THE Old Firm have stood shoulder to shoulder as football paid silent tribute to the victims of The Clutha helicopter tragedy.

Neil Lennon and Ally McCoist echoed the thoughts of fans as Glasgow reeled from the disaster.

A member of Celtic's Under-19 female youth team, Chloe Arthur, lost her dad in the horror.

Lennon said: "We touched on that before the game. The city's hurt.

"It's a tragedy, and this is where the people of Glasgow show their real strength of personality and warmth.

"All we can do as symbols of the city is provide entertainment and maybe put a smile on a few people's faces.

"But it will never alleviate the hurt some people will feel.

"One of the girls in the Celtic team (Chloe Arthur) lost her father in the tragedy, so it's affected not just the club but I'm sure many thousands of people all over the city.

"We just wanted to put a bit of lightness on what's been a very dark couple of days."

His sentiments were mirrored by Ibrox counterpart McCoist.

The Rangers manager, speaking on behalf of the whole club, said: "I actually saw what had happened before I went to bed and our football club offers its condolences to everyone involved.

"It's an absolutely horrific event in the city centre and it hits everybody because everybody knows the area.

"They have certainly walked up it at some point in time and for it to happen is shocking.

"It puts everything into perspective."

Both sets of players took part in a perfectly-observed minute's silence before their cup games against Falkirk and Hearts.

Kris Commons paid his own tribute by hurling his jersey into the crowd after bagging a hat-trick for Celtic in the 7-0 rout of Hearts.

The midfielder said: "With everything that has gone on in Glasgow in the last couple of days, there was a lot of people in the crowd hurting.

"I was just trying to give them something to cheer them up."