OLD FIRM COUNTDOWN

There will be those who’ll trenchantly tell you this week that the meeting of Celtic and Rangers on Saturday is a first.

That a league game between the two has never happened before.

Great. Here’s hoping they all behave like that is the case. That the worst poisonous excesses of the century- old hate- fuelled rivalry the rest of Scottish football has had to endure are absent.

That the police have no need to talk to the players beforehand about the consequences of their behaviour because the social and moral inadequacy of the fans who support them – and their ability to bring the worst out in each other – is a thing of the past.

And that there is even less need for them to get hammered in the boozer afterwards before shouting and brawl ing in the streets, irrespective of the result.

That’s what happens at regular games, right? Fans come, they watch, they care, go through 90 minutes of angst, have a few pints to discuss the game with their mates and then quietly go home.

But I think we all know there’s going to be nothing regular about this. Nothing normal.

No matter how many liquidation specialists on social media there are or how often they tell you that the ‘Old Firm’ no longer exists or that the team in blue shirts playing inside Ibrox every other week are an apparition.

Saturday will be business as usual. The generation of heat rather than light. Like the two of them have never been apart.

You can sense it building. Like a player stretching his hamstrings before kick- off.

The IRA chanting at Tynecastle from the Celtic fans. Another evening’s viewing the Friday before last tainted by obscene sectarianism from the Rangers fans at Rugby Park.

It was bad enough seeing the entire dressing room giving it the full ‘ F*** the Pope and the Vatican’ in the sepiatinged documentary Scotland’s Game without us still having to endure similar from the stands 30 years on.

But there it was, like they were limbering up, a loosener for the vocal cords, a training game for what lay ahead.

Which also, by the way, made last week’s Rangers statement on their demands for Hibs to be held accountable by the SFA for the behaviour of their fans at the Cup Final all the more laughable.

Conveniently forgetting that their own – and Celtic’s – objections to the introduction of strict liability laws in the past to hold THEM accountable for THEIR fans was exactly why the SFA remained powerless in the current circumstances to do anything. They are legal eunuchs. An organisation that needs its members to empower it yet whose members run a mile every t ime they ’ re asked to vote to do it. So forgive those of us who have been bang ing the drum for it for years being scept ica l of the moti ve s behind the Ibrox hierarchy’s sudden desire to see a club accept full responsibility for their support, irrespective of ‘ doing all they could’ to ensure they behave.

Because you know as soon as they’re on the receiving end you won’t see their principles for dust.

For example, I have a copy of an SPFL delegate’s report from last season which highl ights sec ta r i an s ing ing amongst the Rangers support. It’s done as a matter of course and ignored by the authorities as a matter of course.

Never seen by the public or heard about because they know as soon as they ask about it Rangers will trot out a list of what they do to curb sectarianism – and they’ll be given a pass, without fail.

Which is why it still goes on, ad infinitum. And which is why Rangers’ stance last week was rank hypocrisy because in the past the Old Firm have fought vehemently against strict liability in the knowledge they both stand to be its biggest victims.

Again, to repeat, Rangers’ premise is right. Their players were in harm’s way. Said it at the time, have said so often enough since.

The invasion of the Hibs fans was the genesis of the problem and those of us at the game saw the consequences. But to expect the SFA to deal with it when they’ve left them unarmed is ludicrous.

In amongst all the noise next weekend there will be a football match taking place. Everything points to Celtic skooshing it – Rangers’ defensive f ragi l it y aga inst Celtic’s pace has to concern Mark Warburton. Their balance in midfield is awry as well. Then again, everyone and their auntie was saying Celtic would walk it in April’s cup semi and we all saw what happened there.

Either way it has the aura of a defining 90 minutes for both of them, one which will answer questions about where their respective summers have left them and how much their investments – or l a ck of them – have paid off.