It remains one of the most iconic encounters in world football, when Rangers meet Celtic.
At stake was the Scottish Premier Cup but it was more than that as one side would edge ahead on major trophies.
They stood on 118 titles apiece.
So the winner was able to boast extra bragging rights.
Your correspondent happened to travel from Glasgow Central Station in the company of the Union Bears (Rangers) ultras around two hours before the 3.30pm kickoff.
Masked up, with Christmas-style hats and dressed in black they piled into the carriages.
Beforehand the group had a brief altercation with Celtic’s version – the Green Brigade – in the local streets before separating to travel to stations on either side of Hampden Park.
Both sets of fans were surrounded by large groups of police.
Once inside they would face each other across the National Stadium, half on the east and half on the west.
Not altogether surprisingly the instruction not to use flares was ignored.
The noise and colour was, for once, matched by the game itself.
Which, for the few neutrals present, was a superb six-goal thriller.
Celtic went into the final as favourites, as usual, but their opponents had shown improved recent performances especially when holding Tottenham to a draw in the UEFA Europa League.
The Rangers fans derived positives from that effort and hoped their team could reproduce the pressing tactics that so disturbed the Premier League side.
On the other hand Celtic coach Rodgers had an unbeaten record at Hampden and he had under his control a squad valued at least 50% higher than Philippe Clement’s.
Once the smoke had cleared the match began in typically feverish style.
After an initial period of some misplaced passes and inaccurate deliveries a couple of moments defined the first half.
Firstly the threat from Celtic’s Nicolas Kuhn down the right was going to cause Rangers problems.
But more significantly an error by Greg Taylor setup Igamane for a shot before Bajrami followed up to give Rangers the lead.
It was the first serious effort on goal and came just before halftime.
That had the Rangers fans bouncing and ensured we would have a stirring second period.
At the start of the second half Rodgers brought on Liam Scales for Trusty at centre back, thus breaking up the all-American partnership with Cameron Carter-Vickers.
Scales would make his mark later in the match.
As expected, that Rangers goal set off an action-packed, roller-coaster of a second 45.
Beginning with a transition move that saw Vaclav Cerny released alongside a couple of other Rangers attackers, but sadly for the ‘Gers fans the Czech forward chose the wrong option and the chance disappeared.
That was costly, as within a few minutes defender Taylor redeemed himself after the early mistake to deliver a deflected strike past Butland for 1-1.
And on the hour Celtic went ahead when the excellent Maeda broke clear when the opposition defence failed to clear.
The tide seemed to have turned towards the favourites.
Especially when Kuhn was exposing Rangers left-sided frailties.
That forced coach Clement to bring on Yilmaz.
But credit the Light Blues who forced home an equaliser from a corner via Ivorian Mohamed Diomande.
After further changes it seemed the outcome was decided as another break down the Celtic right saw Engels and Kuhn combine to allow the German to make it 3-2 with five minutes remaining.
That deflated the Rangers the support only for Cerny to deliver a far post cross that was headed in by substitute Danilo to provide a breathless finale.
So we went into an extra thirty minutes when the action calmed down with both teams wary of making a terminal error.
But one significant moment did stand out and that was when Scales was given a yellow card for pulling back Cerny.
It was an incident that ended up being reviewed for many days after the contest with the officials being criticised, at a high level, for not giving a penalty.
Nevertheless, it was not given and the resultant free kick failed to produce.
The drama would culminate with a penalty shoot out.
As always, these conclusions end with failure and it was Rangers’s full back Yilmaz who was the ‘fall guy’ after his effort was saved by Kasper Schmeichel.
And so the favourites triumphed, Brendan Rodgers kept is record, and Celtic reached 119 major trophies
The Rangers fans departed long before the Celtic team collected their medals leaving half of Hampden eerily empty.
It had certainly been tough to take following such a memorable Old Firm encounter.
Report from Glasgow – John Bethell.