Wednesday 2 March 2011
Celtic Park, Glasgow
FLECK
There's no such thing as an uneventful Old Firm match. This much is true, but this latest meeting - the fifth of the season, with another two still to come - had more drama than even the most avid thrill-seeker could imagine. This game had everything.
The two preceding Old Firm fixtures [a 3-0 league win for Celtic on 20 February at Celtic Park and a 2-2 cup fixture on 6 February at Ibrox] leading up to this one had been marked by bad fouls, bad tempers, and bad blood, all of which stemmed from the signing, by Rangers, of El-Hadji Diouf, on loan, from Blackburn Rovers. Diouf is a Celtic hate-figure because of a dreadful incident in 2003 when Diouf, then a Liverpool player, spat at Celtic fans at a Uefa Cup tie at Celtic Park.
Quite why Rangers felt Diouf would be a sensible signing escapes your writer and almost everybody else with even a passing interest in Scottish football. It clearly riled the Celtic management and players because from the moment Diouf took the pitch for his Rangers debut in the original cup tie back in February, he was targeted for the "wind-up" - aka verbal abuse - from the Celtic players, but most notably from Scott Brown, a player not many rivals would want, in their face.
More of the same followed in the league game, with Rangers giving as good as they got, but at least matters in those games were confined to the pitch.
But then, it's a free-for-all in this the third game between the sides in quick succession and the fifth of the season so far.
Tempers were strained from kick-off. The tackles were flying in late and reckless. The verbals were all over the pitch and all over the technical areas - player to player, manager to manager, player to manager, manager to player. The whole 90 minutes was like that. There were even barging and scuffling as the players and management teams went down the tunnel at half-time.
The referee, Calum Murray, was the busiest man on the pitch, booking 3 Celtic players... Majstorovic (33mins), Brown (42), and Wilson (90+1) and 7 Rangers players...Whittaker (28), Diouf (37), Fleck (44), Bougherra (57), Davis (76), Davis (76), and Hutton (90+5) plus ordering 3 of those off for a second yellow card... Whittaker (36), Bougherra (90+4), and Diouf (post match).
It was at the final whistle that this controversial game upped its own ante. As Neil Lennon made his way to shake hands with Rangers assistant manager Ally McCoist, something was said and Lennon's smile turned to a snarl in the space of 2 seconds. We have since discovered that McCoist had decided to "advise" Lennon that there better not be any further instances of Lennon or his players subjecting the Rangers players, particularly Diouf, to further "extreme verbal abuse". Lennon, not surprisingly took exception to this "advice" and pointed out to McCoist that if Rangers hadn't signed Diouf in the first place", then none of this would be happening.
So strongly were McCoist and Lennon making their points that they had to be physically restrained and separated by officials, players, assistants, and police.
Needless to say, a dim view of the proceedings has been taken by the Police and the Scottish Government, with the Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police publicly calling for an abandonment of the fixture altogether while the First Minister has called for a summit between the two clubs, the police and government ministers.
As if that's not been enough fun, we've got the Scottish League Cup Final at Hampden Park on Sunday, 20 March 2011. Not much time to heal the rifts.
Scott Brown and El-Hadji Diouf are a long way from being pals and that feud looks sweet to continue for a while yet. Neil Lennon is in the papers saying he and Ally McCoist have settled their differences, but we're not hearing much from McCoist on the subject.
Heady stuff.
Old Firm Cup Fall Out: Celtic Vs Rangers Foot Brawl FLECK
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