Heroes every one …

Celtic had the potential to create a run of concerted success under O’Neill but the problem was diagnosed quickly and The Gers have nipped it in the bud. Last season’s equally dramatic Scottish Cup final reclaimed the momentum, this season’s league campaign completed the job: We’re back on top and yesterday’s heroics summed up an appetite and desire that’s been there since the night we knocked celtic out the 2001/2002 CIS Cup.

I wasn’t impressed when we appointed Alex McLeish as manager. I wasn’t happy about it at all. The club clearly needed to do something about the Advocaat situation - it had gone badly wrong after starting so brilliantly - but a guy with so little experience of management was not my idea of a step in the right direction.

For me, Rangers should have been appointing a guy who’d won enough in the past to convince us he knew what he was doing with our hopes and fears. A First Division championship with Hibs and a few Manager of the Month awards was not my idea of the new Rangers gaffer’s CV.

So far he’s won every domestic trophy which it was humanly possible to win. A Cup double last season, a league championship a year later and a treble next week a real possibility. All with a squad of largely someone else’s players. That’s bordering on genius.

Admittedly, things could get a bit shakey next season and beyond. The club’s clearly leaking money and the purse-strings aren’t being so much tightened as moulded shut with a blow-torch. Eck’s now under an amazing pressure to do something in Europe and he’s not impressed in that arena on his two previous outings with Rangers.

However, having taken us to the top of the league so late in the season, it would have been utterly cataclysmic for the long-term confidence of the club if we’d thrown away this championship. It’s “easier” to do your rebuilding and go through your tribulations on the continent if there’s an ugly big Bank of Scotland silver jug in the trophy cabinet. In short, McLeish has just proven himself good enough for the Rangers job - now we can see how he really gets on!

That we scored six goals through six different players yesterday speaks volumes for the way we’ve eeked every inch of advantage from every possible source. Of the starting XI against The pars, only Stefan Klos hadn’t scored a League goal at some point in the season - and even Stef goes and makes up for it by being our only ever- present and a man capable of stopping what look like certain goals. (We should also remember Stef did almost score in the UEFA Cup match against Zizkov!).

50,000 people demanding you produce “just one more goal” for ninety minutes and never relenting with that request each time you do produce that goal, and an amazing celtic team banging in goals of their own down in Ayrshire - how did these players cope? I know I couldn’t have. But they not only coped, they excelled and that, for me, is the sign of a real team - doing it when it’s needed most.

Right now I’m unable to write about this match and everything which went on around it - I just can’t relive the stress at this moment - that’ll come later in the week. But the sight of Barry Ferguson atop that podium, offering the championship trophy to the Main stand with total joy writ large across his face is something which’ll sustain us all for now … and for years to come.

Gargantuan effort - massive reward - HUGE PARTY!

Go on, THE TEDDY BEAAAAAAAAARRRRRS!!