SPL Saturday 8th May 2004

Celtic 1

Rangers 0

1:0 Sutton 90

Att: 58,851

MIB: Pooh Dallas

Celtic: Marshall Varga Balde McNamara Agathe Petrov Lennon Thompson Pearson Larsson Sutton

subs McGeady for Pearson 85

Rangers: Stefan Klod, Fernendo Erection, Frank de Gamesabogey, Foulo Vanoli, Zura Geezalaffatye, Alan Mutton, Chris Turkey, Stephen Whohe? Mikel Artita, Michael Fallsalot, Steven Thompson

Slammed, dunked, gubbed, stuffed. Oh deep, deep joy. Not even in the darkest days of the 90s did we suffer the humiliation of losing every Old Firm encounter in a season (we only lost the important ones, we normally won the last, unimportant, one).

Reports prior to the game said that we were injury free, but these reports turned out to be lies; Maloney, Kennedy, Hartson and Valgaeren were still unavailable (funny how these injuries are overlooked by the media yet the removal of Gavin Rae is seen as almost a season defining moment).

The first half was unusually even. Some of our regular players seemed to be having trouble adjusting to the pace of the game, Pearson in particular had a cow of a game. Marshall spilled a Mols shot, but there was no real danger given that the rebound fell to Stephen 'Rubbish' Thompson - cue the top tier of the stand ducking as they saw who it was lumbering forward to try a shot at goal from eight yards.

The real Celtic, the one we haven't seen for a few weeks, emerged after the break. 45 minutes of virtually non-stop Celtic pressure: Petrov slid on to a Larsson cross but couldn't direct it on target; Agathe ran 60 yards only to suddenly get very greedy and waste the chance and Larsson passed up what would normally be a pinch of chance for him after good play from Sutton and Petrov.

Still, 0:0 going into the 90th minute it looked like there was to be massive miscarriage of justice, especially as 'Rubbish' Thompson had an excellent chance to head the winner right on 90 minutes. Happily he has neither the skill, courage or attitude of Larsson, Sutton or Hartson - he wasn't willing to get hurt to score the winner in Old Firm game. Loser.

From the bye kick Sutton headed on to Larsson, who returned the ball to the big Englishman. He held off de Boer and lifted the ball perfectly over Klos. All that was left was Ricksen squaring up to highly amused Alan 'Not Rubbish' Thompson and yet more badge kissing from the hun players. They really are something; a bunch of talentless rabble rousers, and that's about it. They are well and truly grand slammed.