Barry Ferguson’s column in the Daily Record is a classic piece of deflection that is just unacceptable, and should be challenged by every right thinking person. He says the Ibrox support as a whole should not be “tarred” by the actions of a “handful” of people. He’s right. If it was only a handful of people none of us would be trying to.
But this isn’t a handful of people and it never was. There might have been a couple caught making racist signs at Scott Sinclair, but Ferguson, as usual, ignores the larger problem, the latent anti-Catholic, anti-Irish bigotry that wafts out of the stands like a bad smell.
Or perhaps he simply doesn’t see that as a problem.
There is nothing in his column to indicate that he sees it as one.
Anti-Catholic and anti-Irish bigotry is the problem, and the reason no-one wants to admit that is because we’re not talking about a handful of people here at all; we’re talking about thousands. We’re talking about many thousands. Is it a “minority” as some have suggested? I’ll need convincing. But if it is we’re talking a large minority as opposed to a small one.
I am tired of sugar-coating this. I am tired of it being ignored. I am tired of goons like Ferguson glossing over it instead of hitting it dead-on.
He does himself no credit talking this garbage, and the paper does the club no favours pretending it isn’t there.
I’ll tell you what else needs to change; people trotting out half-assed excuses for why Sevco’s supporters occasionally behave like wild beasts.
Today Leigh Griffiths has had to deny that it’s the fault of our players that one was racially abused, objects were thrown at others and one fat yob got onto the park to attack our captain.
This is the kind of nonsense we’ve heard already over the vicious treatment handed out to Neil Lennon and it is deplorable to have to answer this from the mainstream media, and those who’ve asked the question seriously need to go and have a lie down, or apply for the kind of work to which they are clearly more suited, working for the press office of the Assad regime maybe.
Nobody “goaded” people into an outburst of racism. Players have scored goals and celebrated before without inspiring a pitch invasion. The throwing of objects is inexcusable even if our players had done the Huddle right in front of their fans. The guy who brought a golf ball into the ground didn’t need to be “goaded” into throwing it; he brought it into a football stadium for that explicit purpose and he tossed it at Stuart Armstrong during open play.
I am thoroughly fed up listening to this shit from the media.
It’s about time they had the balls to call this stuff out, and to do it properly.
As I said in the piece last night, this is not an issue involving Scottish football as a whole.
It is not, as the headlines scream this morning, an “Old Firm shame”.
One club’s fans behaved like the worst kind of scum.
One club.
This is a Sevco issue.
This is their shame.
This was their fans.