KONTERMAN: I have prayed for Fernando, it’s all I can do. He needs a miracle...

DICK ADVOCAAT’S decision to pair two new Dutch signings together as roommates in 2000 meant that, for three years on the road with Rangers, the night-time and morning prayers of Bert Konterman were said with Fernando Ricksen on the premises.

If only Konterman had been fully aware of the private torment his colleague in the hotel bed opposite him was enduring for much of his playing career, then Ricksen would have featured regularly and heavily in the devout Christian’s invocations.

Konterman is among a host of former Rangers favourites back at Ibrox today to feature in a charity fund-raising tribute match for tragic Ricksen, who is suffering from the incurable Motor Neurone Disease.

Since Ricksen revealed his condition to a stunned audience on Dutch TV in October 2013, Konterman has helped his former team-mate in person by offering support and promoting his book. He has also taken the fight to a higher plane.

‘I have prayed for Fernando, it’s the only thing I can do,’ said Konterman. ‘I hope he gets some strength to survive this and receive a miracle that he will heal, but we never know what the plans are with him.’

Ricksen’s life and career are now stripped bare — by both the soulwrenching public declaration that the clock had begun to tick on his body being ravaged by musclewasting illness and the Fighting Spirit autobiography that details wild footballing days spent in the grip of addictions to drink and drugs.

Had the 38-year-old chosen to be honest about the hidden troubles to stalk him in Rangers days, then Konterman suspects, on the eve of their Ibrox reunion, that Ricksen’s career would have panned out very differently and more successfully.

Everyone knew Ricksen revelled in a party atmosphere and his charge sheet of off-field indiscretions in the early days in Glasgow included drink-driving.

To those on the outside, he was simply another wild boy in Scottish football’s hall of shame.

Inside the club and even to his countrymen, it just didn’t chime that he was concealing such a dangerous relationship with addiction.

As Ricksen has admitted since a premature retirement at 34, alcohol played a huge role throughout his entire career.

Only when Konterman flicked through Fighting Spirit did it emerge the depths to which Ricksen plunged during the descents into alcoholism and, latterly in his career with Russian club Zenit St Petersburg, cocaine abuse.

Konterman said: ‘So much came as a shock when I read the book because I saw things I didn’t have a clue about in all the times we played and roomed together at Rangers. You think: “No, that can’t be true”.

‘I can appreciate people imagining us being two completely different people. But Fernando, in the room with me many times or with Arthur Numan or Michael Mols, was quiet and not talking a lot. He was still being a bit of a mystery figure.

‘You don’t trust everybody and are careful when you have contact with other people, but Fernando was really a ghost at times for us and a good actor. Obviously he had a lot of secrets around him.

‘That gives you a lot to think about now — how was it all possible? I knew from sharing a room many times that he had a lot of problems in the relationship with his wife Graciela. We advised him about this and the emotional outbursts on the pitch because we were a bit older than him. But not the addictions with drink and cocaine and that kind of s***.

‘I think he bottled up a lot of those emotions. I think we could have helped him with alcohol addiction if he shared what was going on. But, with the drinking, I think he felt embarrassed to talk with us because we were pretty serious.

‘I think he thought: “Oh my God, they’ll not accept it, they don’t have a clue what I’m going through”. He had a sort of shame.’

Ricksen’s booze issues finally called time on his Rangers career three years after Konterman had returned to Holland. Ricksen had a drunken bust-up with a stewardess on a flight to South Africa for Paul le Guen’s pre-season in July 2006, was sent home in disgrace and booked into the Sporting Chance clinic to address his demons.

But Rangers fans still had the memories of lapping up the sober Ricksen’s best year in 2004/05 when he was the driving force behind a two-trophy season that climaxed with pinching the title from Celtic on ‘Helicopter Sunday’ at Easter Road. With a League Cup semi-final at Hampden looming next Sunday, it wasn’t difficult for Konterman to recall his own highlight for Rangers as he prepared to return to Glasgow.

That came on February 5, 2002 when his 25-yard extra-time goal defeated Celtic 2-1 for new boss Alex McLeish and Konterman went from clown to cult hero in the eyes of Rangers fans forever — thanks to one screaming strike.

The announcement of his name in the line-up had been cheered by Celtic fans that evening, such was the mock regard in which he was held after 18 erratic months with Rangers. It was not only his often dubious defensive displays that made big Bert an easy target.

There was the admission that his mother had been a centre-half who helped shape his career, plus deep pronouncements on his ‘Icons’ website about Rangers and matters in life well beyond the world of Scottish football.

‘We were struggling as a team and myself and Fernando seemed to always have bad Press,’ recalled Konterman. ‘But the only way you can work on improving your situation is by yourself.

‘You will never win by mouth or pencil. You let your feet speak and

change things on the pitch. We succeeded in that and to win that game against Celtic was such a relief.

‘It was a turning point in my career. I’ve had great highlights with Holland, the European Championships and Feyenoord trophies, but that night was something else.

‘What a special moment. To score a goal against Celtic in a semi-final after what I’d been through at Rangers put in a certain perspective how simple football life is.

‘One day you are the master of disaster, the next moment I am a hero. Just because of one goal.

‘When you think about it, that’s the way life can go.’

Former Feyenoord star Konterman knew Ricksen as an opponent for AZ Alkmaar before they joined Rangers for a combined £8million fee. Konterman was involved in Christian organisations and a qualified PE teacher, so they didn’t have a great deal in common other than to be blamed for a troubled 2000/01 as Celtic surged under Martin O’Neill.

Konterman’s unsteady displays and irascible Ricksen’s indiscipline proved costly to Ibrox ambition that year. However Konterman, whose Christian work involves being a volunteer preacher in his homeland, has a confession to make.

‘I’m not satisfied about my Rangers period,’ said Konterman, now coach of FC Twente Under-19s and the national Under-21 team.

‘After everything, that time was fantastic for my life as a human being and footballer.

‘But what I know is I never brought the level I produced in Holland. That’s still a thing I blame myself for.

‘My error was to underestimate the league a bit and come from the Champions League, European Championships and think there was already a little bit of: I’ve done it all.

‘Eagerness and hunger had become a bit less. I struggled with that in the beginning of my Rangers career.

‘I improved but, even then, I could have done more to have the real hunger of winning prizes in Scotland and prove myself every day.

‘That’s what I like about guys like Steven Gerrard. Until the end of their careers, they deliver every day.’

Konterman can rewind to some of those happier days this afternoon in the name of helping Ricksen and his charities. He explained: ‘To see the Rangers crowd and reminisce with old colleagues is going to be great. I hope a lot of fans come.

‘I know there are problems for them right now but I hope supporters trust the organisation of this match and know their money is going to great charities.’