Brace yourselves, the Glasgow giants are going head-to-head for silverware
The appearance of a, sometimes, mythical beast was assured by Rangers’ comprehensive dismissal of Hearts in yesterday’s Betfred Cup semi-final. We just don’t know how scary and nasty it will prove.
A decade ago Gordon Strachan remarked that, outside of these borders, everyone assumed the Ibrox men and bitter rivals Celtic were forever playing each other in domestic cup finals. He said it in the build-up to a 2009 League Cup decider that was only the fourth such big beast of an occasion in 20 years. Since then, we have witnessed only one more of these monsters, which came with the 2011 League Cup final.
A simple piece of arithmetic, then, tells that Steven Gerrard’s men yesterday booking a Betfred Cup final on 8 December against a Celtic side looking to extend their monopoly of domestic honours to ten straight trophies, will make for only the seventh domestic showpiece between the Glasgow behemoths in little over three decades. Hardly the regular occurrence of legend.
Rangers’ straitened circumstances after liquidation in 2012, which necessitated them reassembling their remaining parts and working their way through the divisions, might be forgiven for appearing a straightforward explanation for the eight-year gap between the pair confronting one another in a final.
Yet, what is more significant is the fact the adversaries have drawn each other in cup competitions five times in the past seven years – with Celtic winning all but one of these ties, to contribute three of Rangers’ five consecutive semi-final losses before yesterday.
A resumption of this derby contest with silverware directly on the line – the 29th in the annals of Scottish football and the 15th in the League Cup – carries with it more dodgy baggage than the Escobar cartel’s drug mule, let’s be frank.
The emergency services won’t look forward to it, and those with modern, fair-minded sensibilities ought to think of turning the sound down should they care to tune in to what can seem a real freakshow.
It will be a cause for gloom from all those who take little interest in this darkly tribal, Glasgow-based battle for silverware and Scottish football supremacy that the country’s two biggest clubs are once more besting all others. Whether that be the first cup competition of the season, or in the league where they have opened up a sizeable gap on all others in sitting level on points in the top two places.
Hearts yesterday, and Hibernian the day before against Celtic, were despatched with a ruthlessness – never mind the three-goal margins – that hardly gives grounds for optimism over their ability to compete as members of Scotland’s big five in terms of football clubs in this country.
The two Edinburgh clubs have claimed major honours in the past decade. Now, it looks like they will slip back into the background when these are being handed out across the decade to come. With a clutch of first-time winners of cups in the past seven years – Inverness Caledonian Thistle, St Johnstone and Ross County enjoying historic moments – there seemed a smidgin of democratisation in the Scottish game. Now there is no question that the two-party system has returned.
“A resumption of this derby contest carries with it more dodgy baggage than the Escobar cartel’s drug mule, let’s be frank”