Predictable draw? DON’T THINK SO!

We played Sellik in a League Cup semi at Ibrox but they got half the ground and we played them in many a League Cup sectional game at Ibrox but that would involve a return game at Parkheid. This really is a unique draw we saw today (and not just because it was preceeded by Charlie Mann doing a match report from Falkirk’s new one-stand stadium - there’s a rash of them in Scotland now, isn’t there - with the strains of R-Kelly not so much in the background as totally intertwining with his monologue “Both teams were recovering from mid-week defeats to SPL opposition and this game never really got going. So baby gimme dat Toot toot, And lemme gi’ ya that Beep beep, Runnin’ her hands through my fro’ Bouncin’ on twenty fo’s. Clyde had gone down 4-0 at Tannadice while John Hughes side suffered an 8-1 humiliation at Parkhead so neither of these First Division title contenders thought It’s the remix to ignition, Hot and fresh out the kitchen, Mama rollin’ that body, Got ev’ry man in here wishin’”).

It’s almost FORTY ONE YEARS since we’ve drawn our great rivals in a genuine, knock-out, one-off Cup match at IBROX - the Scottish Cup Quarter of 63/64 in which we beat them 2-0, having also gubbed thme 3-0 in the home AND away games of the League Cup sectional first round and 2-1 and 1-0 in both League encounters. That was OUR whitewash - Hope that’s as lucky as the fact the CIS Cup is the last competition of any kind in which we managed to beat them.

It’s probably just the underlying pessemism which set itself into my system as a result of last season’s horrors and the extended record of derby defeats which started before last season and has latched istelf into this campagn too. That’s probably what had me thinking an Old Firm quarter-final in the 2004/2005 League Cup could take only one shape - Celtic V Rangers. The defeat in the Scottish Cup quarters in March and the length of time it’s been since we last played them in a Cup game at Ibrox (in fact, even that was a semi-final which was only took place at ours on the toss of a coin because Hampden was being revamped … back in 93/94. Great night! Husitra goes off but Hateley and Durrant combine to do the biz) made me think that if we were gonnae draw celtic it would HAVE to be at theirs - and only Barcelona have ever beaten O’Neill’s team in a meaningful match at Breezeblock Boulevard.

But - would you George Adams and Rangers Manager’s Reprieve it - the number Two for “men in Blue” came oot the baw-bag FIRST. And, in that split three seconds between realising we had a home draw and discovering who our opponents would be, I managed to form the thought and utter the words:

“Oh but I’d take them at HAME …”

And take THEM at hame we must. Fur it is indeed the shitey, mightey Sell-tickle-a-deelde-adoo-dey-do who’ll be popping along to The Palace for Quarter-Final tea and cakes on the evening of 9th or 10th November 2004.

Now this is a week and a half before we welcome our very same hooped firends back to ours for the second Auld Firm SPL encounter of this self, same season and I’m thinking this COULD BE A GOOD THING.

Hell, we’ll probably be out of Europe by that point! If we lose at Dens tommorrow we’ll even have a new manager by that point. However things go for us between now and then, having an EXTRA chance to beat Smelltick is something I think our players will appreciate more than theirs.

It was that loss at Parkhead and the exit of the European Cup days previously which so dejected the Novos and Prsos of the current Ibrox ranks. They’ve never recovered their Mo-Jo (-hnston) and, sad as it is to admit, I think we’ve fallen so far that Celtic will see us as a pain-in-the-ass fixture to be avoiding rather than a big juicy one to look forward to.

As we recall from the NIAR years, when we went on that nine-game unbeaten run against The Other Lot, it got to a point where you were just WAITING for them to finally break the mould. That law of averages, paired with the obvious desire of the team to make up for the shitewash last season and the early set-back of this one, gives us a kind of edge … I think … doesn’t it??!!

Hell, even if we don’t have a new manager by then - lose both those games and we’ll definitely be within our rights to start looking for one! One way or another, it’ll sort something out.

Okay, time for all that double-header superstition to start. Just remember - we are actually ALLOWED to win both games. You don’t have to mentally sacrifice one for the other, troops. But it’s so DIFFICULT not to think that’s exactly what’ll happen. If we do celtic in the cup, it’ll seem great on teh night but they’ll just come back to The Brox more resolved to do us in the more important SPL game. yet the confidence we take from winning the cup game is desperately needed right now and could actually help us to win the league encounter… ooh - I don’t like it.

Or, or … OR losing the Cup game might get oor players SO beeling that the SPL fixture following so hard upon will give us a quick chance to avenge ourselves …. er … yeah - I’d rather we won them both, thanks. Then we won’t actually have gone a full two years without beating Celtic at Ibrox. And they’ll have gone forty one years since beating us in a Govan knockout.