The rise of the East

It may be the one truly global game, but football still needs local rivalries like Scotland needs chip shops. In an increasingly commercialised sport where the successful clubs and nations are being turned into franchises, such things are a source of comfort - they may not be healthy, but at least they're real.

Scotland has given the world one of its oldest and greatest football club divides - the eternal struggle between Celtic and Rangers. And yet in addition to these traditional enemies, clubs make new rivalries all the time that can prove just as intoxicating. Because they are based on recent events rather than historical ones, onlookers can watch the story unfold chapter by chapter, and wonder how big the conflict will get. If it keeps developing as it has done, Hearts v Celtic is going to resemble Hizbollah v the IDF.

(If you think that's tasteless, remember that the Celtic support adopted the Palestine cause last year, and turned up at Old Firm derbies with Palestinian flags. The Rangers fans responded by waving Israeli ones).

With Hearts v Celtic taking place on Sunday, Rangers had a chance to put some early pressure on both of them by winning their game on Saturday. As it was against Dundee Utd, at home, this should have been a formality, and yet they could only draw 2-2 after the Arabs, presumably baffled that they were still leading the game, decided to show Rangers how to finish off a move and put one in their own net.

Paul Le Guen seemed sanguine after the game, saying he was disappointed with the result but satisfied with the performance, and has been reminding everyone that Rangers are trying to put a new team together and it might take a few months before they gel, thus deflecting pressure away from the new players trying to adapt to life in the goldfish bowl. Damn, he is good.

And so to Tynecastle. The reasons for the hightened hostilities between these two clubs are not hard to fathom. Hearts are the newly-monied upstart, and as is their right have refused to show the established champions much in the way of respect. Add to this a bubbling undercurrent of fan animosity (the Edinburgh clubs don't go in for the sectarian nonsense of the Glaswegians, but Hearts have Protestant roots) and some spicy incidents between players on the pitch, and you have the recipe for war.

Rudi Skacel might have left Hearts, but the "spitting row" at Celtic last year still lingers in many people's memories and made him an easy bogey man. Neil Lennon, meanwhile, became a hate figure for the Jambos after allegedly inciting the fans at Tynecastle last season. Meanwhile, Hearts have held on to Paul Hartley, their outstanding player of last season, despite the fact that Celtic told them on several occasions that they wanted to buy him. This kind of backchat has been unheard of in Scotland recently, where the Old Firm have come to expect the other clubs just to do as they are told.

Hartley is still injured and is yet to start a game this season, but in the event Hearts didn't need him. The first half was all blood and thunder, with both Gordon Strachan and John McGlynn, the Hearts assistant, sent to the stands for shouting abuse at each other, but not much of a football match. Things improved as a spectacle in the 2nd half. The clubs exchanged goals, Celtic's a sweeping move finished sweetly by Petrov, before a dreadful mistake by Neil Lennon allowed Bednar to get his second and wrap up the points. How the home fans loved that - a winning goal created by their personal hate figure.

All in all, it's been a great week for Hearts. Through to the next stage of the Champions League, 3 new players (none played yesterday) and an important win over the new enemy. Vladimir Romanov seems harder to please, perversly criticising their midweek performance on Bosnia rather than celebrating a result that brings the lucrative CL Group Stages a step closer.

If their season continues like this, however, the Hearts supporters will forgive his little quirks. There is a new power rising in the East of Scotland, built on Eastern European money.

Hearts 2-1 Celtic
St Mirren 2-0 Motherwell
Falkirk 1-0 Dunfermline
Kilmarnock 2-1 Hibernian
Aberdeen 1-1 Inverness CT
Rangers 2-2 Dundee Utd