After years of goading and brinksmanship on the pitch, Rangers fans have certainly enjoyed the demise of Celtic captain Scott Brown this season.
Happy to give it the big I Am whilst the Ibrox side was demoted to the bottom tier of Scottish football, Brown has largely sauntered around the national game with no one to clamp him.
But since Rangers have returned to the top of the pile the midfielder has been shown up and looks every inch the veteran Aberdeen midfielder he will be next season.
Nonetheless, Celtic fans have been encouraged by the club to lay tributes for their outgoing captain as the press continues to fawn over the fallen Parkhead leader.
In the season of all seasons, Brown was undoubtedly one of a number of Celtic stars found wanting and this has been of great amusement to many Rangers fans.
Instead of celebrating 10IAR and stopping 55 the Celtic support have been reduced to laying tributes to their stumbling skipper.
https://twitter.com/Crypto_Bard/status/1391162050852921344
https://twitter.com/Time3Rag/status/1391504978083295234
https://twitter.com/HASTY8155/status/1391378362862612484
https://twitter.com/JosephC51533972/status/1391138693419786242
https://twitter.com/SteveGsRightPeg/status/1391488640669437954
https://twitter.com/TWTDAMF/status/1391489357601812480
The campaign also comes as a leading Daily Record journalist accuses a “high-ranking Rangers official” of a “crude and classless farewell” to the captain after the 4-1 Ibrox win last weekend.
Keith Jackson makes the claim that someone within the Rangers hierarchy indulged in “wholly inappropriate behaviour” to Brown even if the incident was “low key”.
The story aims a few barbs at one of the Rangers “men in suits” but whoever stands accused remains unnamed.
“It’s deeply regrettable that his final Old Firm match the other weekend ended with a crude and classless farewell from a high ranking Rangers official inside the Ibrox tunnel in the immediate aftermath of a 4-1 thrashing,” writes Jackson [Daily Record].
“That they have chosen not to lodge a complaint suggests that it was all fairly low key, perhaps no more than petty stuff even if the conduct of the senior Ibrox employee – who provocatively goaded Brown as he made his way inside – was regarded as ‘wholly inappropriate behaviour’ by those who witnessed it.
“There’s a golden rule where this kind of thing is concerned. It’s one thing for players and coaching staff to let their passions run high in the heat of the battle and to allow the moment to get the better of their sensibilities but it’s quite another for the men in suits to lower themselves into the guttural bating of the opposition.”
Rangers fans will point to years of inappropriate Celtic indulgence from Brown goading fans at Parkhead to snotters getting wiped on Rangers badges and scarves getting tied to posts.
It appears classless baiting is only the preserve of Rangers whilst Celtic are the jolly pranksters, their own attacks in good taste whilst ours are perennially in bad.
Whatever the case, Rangers are the Champions, and in moments of celebration – and especially if you’ve given as good as you’ve gotten – then it ultimately looks better to just take your medicine.
Not that Rangers fans can’t appreciate Brown on some level – supporters applauded the Celtic captain for a mighty fine gesture earlier in the season.
