Rangers retained the CIS Insurance Cup with a 2-1 victory over Celtic at Hampden Park today. The victory came in controversial fashion after Celtic were wrongly denied a second-half equaliser. John Hartson had been the man wronged when he had a legitimate 62nd-minute goal chalked off for offside by linesman David Doig. However the Welshman had only himself to blame when he put a last-minute penalty wide after Bobo Balde had been brought down in the box by Lorenzo Amoruso.
Martin O'Neill' side's gloom was further compounded by a suspected broken wrist suffered by Chris Sutton and they finished with 10 men after Neil Lennon was sent off.
Claudio Caniggia and Peter Lovenkrands had given Rangers a 2-0 half-time lead but it was all Celtic after Henrik Larsson pulled one back shortly after the restart, however Rangers hung on to claim the first silverware of the season.
For Rangers it was their second successive joust at Celtic in the space of eight days and manager Alex McLeish was just pleased to have retained the trophy after weathering a second half Celtic storm. He said: "We are pleased to win after a hairy second half. We played ever so well in the first period - exactly the way I expect my team to play.
"It was great to bounce back but that is the way with Rangers and Celtic. If you lose one, you are a dud but, if you win one, you're fantastic. You have to try and get somewhere in the middle but it is not easy when you are at this club."
Filed by Johnny Proby
