Jay Beatty Trolls Are Not Football Fans

I was disgusted and shocked yesterday, as I am sure everyone was, to read the stories about how young Jay was the subject of what was described as “vile abuse” online at the weekend.

I added dismay to my emotional mood when I read one report refer to them as “rival fans.”

Let’s get one thing straight; to abuse a kid like Jay, a kid half the world has fallen in love with, has the sum total of nil to do with football.

I don’t care what colours these people wrap themselves in of a weekend, I don’t care how many games they have attended over the years … these people aren’t really football supporters at all.

Football supporters love the game.

These people see the game as a secondary thing. Their hate comes first, and this sport is simply a place where they can give full vent to it, with the audience they always wanted. That’s what they really care about.

There are two reasons why the press likes to promote this idea that people like this have something to do with “football rivalry.”

It sells papers for a start, and it stokes the controversies that will sell more in the future.

They know it works too, because over the years they’ve helped to poison a lot of football fixtures that were once without the level of venom which infuses them now.

Also, don’t underestimate the need for supporters of different clubs to be kept apart, prevented from coming together in a common cause.

The media – and the governing bodies – know how powerful that coming together is because they saw it a few years back when supporter unity forced the clubs to make Sevco start in the bottom tier instead of jumping the queue.

I’m not suggesting that’s at the core of why the media blows these things up and tries to turn them into football matters, but it’s there, at an underlying level, and I am certain of it.

There’s another element to this though, and it’s one we’d all do well to consider.

Stories like this feed into the worst conception not only about Scotland but about football fans in the main.

Rugby fans don’t get this kind of negative publicity, nor the supporters of hockey or any number of other team games played in this country.

Stories like this strengthen a negative perception of football supporters that sees us treated as second class citizens, and it’s why I’d like to see this notion knocked on the head.

The people who did this don’t need reasons … they only need an excuse. That’s what football represents to them; an excuse to act like morons, and to spew out their hate.

Jay Beatty is a hero not only to Celtic fans but to the fans of clubs right across the land. The standing ovation he got at Hamilton would have been repeated everywhere, by the genuine, decent football supporters we have here.

The overwhelming vote for his penalty to win the Goal of the Month award is a recognition as to the great affection he’s held in … and a few mindless internet halfwits will not change that one iota.

Jay’s story, and the way it has grown, gave football and fans a good name.

That’s the very last thing a lot of people in our society want, so it’s no surprise to seem that this story became news. It’s a hacks wet dream, the kind of thing that has them on their high horses.

The sick individuals who did this are exactly that. Sick and individual.

They are not part of any of our footballing families and communities … they are social outcasts, scratching away at the rest of us from the far-out fringes.

Let them rot there guys. Don’t take it out on each other.

That’s what they want more than anything.