This was a tale of ecstasy and St Mirren that didn�t involve Barry Lavety. Unbridled joy adorned the faces of the Paisley side�s supporters as they streamed out of Love Street following Sunday�s surprise league victory over Rangers.

This was a tale of ecstasy and St Mirren that didn't involve Barry Lavety. Unbridled joy adorned the faces of the Paisley side's supporters as they streamed out of Love Street following Sunday's surprise league victory over Rangers.

The pragmatists will say it was merely a victory like any other and no more valuable than a similar success over Falkirk, Motherwell or Kilmarnock. Those stony-faced realists are right, of course, but also wrong in many ways. Victories for the so-called provincial clubs over either half of the Old Firm come around about as often as a sunny day in the west of Scotland.

St Mirren had not beaten Rangers at home in a competitive match for 22 years prior to this success and had last defeated them at Ibrox in 1991. They have still not beaten Celtic since 1990, a day immortalised in song by a St Mirren support given little else to cheer about in recent games against either of their Glasgow rivals.

The celebrations that followed Sunday's victory, therefore, were partially a reflection on the rarity of such occurrences. Then there is the David and Goliath syndrome. Rangers and Celtic tower over every other club in Scotland in terms of finance, support and stature. They are expected to win every time they play the smaller sides, whether it is home or away and regardless of form.

For clubs like St Mirren, on minuscule budgets and backed by a fraction of the fanbase, any chance to deliver a bloody nose to the big two is therefore greeted as if the giant had been fatally floored.

There is also the simple, primitive issue of bragging rights. After years of misery and mocking, St Mirren supporters would have skipped into school or work yesterday gleefully celebrating the end of 17 years of hurt.

They are not the only provincial club to have struggled against the Old Firm in recent years. It has become obligatory whenever Kilmarnock travel to Celtic Park to mention that the Ayrshire club have not won at that venue since 1955, while the last time Celtic lost at Rugby Park was 2001.

Kilmarnock's victory at Ibrox in May 2007 was their first win at that venue since October 2000 while you have to go back 14 years, to May 1994, for a Rugby Park victory over the same opposition.

Falkirk's record is marginally better. They defeated Celtic at home in March 2007, their first league victory over the Parkhead side since 1993, while a Mark Twaddle goal in December 2006 helped them to their first league victory over Rangers since New Year's Day 1971, when a certain Alex Ferguson was in their ranks.

Motherwell put a spoke in the wheels of Celtic's title challenge last season when they left the East End with three points in April, their first win on that ground since October 1999, and famously denied Martin O'Neill's side the title with a final-day success at Fir Park in May 2005, their first home win over Celtic for three years. Their last home win over Rangers came on Boxing Day 2002, with a last success at Ibrox dated May 1997.

Adrian Sprott remains a legend to Hamilton Academical fans, his goal in the Scottish Cup in January 1987 the last time the Lanarkshire club defeated Rangers. You have to go back to season 1938/39 to find the last time Hamilton defeated the Ibrox club in the league although, given they have spent the bulk of the subsequent years in a lower division, they perhaps have a better excuse than some of the others.

They have fared marginally better against Celtic, winning 2-0 in season 1988/89, their last involvement in the top flight until this year.

Of the other provincial SPL clubs, only Inverness Caledonian Thistle have enjoyed relative success against the Old Firm, famously going ballistic to knock Celtic out of the Scottish Cup in February 2000 and winning twice more since, while also racking up a brace of victories over Rangers in recent seasons.

For the rest, though, it has been slim pickings. Christopher Brookmyre, the award-winning Scottish author and long-suffering, award-deserving St Mirren supporter, revealed why beating Rangers or Celtic matters so much to those whose emotional investment in their club rarely brings a regular return.

"This was a result that was a long time in coming," he told The Herald. "The one thing that had been missing in terms of status since coming back up from the first division was winning against one of the Old Firm. There was a sense that in a few games over the past few seasons we have played well against them and not got much out of them, and that it was time to put that right.

"This win finally makes it feel like we have properly arrived back in the SPL. For those of us who grew up watching the great St Mirren teams of the late 1970s and early 1980s, beating the Old Firm was far more commonplace. There was a clearer sense then of what St Mirren's status was - they were never going to win the league but they were an established top-flight team who could regularly take points off both Rangers and Celtic.

"Now that we have finally done that again there is a sense that we've restored that aspect of the club's status."

Brookmyre believes the widening chasm between the Old Firm and the rest of Scottish football may mean results such as Sunday's become even less of an occurrence.

"Back in the 1980s, when St Mirren beat the Old Firm regularly, there wasn't the financial gulf at the time. Celtic and Rangers didn't draw on their financial resources in the way they do now. Now, with the Old Firm operating on such a different level, any result, even a draw, against them tends to get celebrated.

"You may still get shock results here and there but I get the feeling they will come along quite randomly. Sometimes these results just come out of nowhere. They rarely come on the back of the provincial club enjoying a good run of form. Playing the Old Firm is a bit like playing the lottery - every so often someone will hit the jackpot."

Brookmyre, who recently released A Snowball In Hell, his 12th novel, chuckled at the thought of his fellow St Mirren supporters finally getting their own back on their Rangers-supporting work colleagues or school classmates.

"I think that played a huge part in the euphoria at full-time on Sunday. When St Mirren play Celtic and the Celtic fans are singing their songs, the St Mirren fans usually retaliate with You all live in a Paisley housing scheme' to underline that your bragging rights, as a supporter of a big team, are slightly undermined if you just decide that's who you're going to support, and you are then slagging off the guy who supports his local team. You have to keep a sense of perspective.

"At least now for two weeks, with the international break, St Mirren fans can talk to their local Rangers-supporting counterparts and point out that recent history puts us one up on them."

Lavety was the former St Mirren striker who was once infamously exposed for taking ecstasy. The supporters who once adored him went home on Sunday on a more natural high.