As a football fan there are few things more satisfying than seeing another club climb to the top of the moral high ground, point their fingers in your club’s direction, make bold statements and then slip and fall down the other side of it. There is nothing more amusing.
I’m troubled by some goings on amongst our own support. I’ve got an article on that for later, or maybe tomorrow sometime, but that myself and others are at least willing to acknowledge some of this stuff and confront it shows that many of us take this stuff seriously and are not blasé about either the problem nor how it affects other people.
But Hibs were so quick to get their self-righteous statement out the other day that I found it amazing, knowing as I do so many Hibs fans and knowing their support is perfectly capable of bad behaviour, and especially in the derby matches.
This isn’t the first time fans of another club have sneered at ours as though they are somehow better. They continually lump up in with the fans across the city, which is lazy and stupid for a start. But to palm off all the problems off-field on “the West of Scotland” clubs is a path well trodden and where others have been embarrassed time and time again.
I remember when I used to attend every away game; I lost count of the grounds I was called a fenian so and so at, and my old man has sat in almost every away support in the top flight in the last 30 years on days when he couldn’t get tickets for the Celtic end, and he can count on one hand those which weren’t filled to the rafters with bigots. There are people reading this nodding along who can relate. He actually regards Hibs as amongst the worst.
I know a lot of Hibs fans, and I’ve been at three Edinburgh derbies, one at Tynecastle, one at Easter Road and one at Hampden, and although I can’t entirely claim to be a neutral on them, in that I have a very clear and obvious preference, I thought the atmosphere was crazy and electric and as full to the brim with bile on both sides as our games against the clubs out of Ibrox.
That’s why I was open-mouthed when I realised they’d threatened to cut our allocation for fan misbehaviour with one of those matches looming. That was courting disaster.
And of course, it was a disaster. A section of their fan-base behaved like hooligans and neds. Notice that I said a section? That’s a courtesy their club never bothered to extend to us in their smarmy attempt to sound like they are on a higher moral plane.
The headlines about the trouble their fans caused are everywhere, in particular on Celtic fan media sites who are pretty gleeful and are fully entitled to be. We’re struggling with our own demons right now, and that’s going to generate more news than many of us would want, but we don’t kid ourselves on about that, and this is the difference.
So yeah, I’m doing some gloating tonight, but not without some regret. Because I really don’t want to see this kind of behaviour in Scottish football grounds and we should all want to be rid of it. But for tonight anyway I will take some satisfaction on certain people at Easter Road made to look foolish for aiming to look superior.
My advice to them; get your own house in order before you point your fingers at anyone else, and I’d say the same to their mouthy shareholders.
.Links please James or better still specify a particular Celtic site / blog that carries ‘the dirt’.
A fair few of us don’t purchase any of the SMSM crap they generate so, when you allude to an event or a developing situation, we’re in the dark.
You’re such a tease at times. Hmmph.
Good point. but I love your monicker
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone !
Pot, Kettle, Black and all that…
My wee granny (God rest her) was a Hi-Bee although she certainly wasn’t from or anything to do with Edinburgh for sure –
The ones I know are ok – But didn’t they have a really dangerous lot of ‘casuals’ around 40 years ago…
Some said that they were far worse than The Scumbo and Sevco (well actually Rangers as they were back then)…
And that takes some doing for certain !
(PS – What did their shareholders do and / or say… Take it that it was to do with our recent injury time winning match there)…
It’s true what they say – people who live in glass houses really ought to masturbate in the basement.
I think it’s to do with the songs that were getting sung, from our away fans. I think the hibs fans had mentioned they didn’t want to hear that anymore. I personally wish they would stop with they songs as well, it’s not doing us any favors at all, we run the risk of being like a pariah , like they horrible countries Iran and North Korea. The hibs fans have had a long history of trouble, they also have a real problem with bad behavior
Hibs fans are ALL from the smelly part of Embra (or Leith), they all smell and they’re all junkies.
Wow – there’s some highbrow debating points right there!! FFS man…
I have a very good mate who’s a Hibee, and who is concerned by the baying minority. But it’s the same in every support, and we also have our own arsehole element.
James, I get the point of your article but, until we get our own house in order, better not even to write these kind of articles.
I did all that when I was younger, going to Easter Road and Tynecastle, in among their supporters because I couldn’t get a ticket for the Celtic end. To be honest at Easter Road I don’t think I was ever called a fenian, that was reserved for Tynecastle, but I was commonly called a Glasgow bastard by the Hibs fans. Perfectly acceptable, as it usually meant that we had won. 🙂
Talking about Hibs fans being animals, I remember after a game at Celtic Park myself and friends were passing a Hibs fans double decker bus just near to Springfield cross and their supporters upstairs were gong ape shit, they were throwing nuts, bolts, ball bearings and of course bottles at anyone in their proximity. I’m sure their fans downstairs were probably horrified, as that’s where most of the sensible members of any club sat. Well, a bottle narrowly missed my old man, it didn’t break and he grabbed it preparing to launch it back at them when I grabbed his arm to wrestle it off him. C’mon Da, FFS get a grip, calm doon, you’re better than that, I got the bottle off him, seething with anger……and launched it with a perfect aim at that top deck. LOL, the good old days.
No club or their fans can take the moral high ground. I’m sure we’ve all heard or witnessed some of the more sickening or gutter level chants that these so called supporters come out with. ( yes we hear it every week with Sevco, but they’re allowed to sing what they want, and behave as they please, aren’t they?)
The ‘well behaved,’ Hibs fans took great pleasure in singing about our Lisbon Lions…and not in a respectful way. Whilst the sheep hordes enjoyed throwing coins into an area of Hampden, where young kids were sitting with their fathers. ( though maybe the coins were on a bit of string ?)
The point is, our fanbase, in the main, is widely regarded and acclaimed as one of the best and most friendly. For others to criticise, whilst ignoring their own problems, should be a concern !!!
People in glasshouses, right enough !
Brilliant point Gerry !
My Goodness though – It all seems so long ago now that Celtic were winning UEFA and FIFA accredited awards for our fan’s awesome and amazingly positive behaviours…
I don’t see us getting anything like that any time soon however –
Good reputations and respect are so very hard to win…
But they are bloody well very easily lost !!!