MARK HATELEY'S return to Scottish football with Rangers lasted just 67 minutes before he was sent off at Parkhead yesterday for butting Stewart Kerr, the young Celtic goalkeeper.
The 35-year-old striker, recalled from QPR 18 months after he left Ibrox in order to help injury-stricken Rangers through a fraught occasion, had been a lumbering non-event before the uncharacteristic moment of delinquency which shamed him.
Brian Laudrup had been tackled by Malky Mackay, who was booked, and Kerr ran from goal indicating that the Rangers' Danish winger had taken a dive. As he approached Hateley, the former England player clearly used his head as a weapon. The red card was out of referee Hugh Dallas's pocket immediately.
Mackay joined Hateley 14 minutes later, this time for a second cautionable challenge on Laudrup. By the time of Hateley's dismissal, Rangers were already on their way to the victory which ensures them their coveted ninth successive championship.
The bad feeling was still there at the end, as Ferguson obviously inflamed Paolo Di Canio with some vituperative comments, and a posse of players formed to separate them.
Mackay's bizarre own goal on the stroke of half-time may not have seemed deserved at that stage of the match, but by the finish Celtic had done nothing to justify claims they merited anything better. Andy Dibble, the goalkeeper taken from Manchester City on a free transfer as Andy Goram and Theo Snelders capitulated to the Ibrox epidemic of injury and illness, did not have a single save to make in the 90 minutes.
Celtic have to face an awkward truth: once again, they were unable to take out a Rangers team crowded with semi-invalids and veterans who have seen much better days. Even the Ibrox captain, Richard Gough, had to leave after 63 minutes, clearly not fully recovered from the calf damage that had kept him out of the previous three matches. But he had left his fellows well enough organised to hold out a Celtic front line fatally short of incisiveness.
Looking at Rangers' starting midfield of Ian Ferguson, Craig Moore and Ian Durrant the first two defensive, the third a pale shadow of his former self after years of injury - it was obvious before kick-off that the 49,929 fanatics would not witness a game that would win any awards from the school of aesthetics.
Like one of Sinatra's late-career concerts, the event was greater than the performance. Overtaken by the mania which swept through Glasgow in the days before, both teams spent too long trying desperately to avoid mistakes rather than attending to cohesiveness, construction and contrivance.
Di Canio was occasionally a predictable exception to the general muddle, tantalising Rangers on the left and giving the impression before Rangers scored that he would be the man who would take Celtic into the ascendancy.
He had managed it, too, in the 10 minutes or so before the home side lapsed into their old habit of conceding a dreadful goal as the interval beckoned. Just two minutes before Durrant scored, Di Canio had produced the most brilliant moment of the entire game.
McKinlay flicked a free kick from 25 yards into the air, Di Canio volleyed with his right foot and Dibble must have heard the hum of the crossbar vibrating behind him as the ball rebounded back into play.
The loss of the goal was the more shocking for the Celtic players as they had largely subdued their visitors by the time it was scored. Hateley and Laudrup had been well policed by Mackay, Alan Stubbs and Enrico Annotii, their only mild threat having come from Hateley's header over the bar from Jorg Albertz's deep centre from the left.
Even with Rangers down to 10 men and Gough in the bath, the home side never looked like retrieving their bad situation. The Celtic supporters sang the song, but it was Rangers who walked on with hope in their hearts.
