JUST before kick-off, a group of Celtic supporters unfurled three giant banners signifying the three successive SPL titles Gordon Strachan has delivered to their club. Right next to them, they held up one depicting Bully, the mascot of Jim Bowen's cult darts quiz show Bullseye from the 1980s.
'Here's What You Could Have Won!', the catchphrase Bowen would utter to disconsolate contestants who had missed out on the car or boat on offer that week, was writ large beside it.
As Old Firm taunts go, it was one of the sharpest we have seen in
recent years and may even have raised a wry smile or two in the Rangers end. If it seemed Celtic had won the comic battle, however, there was a lesson to come that it is never wise to get your gloating in too early in this fixture. Barely minutes after the full-time whistle, the mobile phones of several Celtic fans beeped with text messages from Rangers supporting friends. It is one which will now be doing the rounds of workplaces all over Glasgow.
It read: "Artur Boruc can't handle his drink – two Millers and he's gone". Touché.
There can't have been many Rangers supporters heading to the east end of Glasgow yesterday expecting it to be Miller time. The return of Kenny of that ilk to the Ibrox club has been hugely unpopular with many of them and his failure to score ahead of this match had done little to convert the sceptics.
Yet just as he scored his first goal as a Celtic player in an Old Firm derby two years ago, so it seemed almost fated that the Scotland striker would break his duck second time around at Rangers in this fixture.
Only the second player to cross the Old Firm divide twice, Miller certainly found himself under far more scrutiny that Tom Dunbar would have done back in the 1890s when he spent a season with Rangers in between two spells with Celtic.
Without a goal of any kind since netting for Derby County in a 3-1 defeat at Blackburn Robers on 3 May, Miller could hardly be regarded as coming into the biggest game of the campaign so far in good form.
Yet Walter Smith's faith in the 28-year-old has been unshakeable ever since he became such a key component of the veteran manager's revival of the Scottish international team. It was vindicated in emphatic fashion yesterday as Miller ended his barren run of 920 minutes to score twice, and was unfortunate not to complete a hat-trick in Rangers' comprehensive 4-2 defeat of their great rivals.
Miller was jeered by the Celtic supporters from the moment he first touched the ball, provoking a reaction from the outnumbered but vocal visiting support who, for the first time since the player's return, cheered him almost to a man.
The moment Miller would have dreamed about on Saturday night arrived seven minutes into the second half, Georgios Samaras having cancelled out Daniel Cousin's opener before half-time. Kevin Thomson's cross picked Miller out in splendid isolation on the right of the Celtic penalty area.
Meeting the ball on the volley, Miller struck it perfectly down into the ground and beyond Boruc's right hand into the corner of the net. Belief among both sets of supporters seemed suspended for a moment, then the Rangers end erupted. Miller wheeled away to celebrate, slipping to the ground initially before continuing to freewheel his way towards the jubilant throng.
Suddenly, he was embraced as a prodigal son rather than the black sheep the Rangers fans did not wish to see back among them. When he profited from a Boruc blunder to make it 4-1 with 11 minutes remaining, Miller's rehabilitation was as complete as it ever can be.
As Smith observed afterwards, if the Rangers supporters do not accept Miller now, they never will.
The full article contains 675 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
