Let’s remind ourselves of the origins of the change in the traditional allocation for Celtic v Rangers matches since both stadiums were redeveloped in the 1980s (Ibrox) and 1990s (Celtic Park). In the 1980s Celtic had the Broomloan stand, part of the Enclosure, we even had a section in the Govan stand and seats in the upper Main Stand too. Where were they?

That reduced after the ‘Greig Must Stay’ era with the the arrival of the likes of David Murray and Graeme Souness Celtic fans were restricted to the Broomloan, except on one occasion where they banned Celtic fans entirely.

When the new stadium at Celtic Park opened after Fergus McCann’s vision was realised their supporters were housed in similar numbers to what Celtic got for Ibrox, in the right hand side of the Lisbon Lions stand at the traditional Rangers end. Celtic Park can hold 60,000 supporters at least 10,000 more than Ibrox so we can accommodate their support in that area of the ground and there was never any complaints from their support about this or allegedly from Ally McCoist either (see below).

They even won the league at Celtic Park and complaining about the part of the ground they were situated in wasn’t really a concern for them at that stage, was it?

Here’s John Hartson’s take on the yesterday’s news that Celtic have refused tickets for the corner at Ibrox and as a result there will be no fans of theRangers at Celtic Park on Saturday 8 April. He is perfectly correct on both points – although the waters will be muddied as usual on where the blame lies – and of course Celtic are on course for our 11th title in 12 seasons with Celtic only missing out when the team had no supporters in the stadiums due to a global pandemic that tends to come along round about once every century. If that’s a trend for their league success most of us can live with that.

Here’s the origins of the change in ticket allocations for the Glasgow Derby as explained by theRangers leaning Gary Ralston on the official Daily Record Rangers Podcast back in August 2017.

READ THIS…Celtic refuse tickets for Ibrox corner and demand return to full away allocation

This was fan led, with their supporters as we have written about before arguing that they should be able to match or even better Celtic’s results in all the games against what they referred to as the ‘diddy teams’ so that then takes the destination of the title down to what would happen in the Glasgow Derby matches as it is correctly called, or the Old Firm as they desperately attempt to brand the fixture, trying to sell the continuity lie that no-one (not even them) believes.

They were pragmatic enough to write off getting anything at Celtic Park but reckoned that if they turned Ibrox into a near enough a home support venue for games against Celtic then their results home would improve and let’s face it they couldn’t get much worse.

The change in ticket allocation – which was agreed by the weak board at Ibrox who needed the season ticket money to keep rolling in to attempt to keep the lights on – has NEVER succeed in delivering them the title, that only happened when Covid emptied all stands in football.

This remember was the beginning of the season after Celtic’s Invincible campaign where we won at Ibrox twice in December 2016 (2-1) and then in April where we hammered them 5-1.

Here is Gary Ralston, on the official Daily Record Rangers Podcast, August 2017… vocalising the Rangers fans desire to cut allocation cause we scudded them.

Don’t let them rewrite this as ‘Old Firm’. It’s not. It’s Hurting, Shitebag Rangers Fans, their Board and their Media. pic.twitter.com/OzIUn4s68y

— 🍔 Gastro Celtic 🍀 (@Gastro_Celtic) March 18, 2023

Now listen to this nonsense…

Amazing how they can change history to suit…🤔
Just admit it you couldn’t take it anymore,
The free broomloan was outsinging 3 sides while we partied,
The pickled onion bears were being destroyed by every other ultras for giving up their section, they were ruined,

— mike 🇮🇪🍀🇮🇪 (@mikehoops67) March 18, 2023

By the time Odsonne Edouard scored that goal in March 2018 in the 3-2 game it finally broke them. Lest we forget…