But twice the Old Firm have faced one of the Barclays Premiership’s more established sides in the past fortnight, and twice they have come away from their venture south of the border with comfortable victories.

Today it was Rangers, cheered on by an army of fans – decked out in red, white and blue – and enjoying their afternoon in the sunshine by the Thames as Alex McLeish’s men recorded a 1-0 victory over Fulham, which was far more complete than the scoreline suggests.

True, this was only a friendly, a match in which both managers were still tinkering with their final preparations for the real battles to come over the next 10 months.

True, Fulham started with new signing Andrew Cole on the bench, and fellow debutants Claus Jensen and Tomasz Radzinski have yet to join up with their team-mates in competitive action.

But take nothing away from Rangers, who came here on the back of a 4-1 win over Roma in Austria and but for some wayward finishing and a string of fine saves from Fulham goalkeeper Mark Crossley could have left with a far more convincing scoreline than the one given to them courtesy of Dado Prso’s spectacular 68th-minute over-head kick.

Fulham left new signings Cole and Billy McKinlay on the bench, while Denmark midfielder Jensen was not included after only completing his £1.25million move from Charlton yesterday and is still on leave following Euro 2004. Striker Radzinski, who joined from Everton yesterday, was also not selected.

McLeish fielded four of his new summer additions in the starting line-up - Prso, Nacho Novo, Alex Rae and Jean-Alain Boumsong – while Marvin Andrews and Dragan Mlandenovic were among the substitutes.

And it was the Scottish giants who were quickest out of the blocks, with Denmark winger Peter Lovenkrands firing an early chance just wide before forcing a good reaction block from Crossley.

Fulham, now back at their traditional home, were, meanwhile, finding it difficult to settle into any sort of rhythm.

And it needed several towering and timely, interceptions from defender Zat Knight to snuff out wave upon wave of Rangers’ attacks.

When Fulham did eventually make some progress into the final third, Alain Goma could only manage to spoon his attempted cross from the left behind for a goal-kick.

Just before half-time, Lovenkrands’ snapshot from the edge of the box was too hot for Crossley to handle, but fortunately for him, the ball deflected onto the crossbar.

The Welshman redeemed himself moments later as this time Lovenkrands picked out Novo in the six-yard box, but Crossley made another superb close-range block with his legs.

It was proving a busy end to the first half for the Fulham keeper, who then had to dive full stretch to pluck Lovenkrands’ looping header out of the air.

Chris Coleman made a couple of changes to his Fulham side at the start of the second half, Jerome Bonnissel, Sylvain Legwinski and Goma being replaced by Adam Green, McKinlay and Ian Pearce.

It made little initial difference to the pace of the match, though, with Rangers still comfortable – and looking ready to step up a gear at any moment.

Novo almost got clear from a long punt up field, but Pearce and Moritz Volz did enough to crowd out the Spaniard.

Volz was then replaced by Dean Leacock on 53 minutes, and Rangers brought on Chris Burke for trialist Marcin Zajac.

The “friendly” turned ugly on the hour when Collins John and Paolo Vanoli tussled in the Rangers box before squaring up, and had to be separated by first goalkeeper Stefan Klos and then referee Dermot Gallagher before virtually all the players became involved in a mass scrimmage on the penalty spot.

It was, though, little more than handbags at six paces, with calm soon restored.

John was quickly substituted to hand Cole his Fulham debut, with McLeish also introducing Shota Arveladze for Lovenkrands and Stephen Hughes for Rae.

It had an instant impact, as Rangers took the lead in spectacular fashion after 68 minutes.

Georgian striker Arveladze created space down the left and his looping centre was headed back into the danger area by Hughes, where Prso dispatched a text-book overhead kick past Crossley and Craven Cottage erupted, the Rangers fans making up the vast majority of the 14,173 crowd.

Fulham saw more of the ball as the match wore on, but when Knight’s header looked to be looping in at the far post, Boumsong was on hand to head clear.

At the other end, Zurab Khizanishvili put a tame header straight at Crossley when well placed six yards out.

By then, though, it did not matter. The day belonged to Rangers, but the real work starts for both clubs in just a few weeks time.