract was ended, Al-Ettifaq had won two of their previous 14 matches and were sitting 12th in an 18-team league.
It was a strange old episode. In almost any other circumstance, he’d have been moved on long before he was.
With the Saudi club just desperate for their superstar manager to succeed, Gerrard was put under little pressure for long enough.
The fact he was allowed to bring former Rangers coach Michael Beale to the club last November was perceived as a sign that he’d be given as much time as he needed.
Had the team been tucked in behind Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli – the clubs owned by the Public Investment Fund – he’d have survived. It was his failure to compete with those outfits with similar resources that did for him.
A generation after his midfield partnership with Frank Lampard for England was considered incompatible, Gerrard can only hope that his name continues to open doors in the same way as the former Chelsea man’s has done for him.
Despite failing to make any appreciable impact as a manager at Stamford Bridge or Everton, Lampard became Coventry’s latest manager last November.
Gerrard now needs a similar lower-key challenge – a chance to demonstrate that everything he’s done in the past seven years has been grist to the mill.
Only if he excels in that post should Rangers contemplate a reunion.
