Mick McCarthy has been involved in some of football’s biggest derbies as a player and a manager but says nothing else comes close to Celtic-Rangers Old Firm games. McCarthy, 56, was with Celtic between 1987 and 1989.
"Celtic-Rangers without any doubt,” said McCarthy (pictured above with Mark McGhee after his side had beaten their greatest rivals 1-0 in the 1989 Scottish FA Cup final) when asked which was the fiercest derby he has been involved in.
"I’ve been in loads of others, Republic of Ireland-Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland-England, Lyon-St Etienne, and believe me, that’s not very pleasant either.
"West Ham-Millwall, Barnsley-Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley-anybody, Doncaster, Sheffield United, Rotherham, it didn’t matter.
"Everybody thinks their derby is the biggest. And of course it is to every fan that’s a supporter of each club.
"I’ve managed Sunderland-Newcastle, I’ve managed Wolves and West Brom, but none of them have ever come anywhere near Celtic-Rangers.”
He says that as a player he didn’t change his approach for derbies: "I don’t think I did it any different in any game. I didn’t go out when we were playing against St Mirren and say "These two are nice lads, I won’t tackle these today’.
"I don’t get it. I was the same mentality in every game, except that the bigger the games get hyped up a bit and the intensity increases.
"I think you should be the same week in, week out. And it’s a cup final or it’s a big game and it makes the senses more alert, then great.”
He added: "They’re great games to play in and that extra little edge, I used to enjoy that as well, whether it was the physical nature of it or that it was end to end or how combative it was. I think that’s been taken out of the game somewhat that though.
"As a manager it’s different. If you go around and get them all to embrace it and tell them how big it is and say that we need an extra edge to it and somebody goes and gets sent off in the first few minutes because of a stupid tackle, I think that would be remiss of me.
"I try to get them to the same fever pitch every week, not just for the derby game. I love the atmosphere of them, I love the big games, I love the fact that there’s not just one man and his dog at the press conference today.
"There’s just more interest in the games. But if we were both mid-table mediocrity maybe there wouldn’t be that interest in it. How well both teams are doing at the minute really helps.”