It was party time in the Celtic end, and win, lose or draw, it was always going to be a celebration. We rubbed Rangers' noses in it from start to finish with beach balls, lilos, sombreros and several other items of Spanish merchandise.
Martin O'Neill fielded a similar side to Thursday's Barca Bhoys, the only change was Bobo Balde coming in for the injured Jackie McNamara. Youngsters John Kennedy and David Marshall kept their places - and rightly so. They done us proud again today.
Today was Rangers' last attempt at putting the Celtic champagne on ice, and they came at us from the first whistle. This was, of course, five minutes later than scheduled, as the Rangers officials earned their pay cleaning up the Celtic inflatable invasion! The picture of laughing Celtic players as 5,000 beach balls were picked up by four or five helpless guys is one I will remember forever.
David Marshall made two wonderfull saves in the first half - one coming from a deflection off of John Kennedy, who also saved Celtic from going a goal down with a magnificent tackle inside the Hoops' box.
Celtic were playing nice football, and the opening goal came on 20 minutes. Henrik Larsson rose above the rest to head home from Alan Thompson's free-kick delivery. There was loud laughter heard in the Broomloan Stand, as "Championees" was belted out several times.
The laughter was extended as Michael Mols and Peter Lovenkrands attempted shots at goal.
The half time score was 1-0 to The Hoops. During the interval one lucky Rangers fan was treated to a whopping £1,500 lottery prize! A sign of the times at Ibrox I suppose.
Celtic appeared confident from the second half kick off and Alan Thompson made sure the three points were coming to Parkhead after only six minutes of the second period. Stephen Pearson was living the dream - attacking Rangers at every opportunity. He exchanged passes with Larsson after Zurab panicked under pressure. Pearo should have done better with his shot, but Alan Thompson rounded Stefan Klos after picking up the rebound. He passed the ball into the net to make the score 2-0.
Chants of "Easy" were heard amongst the Celtic support - we knew there was no way back for Rangers.
Rangers brought on youngster Chris Burke, who looks the only prospect in their squad. He was causing some trouble down the right hand side, but Celtic fans were too busy reading their newspapers to take notice of this!
They did manage to grab a goal back, Stephen Thompson headed home from an unmarked position. Surprisingly, the goal was greeted by more sarcastic Celtic cheers than Rangers' authentic ones.
Rangers' only goal against Celtic in 360 minutes of football made the closing stages of the game slightly nervy, but the Hoops shone through to make the gap 19 points.
Neil Lennon and company were visibly delighted with the three points, the league can now be wrapped up if Celtic beat Hearts on Saturday, and Rangers get beaten by Motherwell at Fir Park the following day.
Beach Ball Sunday Part 2 was a great success, and hats (or sombreros?) off to the Celtic support, who were wonderful again. It truly is a great time to be a Celtic supporter!
Celtic:
Marshall - 9
Varga - 9
Kennedy - 10
Balde - 8
Lennon - 9
Thompson - 9
Petrov - 8
Agathe - 8
Pearson - 7 (Miller - 7)
Larsson - 9
Sutton - 10
Celtic-Mad Man of the Match: John Kennedy
Celtic-Mad Moment to Remember: The success of Beach Ball Sunday 2 will forever live in the memory!
Celtic-Mad Moment to Forget: More monkey noises.