Give us a game - and give us peace

By Hugh Keevins

Only a few sleeps to go until your worst nightmare.

Decency will take the day off at the weekend and a city will be placed on standby for goodness knows what when Celtic play Rangers in the League Cup semi-final at Hampden.

That's not hysteria or hyperbole. That's a fact of life as three years of pent up resentment, dislike and in some cases undisguised hatred return to the fore while threatening to scar Glasgow's reputation.

It's unavoidable because society has been taken over by a sinister element who appear to have nothing else in their lives other than an obsession with their team's rivals.

This disturbing obsession isn't simply the province of internet trolls and social media's anti-social weirdos.

Last Friday I met a man who told me that he wouldn't be going to the match this Sunday on a matter of principle, the problem being that he didn't believe Rangers should have been allowed to exist after they went into liquidation.

He also told me that Celtic-supporting callers to Superscoreboard were only allowed on air to express their point of view if they first of all agreed to say that they missed Rangers being in the top flight.

This is, of course, wholly untrue and absolutely inaccurate. But not even the word of a participant in the programme was good enough to be accepted as a clarification of the truth concerning a show where callers are always accepted on a first come, first served basis.

And with no requirement that they first of all offer up a solemn oath to the effect that they will say whatever they've been instructed to state before giving the listening audience their point of view.

But the problem is otherwise sane and rational people, who have normal families and hold down responsible jobs, actually believe all of this stuff.

And that includes the bit about the media suppressing the truth surrounding rampaging Rangers fans at the game against Hearts which had to be abandoned due to the weather.

This censorship has been employed, apparently, in the interests of avoiding social unrest.

All of this conspiratorial stuff was unloaded in the course of what was supposed to pass for normal conversation.

And now, heaven help all of us, two lots of players will re-new their historic conflict for the first time in three years and give the extremists an actual reason for temporarily taking leave of their senses.

Celtic nodded in the direction of the club's charitable origins when they donated £10,000 to the funds raised by the match in aid of Fernando Ricksen at Ibrox on Sunday. The proceeds will be shared by members of Ricksen's family and also go towards research into motor neurone disease.

Rangers Charity Foundation will also be better off thanks to Celtic's generosity.

But none of that matters to those who devoted thousands of pounds towards a newspaper advertisement which underlined the belief of some Celtic supporters that Sunday's match will be the first to take place between their club and the new team in blue jerseys.

Inflammatory ? For sure.

Ill-advised ? Without question.

Tiresome ? You bet.

But the script writers for the newspaper advert never shut up, far less go away. They are, like death and taxes, always with us. And they have undoubtedly helped raise the temperature, and heightened tension, where Sunday's match is concerned.

A pity for those of us who used to be in awe of this game before it fell into the hands of those who never discuss football but are consumed by the machinations which surround it.

I actually ran away from home to see my first Old Firm derby. Parents of young children, particularly a mother who had recently suffered the death of her husband, were reluctant to have their ten year old offspring go off unattended to a fixture which was routinely the cause of crowd trouble in the fifties and sixties.

So me and a school friend sneaked off to the Govan Ferry, got a lift over at the turnstiles and were introduced to the phenomenon that was the Old Firm game. Drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

We were two young kids fascinated by this extraordinary match that divided a city and was known the world over. Fascinated, but never driven to intolerance and implosion. Not then and, five decades later, not now

Here's the deal. If Bradford can go to Stamford Bridge, fall two goals down to Chelsea and still eliminate them from the F.A. Cup then it proves the point that anything is possible in this game.

Rangers have a mediocre team, but Celtic don't have it in them to guarantee an emphatic win on the exotic scale that would lead to DVDs and commemorative tee shirts being produced for the delight of their fans.

I'm sorry to introduce a sporting element into this occasion. It's just a veteran hack clinging to the old fashioned ways.

Or, as the extremists would have it, a member of the mainstream media with an agenda sweeping the truth under the carpet rather than highlight the political manoeuvring used by the establishment to protect this new club at Ibrox from being portrayed as such.

And blah blah blah.

I have two items on my agenda where Sunday's match is concerned.

I hope that I and every man, woman and child attending the cup tie can enter, and then exit, the national stadium in complete safety. And I hope to witness an outstanding football match between two sets of players who have a tremendous burden to bear where expectation levels are concerned.

The referee, Craig Thomson, can be offered no words of encouragement or sympathy because he will take the full brunt of the blame for having deliberately created the circumstances which gave one side victory over the other.

That's a long established complaint, unaffected by the passage of time and untroubled by changes of ownership at either club.

You could call it a respect for tradition, but respect for anything will be in short supply from now until the last after shock of Sunday's match has finally receded into the distance.

All we are saying is give us a goal, give us a game to be proud of and give us peace when it comes to all of the other sideshow issues.

Clyde 1 Superscoreboard will be on air from 12pm - 4pm on Sunday with coverage of Celtic v Rangers. The phone lines will be open throughout the whole show - call 0141 951 1025.