Hugh Keevins: Old Firm habits die hard

Typical.

Some guy who plays for Stirling Albion wanders in off the street on Sunday morning, takes the place of an indisposed Derek Johnstone, and instantly calls the outcome of the Old Firm game correctly.

The only man in the midst of a welter of predictions ranging from the fanciful to the mildly delusional to call a draw a share of the points.

What's Andy Little trying to do to Superscoreboard?

Bring the game into repute?

But what a pleasure it was to be in his company, and that of Murdo MacLeod, on a day when Glasgow's finest once again proved that an Old Firm game is a window on the human condition.

There must be eminent psychologists who would give up their holiday pay to be on our panel when Celtic play Rangers so that they could analyse the thought processes of our callers.

There is a coin which goes out of usage on the occasions when there two sides meet. It isn't a fifty pence piece or anything like that, it is the coin which has two distinctive sides.

And there were two glaringly obvious sides to the story of the one-all draw at Celtic Park.

Rangers went into the game full of determination, attitude and fight. Celtic played as if they had gorged themselves on their own pre-match publicity and were too full to give a proper account of themselves.

It's the kind of combination which can make for drawn matches, unless you're consumed by disappointment when suggestions of a record score in your team's favour fail to materialise.

There was even a man, one Charlie by name, who made the astonishing claim that Celtic's manager, Brendan Rodgers, got it wrong where his tactics against Rangers were concerned.

Is this the same Rodgers who has already won the League Cup, could win the league title next Sunday, and remains undefeated in any domestic league or cup match this season.

That's him. Got it in one. The very chap.

And Charlie was a Celtic supporter.

Not that we were finished there with people who saw what they wanted to see.

Nir Bitton was substituted at half-time, according to another caller to the programme, because he was incapacitated due to having been kicked all over the park in the first forty-five minutes.

Bitton was replaced at the break, as he had been against St. Mirren in the Scottish Cup tie the previous Sunday, because he's too slow and kills any team momentum that has been built up whenever the ball lands at his feet.

In order to be kicked all over the park you first of all have to move all over the park.

In other words, Bitton was, in my humble opinion, hopeless.

But there is no greater form of innocent pleasure than listening to the callers to Superscoreboard in the immediate aftermath of an Old Firm game, especially when the game ends on a controversial note.

Andy and Murdo played professional football on both sides of Glasgow's divide. Neither would agree with the other over the decision not to award a penalty when Clint Hill and Leigh Griffiths clashed in the dying seconds of the game.

It was a penalty, but the last type of person anyone will listen to on Old Firm day is a member of the journalistic fraternity.

We have an agenda and are incapable of seeing the truth when it is staring us in the face. Biased supporters, on the other hand, are paragons of virtue who only crave the pursuit of fair play where these matters are concerned.

That is to say it was a penalty in the eyes of the Celtic supporters and never a penalty in the estimation of the Rangers fans.

All of this is as plain as the nose on your face, but not if you're a committed fan.

They won't even admit that this is a game like no other while knocking their fellow man and woman out of the way to get a ticket to see it. It is the fixture which defines Scottish football and Pedro Caixinha had better get used to that idea now that he has clocked on for work as Mark Warburton's successor in the manager's office at Ibrox.

Expectations among the Rangers support have been raised to a suddenly unexpected level by the result at Celtic Park.

It'll be hard to go back to being also rans after that.

The Celtic fans, meanwhile, will mock their rivals' delight at gaining the draw which still leaves them a gargantuan thirty-three points adrift of Rodgers' team.

There was another caller on Sunday who feigned surprise that no-one on the panel had mention the draw had made it arithmetically impossible for Rangers to win the title.

You've got love it, haven't you?

It's not possible to get this level of humour, sarcasm, inaccuracy, paranoia, persecution and downright madness where any other game is concerned.

Roll on April 23 and that Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden so that we can do this all over again.

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• Hugh Keevins
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