Killie killed softly in Rugby Park cliff-hanger (Killie … 0 GERS …1)

This was the best all-round Gers performance of our three-away-games-in-a-week festive schedule. Yet the tortured emotions which afflicted those wearing Red, White and Blue (often with a dash of bitter orange) at Firhill last Sunday and Fir Park on Boxing Day were again brought to the fore at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock.

In Maryhill we were made to sweat til almost ten minutes from the end before Rangers eventually took a decisive lead. In Lanarkshire, the pain was inflicted through the knowledge that our heroes were just never gonnae score and that the first meaningful domestic defeat of McLeish’s reign was becoming a reality.

In North Ayrshire, The Gers gave the discomfort yet another twist. Score relatively early and then miss every other chance you create infront of the opposition goal, while allowing Kilmarnock to creep slowly back into the game. As a result, Barry Ferguson put in a quite miraculous performance of athleticism, skill, leadership and all-round midfield dictatorship, yet breathed a heavy sigh of relief when that final whistle sounded, as did the Gers punters.

1 - 0 is never enough unless, to coin one of Jonathan Watson’s best Dennis-Law comments, the game’s finished and you’ve won 1-0. The torment of seeing Mols sklaff one wide when it was easier to hit the target: The gut-gnawing fever induced by the sight of Ronald de Boer slamming the ball over the bar when Gordon Marshall was already turning to pick it out the net: The indescribable desperation when the same Champions League winner headed straight into Marshall’s hands from six yards out: All made significant by the fact we were only winning 1 - 0 when our strikers duffed. Now fondly regarded as reasons to get over-emotional during a routine win … but only because, when the game finished, we’d won 1-0.

“Fondly regarded”??!! Hell, yes. No-one’s going to give Rangers credit for becoming the first Old Firm side to win at Rugby Park in almost a year. If we do eventually claim the League title this season, no-one’s going to list this particular win as among the most significant matches of the campaign. When you win 19 out of 23 games since the first SPL ball was kicked, a single-goal triumph over a middle-of-the-league side is seen as very run-of-the-mill by the pundits and neutrals. So The Bears have to take their own enjoyment from the match and that enjoyment came in a very sick form - that masochistic pleasure derived, entirely in retrospect, from going through a nice big dose of anguish and coming out the other end with a result.

Lovinpants scored after 24 minutes. A beautiful piece of skill from our capo, at the edge of his own box, started with Bazz stealing possession from Killie then, with four of their attackers swarming cluelessly around him, “dinking” a 25-yard cross down to our right flank where Ronnie the Farmer soon had the ball in a safe position. The Dutchman looked up and, without so much as pausing to chalk his clogs, stroked a 40-yard peach of a ball into the path of a Danish pace merchant.

Peter had time to take the ribbons and wrapping off the ball before piling into the Killie box at break-neck speed. At first I thought he’d taken the ball too far left of the Killie goal and then I thought he’d chosen the wrong shooting option by going for the tight near-post angle rather than the rebound-friendly shot across Marshall’s bows. As the ball nestled in the back of the net I marvelled at how incisively I can read any footballing situation - sometimes it borders on the eerie.

The goal came just at the time it should have. Our play was dominant beyond all reasonable expectation, considering the way both Killie and ourselves had been playing of late, but to go much beyond the half hour without anything to show for it would have let the doubts set in. The previous two games, particularly the Boxing Day knock-out, didn’t afford our players a particularly deep well of confidence. We needed a goal. So did Peter Lovenkrands. Ahhhh - that’s better.

When you score the opening goal, the first thing you need is another goal. If you can’t get that then, apparently, you have to make sure the opposition don’t get a goal. So it is written. A Gary McSwegan swerver onto Stef’s post apart, Killie didn’t threaten Klos much in the first half. In the second they came out pumped up, subb’d up and much more capable of getting behind our defence. It didn’t hapen but neither did a nerve-settling Rangers second. So by the end the Bears felt like they’d been in the wars. We got to shout, swear, moan and wave our arms about in a tumult of frustration and worry. The blood pressure was up, the sweat permeated the cold, some of the things we said in anger - “Fu**’s sake, de Boer - that’s nothing short of fu**ing disgraceful!!!” - got us into fights with the over-sensitive person sat next to us - in other words, the involvement was total. Players and punters were all one big homogeneous mass of momentum towards a championship.

Arveladze came back too early to last the whole match but just in time to give us a lift. Malcolm played in midfield again - really quite well, again. We’ve begun the third round of matches in the championship and we’re top of the league. If we can drag out one more victory, over Dundee at Ibrox on the 2nd day of 2003, we’ll have three weeks to let the rest of the league get used to that leadership and three weeks to let Numan, Arteta and Shota get back to full fitness. Nando’s ban’ll be finished …

One more game, Eck - just one more festive-period victory … and the countdown can begin.