It's funny how quickly the incidents which help to decide the outcomes of football matches and, by extension, the game's entire history are forgotten.
On the night 10 years ago this week that St Mirren stuck four goals past Celtic in Paisley to end Tony Mowbray's tenure as manager, the minor details of an extraordinary affair were almost lost amid a tsunami of angst and vitriol.
For reporters frantically transforming routine match reports into an obituary of the Englishman's 10-month spell in charge at Celtic Park, the finer points of the two goals claimed by both Andy Dorman and Steven Thomson only just survived the re-edit.
Looking back on the game a decade on, you are struck by how easily it could have been another routine Celtic victory on the road.
With Mowbray's side dominating the early stages, Saints keeper Paul Gallacher fumbles a shot. It bounces off the post but back into his arms. The smile on his face is a nod to the good fortune he enjoys.
Moments later, the keeper blocks Robbie Keane's venomous strike but the ball goes spinning up into the air and towards goal. Straining every sinew to be first to the loose ball, Jack Ross knocks it behind for a corner.
Would St Mirren have recovered from a two-goal deficit to win 4-2 on the night? You wouldn't have thought so. Would one victory in Paisley have been enough to convince Mowbray's growing band of doubters? Assuredly not.
But he'd certainly have limped on into a winnable sequence of fixtures, perhaps even closing the gap on Rangers sufficiently to secure a mandate for another campaign.
Big decisions in football, however, are made on the back of what did happen. What could have been or should have transpired just doesn't matter.
'Celtic managers just don't survive losing 4-0 to St Mirren,' bluntly stated Frank McAvennie, a TV studio guest on the night.
It wasn't just the *fact* that his side had lost to that jaw-dropping scoreline which signalled the end for Mowbray. It was the manner of the defeat. Trailing to the first of Dorman's goals at the break, they went chasing the game. Even when Thomson fired home the second, there were still 32 minutes remaining.
Celtic still had time to get a grip on the contest but TV pictures showing Mowbray sat on the bench with his head buried in his hands a la Ally MacLeod betrayed a man who was drowning and out of ideas.
His tactical response amounted to the sounding of a bugle. By the end of the contest, he had six strikers on the field but they were devoid of any meaningful service from a midfield that was hopelessly outnumbered. It was laughably naive.
When Josh Thompson, a hapless central defender, failed to reach his forwards with a shell up the park, Dorman pounced again for goal No 3. Thomson of St Mirren then claimed the fourth with three minutes remaining as Celtic defended a free-kick with the hearts of hamsters.
As St Mirren supporters celebrated their biggest win over Celtic in 51 years and their first in Paisley in the league for 21 years, the visiting throng experienced a curious mix of emotions. Because amid the anger and dejection, there was an element of relief that the ill-advised Mowbray gamble was already history.
Understandably shell-shocked as he faced the media, that fact seemed lost on the soon-to-be former Celtic manager.
'Maybe breaking it down, we need to play slightly differently away from home,' he said. 'We had six strikers on the pitch at the death. Rangers have been very consistent and not lost many goals; maybe that is the way to go. Maybe it isn't a league for trying to force games. Maybe it is a league for playing defensive football, negative football and having quality in attack.
'In trying to be positive we lost a few goals. I take responsibility. I left some very young defenders exposed but it was done for the right reasons. There were positive reasons why it was a negative result. By trying to get goals back we made positive substitutions. Sometimes it can backfire and you have to take it on the chin.'
Those last five words had become jarringly familiar to a support which had viewed the return of the former centre half with cautious optimism the previous summer.
For all Mowbray's side had started promisingly by turning around a home defeat to Dinamo Moscow in a Champions League qualifier and winning 3-1 at Pittodrie, they stalled more often than a learner driver, winning three straight league games just once.
His recruitment had set alarm bells ringing. Some £3.8m was lavished on Marc-Antoine Fortune from Nancy, an extraordinary sum for a non-scoring forward. Landry N'Guemo also came in from the French club on loan, Danny Fox arrived from Coventry with the teenage Thompson a £200,000 buy from Stockport.
January brought another mixed bag; Jos Hooiveld at £2m from AIK, Morten Rasmussen at £1.3m from Brondby, Diomansy Kamara and Edson Braafheid on loan from Fulham and Bayern Munich, respectively.
Given that the club also secured a true superstar in Keane on loan from Tottenham, Mowbray was certainly backed to the hilt by his paymasters. But a 1-0 loss at Kilmarnock on what was the Irishman's debut simply fuelled the notion that this was just not meant to be.
For all the deficiencies in his squad, Mowbray inherited quality too. Aiden McGeady, Scott Brown and Shaun Maloney, to name but three.
But the whole of the side was invariably less than the sum of the parts. On its day, Mowbray's Celtic side could be a joy to watch but they were inconsistent, defensively suspect and lacking in street smarts.
Both at Hibernian and West Brom, Mowbray had deservedly won plaudits – and a promotion – with an attacking brand of football. Yet as admirable as his philosophy was, in the harsh light of Glasgow, it did not translate into trophies.
He was not helped by the fact that across the city, the pragmatic Walter Smith cared little for marks awarded for artistic merit. His Rangers side accrued the only thing that mattered – points – and simply found ways to win games.
They lifted the Co-op Cup with nine men against St Mirren just 72 hours before the Buddies put Mowbray out of his misery. Not in a month of Sundays would the Celtic team he fashioned have dug out a result like that.
His inevitable exit the following day was a protracted affair. Put on gardening leave rather than dismissed, the Englishman remained on the payroll until returning to manage Middlesbrough in the October.
He was already past tense, however. Neil Lennon, who'd been working with the development team, was promoted and showed enough promise to survive a catastrophic defeat to Ross County in the Scottish Cup semi-final.
There are those who believe that the former skipper was always a Celtic manager in waiting. That the leagues, cups and European triumphs he subsequently presided over during two spells in charge would have happened anyway.
They might well be right but we shall never know. The only indisputable fact is that one seismic night in Paisley accelerated matters and became a reference point for everything else that followed.