Water bottles and wonder strikes – how else was Rangers and Celtic’s lunchtime lunacy expected to end, asks Bill Leckie

IT was chaotic. It was furious. It brimmed over with hate.

Let’s be honest, there when times when it was utterly vile.

Kenny Ramsay

Rangers fans were back at Celtic Park for the first time since 2019[/caption]

SKY SPORTS

The game didn’t pass without incident in the stands though[/caption]

Kenny Ramsay

But like most Old Firm derbies – you couldn’t take your eyes off it[/caption]

But no matter how much days like these make the blood boil and the stomach turn, they somehow also drag your eyes to them and won’t let you look away.

That’s the irresistable bit about the Old Firm, the unmissable bit, the unforgettable bit.

Parkhead on a Sunday lunchtime in mid-March was all of the above and so much more besides, a cauldron of excitement and of loathing, of downright stupidity – even the odd moment of that magical thing we call football.

And two minutes from the end of the 90, it all came together, all the passion, all the hate, all the knuckle-headedness, in an astonishing winner from Rangers sub Hamza Igamane and the scenes that followed it.

Celtic’s stand-in skipper Cameron Carter-Vickers will re-watch the video and ask himself why he ducked under a long ball that was his to win all day long. Right-back Alistair Johnston will be checkng and re-checking his boots to work out why he fell on his backside as the ball dropped.

The young Moroccan?

He’ll never tire of seeing that touch out of his feet and the thunderous drive that ripped past Kasper Schmiechel’s left hand and ripped into the postage stamp corner.

Then came Igamane’s team-mates; the ones on the pitch with him sprinting after him to celebrate in front of their disbelieving 2,400-odd fans, while the ones on the bench came hurtling down the track to be part of it all.

That’s when stupidity properly kicked in, as first the subbed Vaclav Cerny and then the unused Nedim Bajrami quite clearly scooshed water from plastic bottles towards Celtic supporters hanging over the barriers at the front of the main stand.

Instantly, they were met with a barrage of drinks cup, pie foils and goodness knows what else as they swaggered back to the away dugout, Cerny in particular looking as if he was almost daring someone to try and get at him.

Sure enough, as he and his mates reached their own territory, punters tried to get over the side in among them stewards and cops rushing to form a cordon that stayed in place until well after the final whistle.

Still, how else was a bout of lunchtime lunacy like these MEANT to end?

With smiles and handshakes and the visiting support being applauded back to their buses?

It’s a lovely thought, but let’s get real.

And let’s be happy that, within the confines of the stadium itself, a few flying Bovrils was as mental as it got in terms of physical violence on a day when given the chance the two tribes would have eaten each other alive.

As it was, all they could do was scream and bawl ever-more-obscene abuse across the stands, an inevitability that began more than two hours before kick-off, when the Rangers lot were there all on their lonesome.

You know the drill, the full IRA and UVF songbook, the whole Fenian and Orange B******s caper, horrible stuff about paedophilia and whatever else they could dredge up to get under each other’s skin, an atmosphere aided and abetted by Celtic’s tannoy guy ramping up his club’s St Paddy’s Day Irishness, while the away corner sang God Save The King.

I’m not even sure how many of the 58,000-odd crowd even watched the game.

Reuters

How many of the 58k watched the game?[/caption]

PA

Nicolas Raskin headed in the opener after three minutes of play[/caption]

Willie Vass

And Hamza Igamane thumped in the winner with three minutes left[/caption]

Which in this case would be a pity, as it was something remarkable to behold from first minute until last.

Celtic’s quite astonishing catalogue of errors contributed to the drama of it all as they shipped three goals for the third derby in a row. Without skipper Callum McGregor as their hub, leader and role model, they looked at times like a bunch of strangers who’d been introduced over breakfast.

And who, as it turned out, didn’t get on very well.

Come half-time, their only crumb of comfort was that they weren’t more than two down, because how Cerny failed to roll a third into an empty net after Kasper Schmeichel sidefooted the simplest of clearance straight to him, only the Czech winger himself can hope to know.

At 3-0, not even these serial trophy-winners could have dreamed of fighting back, yet once Daizen Maeda soared to nod home Jota’s cross right at the start of the second half you could see the weariness from Thursday night’s extra time shift against Fenerbahce seep into Rangers legs.

When a slide-rule pass from Luke McCowan sent Reo Hatate in to equalise with 17 to go, there only looked like being one winner – and there certainly only SOUNDED like it as the volume levels around all but that little red, white and blue wedge cranked beyond ear-splitting.

So you can only take your hat off (or, given the pre-match security measures in place, your balaclava) to Barry Ferguson’s revitalised Rangers for not only hanging in but having the minerals to go up and cash in on the opposition’s slackness one last time.

But duff defending or not…well, take a bow son. What a finish. What a climax to it all.

Well, I say climax. Except that, by the time you read this, any number of complaints will have been lodged against those Rangers subs and their water bottles.

Because of all the adjectives that describes this rivalry, vengeful tops the lot.

Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page