Heated stand-off between rival voters at George Square

You’d have to accept that in the interests of political balance it was only right and proper for Union Flag waving groups to take George Square as their turf for a whole tonight. After all, the Indies had the run of it overnight.

Police Scotland – or rather police Glasgow – probably have one of the most sophisticated approaches on earth to handling football crowds in this city and in truth a lot of the flag-wavers were Gers fans.

We enjoyed a number of forthright but civilised and friendly chats tonight on politics, football, and religion which can be considered one word in many ways in Glasgow – even today.

Yes, a tiny minority threw flares at the police as the crowd of a couple of thousand roved around George Square, Buchanan St and back to the Square.

Chants of “Ten German Bombers”, “Rule Britannia” and “God Save The Queen” (the latter with what many would interpret as a Nazi- style salute) rang out to the utter bemusement of onlookers.

Tourists gawped; a Russian reporter did a piece to camera in front of Union flags and a Queen facemask.

Some pubs emptied. Others locked punters in for their own safety.

But in the end the police description of all this as “handbags” seems a pretty accurate upsum. If this number if young men were hellbent on violence they’d have come tooled and got on with it. Instead they basically sang songs.

However it is also the case that a nasty, idiotic minority was mixed up tonight assaulting anyone found carrying a Saltire. There are rumours of a stabbing but unconfirmed as yet. And there’s no doubt that some would have been terrified by what they witnessed tonight. But that would not fairly characterise the general situation.

Many will be offended. Some will think it was great. The police – schooled down the years with Old Firm imperatives – just got it over with as smoothly as they could.

I personally saw one arrest – not a Unionist protester – I would be surprised if there were many more.