Oh, shut up and kiss us, you fools! (Killie … 1 GERS …3)

Obviously, I don’t have any physical contact with other human beings.

As a Rangers supporter, of course, my ability to enjoy romantic liasons or attract a mate of either sex is almost non-existent - we Bluenoses are the untouchables of modern society. But, in my particular case, here in this 24-hour lockdown (except for matchdays) padded cell with only my parental-controlled PC and no sharp objects for company, there’s no danger of ever catching as much as a curious glance from even the most sex-starved bodies walking the face of this relationship-obsessed earth.

But I have my memories…

Of TV. Of movies.

And I’ve seen, I’ve heard, I know that loving couples sometimes go through bad patches: Sometimes they’ll argue, row, bitch and moan. They’ll continually get on each other’s nerves, the tenderness will apparently have gone, the rational respect is evaporating, the relationship held together by an ever-fraying length of loosely knotted string can’t even summon up as much as a peck on the cheeks or a kind word in passing on the stairs of the cleft-in-twain domestic abode … yet … and yet …

… bang! There’s something takes place between these rowing partners. An occurrence of the briefest charge of physical electricity - it’s something minimal, something barely perceptible: It’s a glimpse of thigh as a skirt rises in a climb up those stairs, it’s a turn of the waist which accentuates a well-worked torso, it’s a hint of moisture in the corner of an averted eye: Something so tiny, so small (personally speaking!) - some brief re-rendering of a well-known masterpiece, a view of an old flame in a different light, some fresh angle on the most familiar of features - can actually set off an all-consuming tidal wave of lust which drowns out the doubts and washes away the bitterness: Only Love survives:

Powered by the overwhelming need for that relationship to survive, a wave of lust re-fires the love that we suddenly realise was never gonnae die: At once all the arguments and grudges are forgotten and something visceral, fundamental, almost primal kicks-in. A huff becomes a shag-fest, a love in. That which really counts wins the day: Love, love, love

(Oops … be back in a sec …)

So that’s how I felt yesterday. Rugby Park. Kilmarnock. Rangers, Alex McLeish - me slagging them all last week for the SHITE we were served up at Parkheid. But then came a glimpse of the belief. A sighting of the passion which so inflames my love for The Teds - a re-rendering of spirited Rangers’ performances of seasons gone by: All this led to me laughing to myself, mocking myself that I should ever have been in such dumps of despair about Big Eck’s Gers:

Don’t get me wrong - we were KINDA shite in the first half at Killie: It looked like much of the cluelessness we got at The piggery for most of the opening 45, especially when our Kyrgiakos-less defence still managed to let a simple high ball into our box break for Colin Nish. The skinny big fellah’s fiNISH was precisely the opposite of the rhyming slang which utilises his surname - a wonderful strike on the half volley which was in the top corner of Waterreus’s net before it had even left the striker’s laces - but we should never have allowed it to get so far.

Yet, unlike parkheid last Sunday, we were actually having shots on the opposition’s goal before this half-time. Dado was again our best player - by a city mile - but Allan Coombe denied all comers to give his side a 1-goal lead at the interval. If it stayed this way we would indeed be having a giraffe if claiming we could still play Champions League football next term. Needing both celtic AND Aberdeen to take points at Tynecastle in the next four days while we won against both Edinburgh sides in our final pair of games? NAH!

There should have been despair amongst the Bears in Ayrshire but instead there was only supressed worry and the usual voices slagging McLeish. Turns out, however, that McLeish’s own voice was slagging his players during that very same interval and it was telling the increasingly careless Alan Hutton that he was to be replaced by god’s apprentice, Marvellous Marvin Andrews.

The sun was already out, ready to shine on the righteous. Maybe this is why the worry never gave way to surrender, to torpor, to 40 paracetamol and a half bottle of Smirnoff. Or maybe we’d just given up on being so fucking negative - coz we’d had so much of it lately. I dunno, but the dark blue Gers were caught in the midst of two stands of light blue Bears who just wanted to sing their bloody heads off: We almost forced positivity onto that pitch yesterday.

The North Ayrshire locals did their best too: They want European football of their own kind - the Uefa Cup kind - and they always want to beat Rangers: Fair play to them. And, despite the swathes of empty seats in the two longer stands, the back-and-forth chanting and taunting gave an edge to the atmosphere which Rangers’ first-half display antagonised rather than rewarded:

In the second half, however, the players did the talking for us. Our comparative patience was rewarded by the gods - or at least, it was rewarded by the player closer than most to one particular deity:

Big Marv got something approaching a flick onto a Steven Smith free kick and it was 1-1. The fact he hadn’t played since February instantly made the procedings special. The big man who epitomised the “believe” spirit of Easter Road 11 months previously was restoring our faith again. Kris Boyd scored into the same goal he’d scored into last time I was at Rugby Park - this time it was for Rangers - via some sort of deflection, and we were in the lead.

Last time I was at Rugby Park Jim Jefferies went mental about Peter Lovenkrands scoring a goal from an offside position: All TV evidence subsequently proved he was talking shite and the Killie manager was at it again yesterday: Boyd and Burke played a clumsy, elongated 1-2 which the Chris-with-a-”C” retrieved from a certain by-kick with a run so brave and quick to the by-line that - okay, Jim - he may have LOOKED off-side but he pyoor wisnae, by the way. The Killie defence was criss-crossed as Chris crossed and Marv - Big, clumsy Marv - big DEFENDER SUBSTITUTE MARVIN ANDREWS headed into the back of the net for 3-1.

He could have had a hat-trick, the big Trinidadian and Tobagonist - Killie could have had a consolation - but Hearts could have had a three or four point lead even before they’d played Celtic today. They don’t. It was sixteen points, that lead - it’s now just one. Marvin’s back, the belief is back. The LOVE never goes but the passion is restored.