Gers facing stomach-churning seven-in-a-row

Rangers manager Alex McLeish faces his stomach-churning prospect of having to walk out of Parkhead on Sunday having suffered his seventh straight derby reverse.

Celtic’s domestic domination, plus Rangers’ failure to join them in the group stages of the Champions League, means McLeish is currently under immense pressure.

It will be small comfort therefore should Celtic inflict another major blow to their rivals’ fledgling season that there once was an Old Firm boss who had it worse.

That man was Jimmy McStay, who presided over nine successive Celtic defeats to Rangers – including an 8-1 thrashing.

The former Celtic defender eventually learned he was no longer in charge at Parkhead in a bizarre way – by walking past a newspaper vendor’s billboard that proclaimed Jimmy McGrory had taken over.

Few now remember the McStay regime as it was ended almost 60 years ago and the man himself died 30 years ago.

And the fact all of those nine derby defeats came during World War Two - between 1941 and 1943 – means that they can easily be dismissed, although the games were played in front of crowds of up to 60,000.

McLeish will therefore claim an unwanted record on Sunday should he side add to the six Old Firm reverses they suffered through the last two campaigns.

The successes of Martin O’Neill’s current charges equalled a six-game winning streak the Hoops inflicted on their rivals in the 1970s when Jock Stein was in charge.

Beginning with the Scottish Cup final replay in 1971, Stein’s players inflicted four more derby defeats on Willie Waddell and then made sure his replacement, Jock Wallace, got off to a losing start before the sequence was finally stopped.

Rangers had previously racked up a six-in-a-row sequence themselves in the 1960s, which also began with a Scottish Cup final win, in 1963.