Whatever you think of Old Firm, the worse it gets for them, the more collateral damage will be done to the reputation of our game

THERE will be some out there who take great delight in watching Celtic and Rangers eat themselves alive. And understandably so.

- KEITH JACKSON

The pair of them have dominated the Scottish football scene for so long it's a perfectly human reaction to want to revel in their discontent and, in particular, the spectacular self-inflicted nature of it all.

The worse it gets the more there is to enjoy for fans of every other club in the country. It's schadenfreude in its purest form.

And, let's be blunt, if the end result is Hearts going on from here, despite leaving another three points behind at Pittodrie yesterday, to produce a title winning fairytale of Leicester City-scale proportions then this season will be cherished for the rest of time.

But, even so, there is also something fundamentally sad and completely unedifying about what has been going on lately on both sides of Glasgow's bitter divide.

Because whatever you may think of them - and all the tawdry baggage that they carry - there can be no denying that the Old Firm have been holding the flag for Scottish football for more years than any of us care to remember.

Which means the worse it gets, the more collateral damage will be done to the reputation of our national game.

Ironically, at a moment in time when Steve Clarke and his players are about to go global at next summer's World Cup.

It's mystifying stuff all round but let's start with the ongoing bin fire at Parkhead because when Ross Desmond addressed the club's AGM on Friday, he effectively poured a jerrycan of gasoline onto already burning flames.