Andy Walker Should Have Stood Up For His Former Celtic Team-Mate. Instead He Hid.

There is a weird perception regarding those of us who do this for a living and it’s this; all of us, to one extent or another, are dying for a gig with the mainstream media.

But let me tell you a secret right now; I write what I want to.

No editorial board oversees it and no group of individuals decides whether or not I should say it.

There are legal boundaries I cannot cross.

When I hear mainstream hacks, who have ten times the muscle available to a mere blogger, use that as an excuse for what they would not say or did not say I laugh uproariously. It is pitiful.

Anyone in the mainstream media has to balance what they are allowed to say with what they want to say, and some of them use it as an excuse to say nothing at all. But when the Ibrox club’s fans sang their disgusting bile about Tommy Burns at Ross County there was no editorial reason why the broadcaster did not condemn that strongly.

In particular, there is Andy Walker. He played with Tommy.

He knew him well. He spoke movingly at the time of his death. I cannot understand what force could have been at work to prevent Walker from condemning that song in all its ugliness.

What conclusion are supposed to draw from the way in which he kept silent on it? Deafness? I don’t think Andy Walker is deaf. Those fans were loud enough that some of us were angry that Sky didn’t even attempt to mute them. The vileness which inhabits the Ibrox support always lurks under the surface, and all too often it comes out in public.

Whenever it does, the media should be united in condemning it.

All of them. Unanimously. And Walker could have led the line on the night by slamming it live on television, in turning it into a genuine moment of shame and disgrace for them, by highlighting it to the whole UK audience.

It would have been a news story on Sky for days.

Walker hid instead, behind his microphone, behind some thin veneer of impartiality, behind some concept of himself as somebody above the fray. But it’s gutless. It’s a betrayal of his friend and someone even many of those who worked in the Ibrox operations believed was a fine human being. Walker’s commentary is often a joke.

This time the disgrace was what didn’t come out of his mouth.