Hugh Keevins: The Old Firm? Not a patch on the old days

Wives could leave their long term spouses between now and April 17 and previously devoted husbands wouldn't even notice.

Rent a quote will earn enough money between now and that date to earn a stock market listing.

And as for Rangers' manager Mark Warburton stating that all talk of the Old Firm's meeting in the semi final of the Scottish Cup is to be banned in case it distracts attention from other matters, that betrays a naivety concerning his new found surroundings.

Mark might as well ban oxygen from the home dressing room at Ibrox as any talk of the game against Celtic.

There are no other matters, and Warburton has, by his well meaning statement, just engaged in the sort of confused thinking that will characterise the days and weeks leading up to the biggest match of this season.

It was, after all, footage of an Old Firm game shown to him by his son that is alleged to have been one of the reasons why Warburton decided to further his managerial career in the febrile atmosphere of Glasgow and its deeply divided confines.

Mark revealed that story. Nobody made it up for him.

The very mention of the term 'Old Firm' will already have caused a frenzy among those who insist that historical term no longer has any currency.

Anti-social media will now plumb new and excruciatingly murky depths as fundamentalists on both sides of the Old Firm divide desparately search for new words to describe their utter disdain for one another.

But they are, as always, best left to their own mind boggling devices while the rest of us try to put a football match into some sort of rational perspective.

The first thing to be established about this game is that things aren't what they used to be where quality is concerned.

Satelite television, clearly wishing with every fibre of their being that the draw they were beaming live into countless expectant homes on Sunday afternoon would produce an Old Firm Scottish Cup tie, decided to show the fevered highlights of the last meeting of the two clubs in that competition as an appetiser after the transmission of Celtic's win over Morton.

It was Ibrox in 2011 and the game ended in a 2-2 draw that necessitated a replay won by a goal scored by Superscoreboard's very own Mark Wilson.

The cast list, if you want to call it that, contained enough top drawer names to amply illustrate that neither club is what it once was.

Rangers had the likes of Stephen Whittaker, Steven Naismith, Nikica Jelavic and Steven Davis on their side, all of whom would go on to grace England's Premier League.

Celtic were graced by the presence of Fraser Forster, Joe Ledley and Gary Hooper, who would each take the road down South while earning Celtic millions of pounds worth of transfer fees in the process.

The sides who represented Glasgow's finest at the weekend, and will confront each other at Hampden next month, are nowhere near as good as they were five years ago.

It's just as well none of that matters to those who are only interested in the bragging rights and not remotely interested inactually analysing what it is they're bragging about.

We are what we are and the past is a distant memory.

And where we are is in a place where there is now nothing between the team at the top of the Premiership, Celtic, and the side running away with the Championship, Rangers.

You can scream and shout as much as you like in disagreement but the weekend's football illustrated the absence of a discernable difference between the sides.

Rangers have momentum in their favour and the way in which the dismantled Dundee at the cup's quarter final stage was indicative of a side who have absolutely nothing to fear when they face Celtic.

Ronny Deila's team comprehensively dismissed their lower league opponents from Greenock but if supporters were being honest with themselves, which is not a stance any of them choose to take as a rule, it was a fairly turgid display.

The manager now appears to employ the Gary Anderson approach to team selection, which involves throwing darts at the board and choosing those name whose squad number comes up.

The crowd on Sunday, albeit influenced by a noon kick-off and the need to pay to get in rather than enjoy the match as part of their season ticket deal, was skeletal enough to confirm that the Celtic fans don't find the Celtic team very interesting at the moment.

Deila, though, has now been forced into winning the only match of his Celtic tenure so far which will bring him absolute condemnation if he fails to do so.

The last meeting of Celtic and Rangers came when the latter was staggering from one internal crisis to another and didn't have the players or the sense of organisation that they have now. It was a League Cup defeat where Celtic appeared to show unexpected clemency and stopped playing when the half-time score reached two-nil.

The Scottish Cup tie shown in highlight form on Sunday afternoon was, however, a reminder of the blood curdling way it used to be.

It was also a reminder of the days when Celtic could go down to ten men, Forster was sent off for bringing down Naismith in case you'd forgotten, and go a goal behind at the same time and not suffer as a consequence.

Scott Brown scored an equaliser and Allan McGregor had a miraculous save from Georgios Samaras to prevent Celtic from winning the match in spite of their numerical disadvantage.

Recent history tells us that doesn't happen any more. If Celtic suffer a red card on April 17 it will be followed by a defeat and calls for Ronny to go.

If Rangers lose then Warburton will be introduced to a reaction the like of which he has yet to experience in his relatively new line of work. He's been living in a fantasy world to date and now real life is at hand.

The Rangers fans now have a mindset which tells them their side is in no way inferior to their rivals across the city and they will, in the event of a win over Celtic, spend the months between then and the new season beginning making very loud noises that the balance of power has changed within Scottish football.

If they don't get their way then 'Warbs' will find his magic hat swiped off the top of his head. All resistance is useless.

The standard of player at both clubs has dropped dramatically over the last five years and with it has gone the standard of play able to be demonstrated at the same time.

But none of this matters or carries any relevance. We are now on the Old Firm express and there is no time for considered judgements of any sort.

Shortly, those of us on Superscoreboard will need to swallow hard, speak distinctly and offer our predictions on how this cup tie is going to end.

All judgements, no matter how considered they may be and no matter what level of playing or journalistic experience has been used to arrive at whatever verdict, will be immediately dismissed as a work of malevolent fiction based on a deep seated bias in favour of one club or the other.

All observations from a disbelieving public will be tinged with malice, and that's just our friends and families I'm talking about.

All leave is now cancelled for the Superscoreboard infantry. Stay where you are and sort yourselves out. What you shall say now will live with you for the rest of your lives.

And remember the words that have carried through the ages, only a fool would predict the outcome of an Old Firm game. Prepare to look foolish.