Never before has a title changed hands so late in the day in the final fixtures of the campaign, and ironically the title-winning goal for Rangers came from Nacho Novo who had not found the net for all of two months, and not in the League since 2 March at Tynecastle.
There was capacity crowd packing the Leith ground, with a huge number of ticketless fans locked outside as Manager Alex McLeish fielded an unchanged
side from last week.
Rangers went into this afternoon's fixture fully aware that the outcome of the title race lay out of their hands, dependant on events at Fir Park, Motherwell, whilst Hibernian knew that they required just the one point to secure third position and a place in Europe.
For the superstitious, one omen that favoured Rangers was the statistic that Celtic have not won a League Championship in a year ending in "five" since the Great War.
It was the home side who threatened in the opening minutes, Garry O'Connor's 25-yard shot in the second minute being beaten out by Ronald Waterreus, then seven minutes later his header from a Stephen Glass free-kick flashed just over the crossbar.
In an instance play had switched to the other end, Nacho Novo striking an upright after Hibs' goalkeeper Simon Brown had misjudged Alex Rae's through-ball.
Novo again came close in 24 minutes, his twenty-yard shot from a Barry Ferguson pass hitting the side-net.
Five minutes later the home fans greeted the news that Chris Sutton had opened the scoring for Celtic with loud cheers.
The interval arrived with that Sutton counter the only goal of the afternoon in the two Championship games, but Rangers restarted in a higher gear with only a superb 48th minute tackle by Steven Whittaker denying Thomas Buffel from a Dado Prso flick.
Three minutes later Buffel shot over from a Novo pass, but the opening goal was coming and it duly arrived in 58 minutes when Novo netted from a Buffel
pass following a one-two with Prso.
As the game progressed it was clear that Rangers were now in command, with even Hibernian aware that a 1-0 defeat would guarantee third place, given that Aberdeen were 2-0 up on Hearts and required three more goals.
There was a surreal atmosphere in the closing stages, but suddenly a huge roar from the Rangers fans announced that incredibly Scott McDonald had equalised at Motherwell in the 87th minute.
Unbelievably the Championship was now there to be won, and with the seconds ticking away the visitors' end erupted again as news filtered through that McDonald had netted a second at Fir Park.
The title was Ibrox-bound provided that Rangers did nothing catastrophic in the closing seconds at Easter Road, and when Referee Kenny Clark sounded the final whistle the Light Blues astonishingly were confirmed as Champions for a World Record 51st time.
The title celebrations continued long afterwards, with the SPL trophy presented to Rangers Captain Fernando Ricksen on the pitch, but not before the Hibernian players took a bow in front of their own fans, happy to have qualified for Europe, sportingly applauding the Light Blue legions who themselves reciprocated.
A euphoric but dignified Alex McLeish reflected on the title triumph later:
"I'm proud of the players and all the staff. It was a spine-tingling finish. It's been two years of hard toil. We never lost hope, although the odds were always against us. Earlier in the season people were already writing obituaries, but criticism is part of football. We have a young team, and are ahead of schedule. The Rangers fans were immense today."
On his own standing and reputation as the Ibrox Boss, Eck commented:
"My record ain't bad."
Then it was back to Ibrox where a staggering crowd approaching 30,000 (the largest in Scotland all weekend) had gathered to welcome home the title-winning party.
HIBERNIAN Simon Brown; Whittaker, Caldwell, Smith, I. Murray; Sproule (Shiels 65), Scott Brown, Beuzelin (A. Murray 73), Glass; O'Connor (Konte 68), Riordan UNUSED SUBS A. Brown, Hogg, Murphy, Morrow
RANGERS Waterreus; Ricksen, Andrews, Kyrgiakos, Ball; Novo, Ferguson, A. Rae, Arveladze; Buffel, Prso UNUSED SUBS McGregor, Thompson, Malcolm, Burke, McCormack, S. Smith, Lovenkrands
REFEREE Kenny Clark