I want to be pissed off at Graeme McGarry this morning for a piece of upfront Whatabouttery which he started by attacking Celtic fans before he felt that he could make his general point, which was about the appalling behaviour of the Ibrox supporters.
But you know what? I find that I can’t be because even if he was indulging in the same old same old, albeit a particularly obvious version of it, he was on the money across his report.
There’s a section of our support which has crossed a line.
I’ll get to them in due course, in another article, because I had been intending to do one today on them anyway, but let me focus for a moment on the headline grabber from McGarry’s piece.
He said that Kyogo was racially abused from the expensive seats at Hampden, from at least one Ibrox fan sitting right behind him, and that it was greeting with bellows of laughter from those around him.
That’s damning of that club and the sort of people who follow it, and I wrote about this last night when I talked about how the bottle thrower from a previous match at Ibrox was actually sitting in the corporate area when it happened.
Stewarding at Hampden is a goddamned nightmare, but even so, shouldn’t someone have put a stop to that? This is stuff is criminal. Not borderline, it’s basically criminal. So I do think the police and stewards and those around the guy should have done a whole lot more, but again I come back to a club which encourages hatred and feeds it.
They are a big part of this. The club itself. Anyone living in denial of that is basically not paying attention. This is a club which has done everything it can to ingratiate itself to the lunatics it should be trying to move out the door … now even the manager and the players pander to them with their slights against Celtic coming one on top of the other.
And this is the difference between what happens over there and what I’m going to write about later on today.
We have, in our support, a small segment which believes itself to be engaged in some sort of low-intensity war against … who? I genuinely don’t know. But theirs is a bizarre world of grown men playing silly boys games.
It is not a cultural thing baked into the DNA of the club itself … whereas over there, you can see it in everything.
We need rid of a small element. I don’t even know where they start across the city.
A cleansing over there would require something more like a deep clean and to be blunt they should have done it years ago when they were starting in the bottom. I don’t think they have the stomach for it now.
If Everton are relegated this year, would that leave only Celtic and Arsenal as the only clubs in british football history, never to have played outwith their respective top divisions? Might phone radio clyde tonight and ask them to use in their “full-time teaser”. HH
Actually, might include old rangers in that. See what machinations they come up with to cover that. HH
There is undoubtedly an element among Celtic supporters whose behaviour is unacceptable in a civilised society. The club should do something about this as a priority.
Every club has it to a greater or lesser extent.
At Ibrox it is part of the klan culture: they actively encourage and promote it and the media by and large turns a blind eye because of self interest and fear.
Fear of Fascism and the thuggery that is inherent in those who have that mindset.
At Ibrox it is not a small minority among the lower orders, rather it is a growing majority which as is obvious is prevalent among their middle class and “executive” fans.
There is no solution to this other than to ban them from football. The police won’t take action for reasons I think we all know, so I see no other alternative course of action.
For evil to prevail it is only necessary that good men do nothing.
MC Garry coud have grown a pair ,stood up ,turned around to the bigot behind him spewing out the racial comments and told the cretin to shut up ! I know the stewards and Police were doing their usual disappearing act ,but for God’s sake … Obviously morals and ethics don’t apply to sports scoops in the greatest ,wee country in the world . Scotland !
Unfortunately he could also have ended up with a sore face if he had challenged the neanderthal. If they can throw bottles, then punches thrown are second nature to them. McGarry doesn’t get paid for taking risks, although even talking about it is taking a risk, there are many of them that are even too afraid to do that. It’s really quite sad.
Agree John C. An action of integrity would’ve commanded somewhat more respect than sitting on his hands.
We can all call out the stewards and police for any perceived inaction (we know they’ll deny they heard it or its source) but if he, or anyone else for that matter, had the balls to call it out to them (and they then do nothing about it) then the evidence is there that they themselves are part of it. Same goes for Paradise. Inaction is a weapon ….
You talk my kind of talk …
The bully initiates the confrontation. It is hardly surprising if there’s a reaction, however I’d like to think Celtic supporters at a match would have a little bit more intelligence and humour than the rancid situation at Ibrox.
well…..it won’t take colombo or high tech surveillance to find the main body of celtic fans that have been causing/ring leading the embarrassing sectarian chants and songs at parkhead….why do the club put up with it?….any plan of extending the “standing area” at parkhead should be put on hold until the GB are taken on……can you imagine 5 or 7 thousand acting like spoilt, self important neds?..the images of ultras out of control in various stadia around the europe cannot be allowed to happen at our beloved celtic park… although they create a great atmosphere…but at what price ?…
does a club have to individually have proof of misbehaviour ? or can they just cancel tickets in an area en-masse ?…the chants at away games are even worse – again, the club can simply withhold tickets…but seem unwilling to tackle the problem…
HH
100% agree GB are full of self important kids who are bringing our club down because they think that a tifo gives them the right to be aggressive
Hope Celtic have serious think about extending areas for these fools as children in hoods are not true Celtic fans HH
James,i agree with all you say here,except one thing….they CANNOT change. Not WON’T..CAN’T.
It is who and what they are. They either exist or they don’t.
Rather than alter and waste money on an existing stand, is it not nearing the time to build anew and increase the capacity of the old stand (sorry Rod but you’d have to do without that heated seat for a while) in keeping with the existing shape. It would finally complete what is already an amazing ground and would be the envy of all those super rich (and so-called bigger lol) English clubs. We have the money, we have the fans, all we need is the will. Now that would be and look like Paradise. HH
Of course we’d need to ban the paupers, they’d drink aw the water fae the shiny new bogs (before they’ve set about smashing them up that is).