The noise that reverberated with such force on Wednesday night was of a kind not experienced since that incident last Christmas with Mrs M and the family bag of sprouts.

Wedged tightly into my Celtic Park billet, my senses were assaulted in the most astounding way possible. Rifling through my third packet of biscuits, crunch cream crumbs tumbled from my gaping jaw as THAT tune, influenced by Handel’s Zadok The Priest, crunched and crackled its way through the stadium’s PA system.

I say that, they could have been playing I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts for all you could hear it through the wall of sound that crashed down around me on to the flood-lit Parkhead pitch.

It was a mesmerising moment for everyone. Well, apart from the unfortunate colleague to my left who, as well as nursing a bruised hand for attempting to nab my last Jammy Dodger, was frantically wiping his laptop after a diarrheic pigeon above got startled by the sudden cacophony.

Bummer.

Given the performance of Manchester City, particularly in the opening stages, he wasn’t the only one. After being almost deafened by the crowd, the Celtic players turned in a whirlwind start that many in the ground couldn’t believe they were witnessing.

“I can’t believe there’s only 15 minutes gone,” said Mr Ploppy next to me as he desperately tried to use one of the absorbent empty biscuit packets to mop up his screen. Little did we know at that stage that the pace of a full throttle start would not let up over an extraordinary night.

Let’s be clear at this point, it was a fabulous night for Scottish football. That’s something that cannot be underplayed and must be established before attempting to assess the performance of the Premiership champions or quantify how good a result it was.

A debate raged in Evening Times Towers between the young guns – at 29 I’m clinging on to that tag with all the conviction of my ever-balding head grasping on to a fringe thinner than a River City plot twist – and the old timers on the topic.

Tales of Celtic beating Liverpool in the last decade, overcoming AC Milan, putting Juventus in their place and how Celtic beat Leeds United in 1970 were recited as some attempted to pour cold water on the excitement of those whose hearing from the previous night was just returning.

Yes, Celtic chucked away cheap goals. Yes, in the end it was only a draw. But it was a draw against a team filled with world superstars assembled for £500million.

At no point has the gulf in money, resources, talent or profile been greater between a Scottish and English team playing each other at European level. Taking that Uefa Cup tie with Liverpool from 2003 as an example, an Anfield team was beaten by the likes of Hartson, Larsson, Petrov and Lambert that contained players of the calibre of Jerzy Dudek, Danny Murphy and Emile Heskey.

It’s not exactly Sergio Aguero, David Silva or Raheem Sterling is it?

Is it bigger than beating Barcelona four years ago? Of course it isn’t. But given Celtic couldn’t beat Molde less than a year ago at Parkhead, the significance of what took place on Wednesday night can’t be downplayed in this Brendan Rodgers transformation story.

I still think qualification for the last 16 is probably beyond this group at this stage, but where they are should not be measured on how far they advance before being papped out by a world super team that do hit form, or how getting a point now isn’t the same as winning a game 50 years ago.

Celtic and Rodgers deserve credit for letting those south of the border and further afield know that they deserve to be in the Champions League with the big boys. That when things come together and a team of ‘lesser’ players perform to their best ability, great things can be achieved. It reflects positively on our game at a time when the focus has been at its highest for years.

There are plenty who will queue up to knock our game, but there are some who, when deserving give praise when it’s due. A point was gained by Celtic on Wednesday. More importantly, for the sake of Scottish football, one was made as well.

Even if some didn’t hear it.