THE message was delivered loud and clear a good 10 minutes before kick-off by a fellow with one of those grating, transatlantic accents that make countless radio stations across the West of Scotland so unbearable.

 

Anyone saying anything naughty would be in big trouble. They have these things called Football Banning Orders nowadays, you know. Unless you "support your team in a positive way", whatever that means, there is a chance you will be getting one.

Police Scotland, of course, chose the days before the game to do their particular rounds. They visited both Celtic and Rangers and reminded the players and managers of the importance of behaving themselves and the need to make sure any goals were celebrated in a responsible manner.

It all keeps people in work, to be fair, but, where the Old Firm are concerned, it is all quite pointless.

Yesterday's match was pretty much a non-event thanks to shortcomings in the Rangers squad, but things are more or less the same in every other regard as they were the last time Glasgow's biggest clubs locked horns almost three years ago.

Yes, the hour or so leading up to kick-off at Hampden Park was relatively low-key.

Celtic fans took great pleasure in chanting "You're not Rangers anymore", in reference to some well-documented liquidity issues at Ibrox a while back. There was a half-hearted rendition of The Billy Boys, a song taught to some of our more naive polis in midweek in order to let them know what exists on the ever-lengthening banned list but it petered out before the controversial part.

However, just before the teams came out to the unfortunate combination of pyrotechnics and Eurodisco, it started. An outburst of We Are Rangers, Super Rangers made mention of "fenian b*****s" with the response among the Celtic support involving the unfurling of six banners behind the goal.

The first three read: "At the going down of the Hun and in the morning, we will remember them". The others featured the Rangers badge, the 1872 year of the club's foundation and 2012, the year those well-documented financial issues came to a head.

There was also a chant of Up the Ra shortly after the game got under way, but much of the singing from the green-and-white side of the ground concentrated on events across the city in recent times. A particularly amusing one was a rendition of Zombie Nation, commonly referred to as an old-school rave anthem by some German people called Kernkraft 400, complete with monster actions.

The identity of the victors became apparent after just 10 minutes when Leigh Griffiths was kindly invited by the Rangers defence to head a Stefan Johansen cross into the net. Mindful of all those warnings from Police Scotland, Griffiths, himself in a spot of bother about songs he sang about refugees while out and about supporting Hibernian, chose to mark the moment by charging towards the Rangers support with his hands cupped round his ears.

It certainly elicited a response. Over the remainder of the 90 minutes, we had songs about paedophilia, Bobby Sands, the Pope in Rome, the potato famine in Ireland, Jimmy Savile and more than one full-length version of The Billy Boys for good measure.

This did not go down too well at the Celtic End. "Go home, ya Huns," could be heard echoing around Mount Florida long after the final whistle.

Should any of this come as a surprise? Not really. At least there was no violence inside the stadium and only some very minor skirmishes on the park. Ronny Deila, the Celtic manager, played to the crowd during a lap of honour, but, even in Scotland, he won't get the jail for that. Maybe.

Of course, there are people who claim this was not an Old Firm game at all.

If it really was a debut encounter between two wholly unfamiliar clubs, then there are plenty of people pretty het-up about it already. This could be the start of something big.