The writer Harper Lee, described courage as when you know you’re beaten before you begin - but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

To say Kenny Miller is beaten before he begins may be exaggerating slightly but it would be fair to say he’ll face some hostile crowds next season, particularly at home! Miller has become Rangers' first summer signing and I don’t remember a new signing being greeted with such annoyance by the support. 

Fans' message boards are filled with venom towards him, talks of boycotts, reneging on season-ticket payments and organised protests against him have all been mooted. His name has been chanted in unflattering terms by the Rangers fans for over six months now and the club's management can’t have been under any illusions as to the supporters' feelings towards him.

The fact he used to play for Rangers cuts no ice with the fans now. Miller’s main crime wasn’t that he chose to join Celtic a couple of seasons ago - although that may have been enough for a lot of the fans. No, Miller chose to join Celtic and then didn’t do very well with them, culminating in his release to Derby County last summer.

As the logic goes, if he wasn’t good enough for them, he aint good enough for us. If he’d been a huge success at Celtic then some of the support might have accepted him as a good addition to the team, albeit through gritted teeth, but he wasn’t any better than average whilst at Parkhead. Add to that unsubstantiated rumours of badge-kissing whilst a Celtic player and scoring against Rangers in the league and Miller very quickly becomes Public Enemy No. 1.

Rangers' management can’t even be accused of being out of touch. Aside from the chants throughout last season, Walter Smith, Ally McCoist and Kenny McDowall are all Glasgow-born Rangers men; they know the support and must know its feelings. The latter of these three, MacDowall, may hold the key to this.

He made modern history when he joined Rangers directly from Celtic, albeit in a coaching capacity; maybe he knows that for all the message board bluster the reality is much easier. He also worked with Miller at Celtic and must know him well, as do Smith and McCoist, who worked with him at international level where, surprisingly, Miller has produced some of his best performances.

Miller also fits Smith's current signing policy of players whom he has worked with before. Being fair to both of them, he is a different style of forward than is currently at the club; playing on the shoulder and with a decent turn of pace, he may be the player to bring the best out of sullen goal machine Kris Boyd. He is a hard-working player (a virtue prized at Ibrox) and knows many of his new team-mates from international duty.

There is even a conspiracy theory that he only joined Celtic because the then Rangers manager, Paul Le Guen, didn’t come in for him. When Smith replaced Le Guen, Miller asked for a transfer to Rangers but was told in no uncertain terms that wasn’t going to happen and so he had to spend a season at Derby before joining. To the more vocal element of the Rangers support this may be the only decision they think Le Guen got right.

Smith must feel that Miller will deliver from day one; supporters simply won’t tolerate anything less that 100% from Miller and the you’ll need a Richter Scale to measure the groans after he misses his first easy chance. Ironically Miller's saviour might in fact be other teams' support. Rangers fans tend to back their own players if they are getting stick from the opposition, no matter how badly they are playing.

Comparisons have been made to the Mo Johnson signing but these are inaccurate as it was mainly the Celtic support that was up in arms then and Johnson was a great player at the time, coming back from a very successful stint in the French league. Miller has just led the line for the worst team in Premier League history and is simply reckoned not to be good enough by most fans.

He is also seen as a further example of the ‘down-sizing’ going on at Rangers that shows a lack of ambition by the club. If Rangers want a mobile Scottish forward with an unproven goal scoring record why not buy Steven Fletcher from Hibs and at least invest in potential many are asking.

In truth, Miller is a better player than many give him credit for and most will give him the opportunity to prove himself on the park and will judge him there rather than by what may have gone before. However, he won’t get too many second chances.

Smith is on record as saying the main difference managing Rangers this time round is that he no longer cares what others think. He’ll do it his way and to hell with anyone who disagrees, be they supporters, press or chairman. Whilst this is admirable and no doubt liberating for Walter, it is driving one of the most passionate supports in the country up the wall. Fortune favours the brave. For Smith and Miller's sake, I hope so.