Murdo MacLeod has insisted that Rangers have to move on after Walter Smith claimed that bitterness remains at Ibrox over the way they were treated by the rest of Scottish football in 2012.
Former Rangers manager Smith said that a sense of resentment will always exist at his old club over being admitted to the bottom tier of the senior leagues after a vote by SPL clubs at the time to reject their application for entry.
Former Celtic midfielder MacLeod counters though that Rangers have to get over that if they are to flourish in the future, both for their own sake and for the good of the Scottish game.
“Hopefully they’ve just got to move on,” he said.
“When you start thinking like that, for me that’s negative.
“Don’t go back to a memory that’s not been good for your club. We don’t talk about when Fergus McCann was buying the club and we were just about to be closed down.
“That’s finished, that’s all in the past, and we don’t speak about it. Talk about the good things that have happened – cup finals, winning titles.
“That’s what the weekend should be about, seeing how far they have taken their club on.
“Even driving yesterday I was hearing everybody on the radio still talking about it. It’s in the past.
“You can look back on great times that you’ve had in football in the past, and there’s nothing better for any football fan to look back on their highlights. Everyone’s had a highlight.
“The lowlight for Rangers is what happened four years ago, but they’ve got to move on.
“If in ten years’ time if Rangers go and win the title, then everything else will be in the past and they’ll not talk about that again.
“You hear fans of other clubs saying they wanted Rangers down in the bottom league, but for me everyone has to move on.”
Despite being excited about this weekend’s clash, MacLeod says that for him, the Old Firm won’t truly be back as a contest until Rangers return to their former glories in terms of winning honours.
“It doesn’t take me back to Rangers before, it’s a new Rangers coming in as far as the team are concerned,” he said.
“For Rangers to get to their own level is when they win the Premiership, they qualify for Europe, they win a national cup.
“They’ve just got to get back to winning trophies and that’s when Rangers will be back.”
While MacLeod expects his former side to face a stiffer test from Mark Warburton’s vastly-improved Rangers outfit than they did in last year’s League Cup semi-final, he is sure that the greater experience in the Celtic ranks will see them through.
He added: “It was a mismatch the last time. A lot of fans from both sides knew it was going to be a one-sided game.
“But I think the way Rangers have improved and the way they played against Dundee, everybody knows they’ve got that in them.
“They’ve not reached that height since that game but here you are, a semi-final against Celtic. It’s an opportunity to get back up to that level again and give Celtic a challenge.
“But Celtic have a lot of players who have played in an Old Firm game. They know what it’s all about. People like Scott Brown know what it’s like.
“They know it’s a younger and different Rangers team. It’s a different type of challenge.
“There’s no way Celtic can go in thinking they’ll win it. I don’t think any Celtic player will be thinking they’ve just got to turn up.
“You’ve got to turn up and play.”
*Murdo MacLeod was speaking at the launch of this year's John Hartson Foundation Celebrity Golf Day and their Know Your Balls campaign, raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of testicular cancer.
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