Ten minutes after Liverpool’s thorough demolition of Rangers at Ibrox and about 40 home fans, most dressed in all black and some with their faces covered by blue and red balaclavas, are trying to penetrate two walls of men and women in fluorescent yellow jackets.
Their target? Some of the 2,500 jubilant away supporters being held back while the crowd outside Ibrox disperses. The Rangers supporters are swiftly shuffled towards an exit on the lower tier before appearing on the upper deck a couple of minutes later to try their luck again only to, predictably, find police and stewards scattering them.
It is all rather pathetic. Calling it a flashpoint would be a grand exaggeration and the away end’s reaction – a chant of “What the f***ing hell is that?” – sums up how seriously they are taking the attempted encroachment.
This still turned out to be the most notable moment of concern around behaviour on a night in which police were on high alert and there were fears of significant disorder following skirmishes outside Anfield last week.
A Rangers fan waving a flag with "Scouse rats" written and a Liver bird turned into a rodent barely got a reaction. The numerous Irish tricolours waved by visitors amassed little more than a few boos.
At half-time one Liverpool fan was thrown out to cheers of those on the opposite side of the divide and a couple of objects were thrown from the away end early in the second half, before Mohamed Salah was sprung from the bench to demoralise the hosts.
But the whole experience – a Battle of Britain, remember – felt not too different to a run of the mill Premier League game.
In Glasgow city centre earlier in the afternoon, Liverpool fans gathered in big numbers inside and outside Connolly’s pub, near the inconspicuous spot on Albion Street where they needed to collect tickets. If it was not for a group of thick scouse accents having a laugh on the footpath outside, it would have been difficult to find.
There had been loose talk of a gathering of Liverpool fans at George’s Square but a little past 5pm it would have been easy to remain oblivious to the big game about to take place south of the River Clyde.
Exactly 24 hours earlier five police vans filled with bored-looking officers were parked on the edge of the square. About 1,000 Leipzig fans had travelled to see their team win 2-0 but they remained a rare sight among a sea of green in the city centre’s pubs, topped up by Ireland’s women taking on Scotland at Hampden Park at the same time.
This was a very rare occasion of Champions League games taking place in the same city on consecutive nights, a decision which both clubs had to agree on before UEFA released the fixtures in late August. Many other cities, Manchester included, have previously been unable to do such a thing due to police concerns but the local authorities in Glasgow had no issues.
Celtic versus Leipzig passed off without incident too; unless you are a monarchist offended by the raising of yet another anti-Crown banner by the hosts’ Green Brigade group and chants of “F*** the Tories.”
To outsiders Glasgow remains a curious place. Beyond the city centre, among the UK’s finest, it does not take long to note the presence of a hardened edge and indicators of division. Walking east towards Celtic Park from town on Tuesday evening, for instance, a lone “No Surrender” flag hanging above a pub in Bridgeton Cross stands out like a sore thumb, a marking of territory.
The East End has historically been the Catholic heartland and a place considered among the most deprived areas in all of Europe, uncomfortably described in the past by the right-wing press as the UK’s benefits capital.
Most of the worn cliches about passion tend to be viewed through the prism of working class men and women finding football as their outlet, a place to find deeper meaning to break the monotony of life.
And, despite all the historic problems with sectarianism, nowhere is that more true than in Glasgow. There remains some purity to these clubs, its soul untouched while the big guns south of the border continue to lose touch with their fans.
Few are the stadiums that can better the noise generated at Celtic Park, a place where even the youngsters seem to wave the Champions League flag during the pre-match anthem with an additional ferocity. Yet the same applies across town at Ibrox, where the colours, tunes and views may be entirely different but the commitment and backing is the same.
That a significant proportion of Liverpool’s fanbase would align closer to Celtic’s identity heightened pre-match concerns on Wednesday night but within an hour of the game finishing there were fans mixing freely with hardened Rangers viewers on the Subway platform, exchanging their views on Giovanni van Bronckhorst's future as a manager.
Beforehand the Spirit of Shankly group, with Labour MP Ian Byrne heavily involved, brought a donation for a foodbank drive run by Rangers fans in a “show of solidarity” between the cities. And that gesture said more about the wider state of things than any clash of supporters could.
