Tonight’s Old Firm game will be played to the backdrop of a completely partisan Parkhead stadium, with the fans supporting their team.
No Rangers suppporters will be in attendance. This is a reflection of the situation back in August, when restrictions were still in place regarding away allocations and ‘red zones’. It was reported that in order for Ibrox chiefs to give Celtic an allocation, they asked for assurances that they could do the same for this (delayed) New Year fixture.
Given the uncertaintly and lack of control over matters, that was far from guaranteed.
A few months ago, a raucous Ibrox roared the champions to victory with Fil Helander’s header grabbing all three points on a day when Rangers were depleted on the pitch and in the dugout.
Tonight, the team have to stand tall and be be brave on the ball, without any support at their side.
https://twitter.com/graeme818/status/1488911312977633280
There was a picture circulated on social media last night showing a wind up banner stating Rangers fans would rather be in the pubs than at their rival’s home – that is far from the case for several thousand amongst the away support, to say the least.
This comes at a general time when there is plenty of discussion on the Old Firm allocation issue and the ‘new normal’ which sees the former spectacle gone. Now it is more like a normal game.
Other factors on and off the pitch have dictated this. At Ibrox, a footballing ‘advantage’ was gained in terms of drawing on that extra support in the last few years under Steven Gerrard and also many more thousands of fans are now season ticket holders.
The latter is undoubtedly a positive, despite the effect of diminishing one of the greatest, unique and passionate derbies of world football.
Opinions are entrenched between fellow fans on the matter, but hopefully in the mid-term future some sort of compromise can be found, despite there being no change of a return to 7/8k away supports for the Old Firm game any time soon.