Gutless Third Rate Hack Tries To Drag Celtic Into Ibrox’s Weekend Cup Shame.

Tam McManus. That’s not a name that’s going to get you rushing to the newsagents just because you hear he’s got a column.

Some of the most witless stuff I’ve read in recent years has come from that guy, and if you do a search for this blog and articles with his name in it you’ll see plenty of examples where I’ve highlighted his utter stupidity.

But today I want to highlight another of his failings and it’s his spinelessness.

Today, writing in The Record – where else? – he has claimed that Hibs are perfectly justified in cutting allocations for our fans. I am not going to sugar coat this, he’s dragged us into the mucky waters of this weekend’s abysmal chanting by the Ibrox supporters, trotting out this lazy and idiotic “Old Firm fans” guff which is so prevalent across the game here.

McManus is not alone in this.

I wrote last night about how Hibs, as a club, had done much the same thing and I can only repeat what I said then; until people have the guts to separate the issues and the clubs responsible for them, and tackle them in a proper way rather than lumping them together with us and us together with them we’re getting nowhere.

And most of these people only do this because they don’t want to just come right out and point the finger at the club whose fans have the worst record in our game.

McManus does point that finger. But then withdraws it as though scared. Which I’m sure is the case. He has no backbone to speak of, or he wouldn’t have written a rant about fans in general but would have got right to the heart of the matter and slammed those directly responsible and their club for remaining dead silent on it. Instead, we get this;

“Hibs’ statement acknowledges the problem in their own support. It’s time more clubs did the same. Sunday looked like the final straw. The chants from (the Ibrox) fans towards Martin Boyle – which can’t be printed in this paper – were terrible. Sickening.

“Don’t think this is a pop just at (them). Every club has a problem element. It’s widespread. Quite clearly Hibs have had enough and don’t want to put their players or fans through any more. They want the supporters to be safe going to games. Is cutting allocations going to make a difference? Does it matter if its 3500 people or 1500 people? The danger is the chants are still there. The chanting, particularly from the Old Firm, is out of order but how do you police it?”

A handful of words condemning fans who openly called for a Hibs player to die whilst he was lying unconscious, and the rest a bitter screed where he invokes “Old Firm fans” as the root of all evil in the game. Weak and thoughtless in equal measure, and actually seeing a former player calling for away fans to be locked out of games is disgusting in itself.

This isn’t the first time McManus has done this either. In March last year, Ibrox fans made disgusting chants during a minute’s silence for ex-Hibs chairman Ron Gordon before the Viaplay Cup Final where we beat their club. Everyone in Scottish football knew who was responsible for those chants, but what did McManus write in his column?

“Old Firm rivalry is always used as a platform of hate by the knuckle-draggers”, as though our fans did it too.

What’s worse is that he’s a stone hypocrite. His demand today that other clubs take a lead in dealing with the troublesome element in their own house would stand up better if he had praised Celtic when it banned The Green Brigade for a litany of offences earlier in the season.

But rather than do that, you know what he did instead?

He went on Twitter after we’d beaten Hibs 4-1 at home to offer the following observation; “Atmosphere at Celtic Park crap only fans i could hear were small band of Hibs fans in corner.”

I am really, really sick of people like this and the way they continuously drag us into whatever gutter Ibrox fans are wallowing in.

McManus would rather conflate two issues than separate them and confront them properly; there are no fans in this country as loathsome as that element which follows the Ibrox club and isn’t happy unless its up to its knees in fenian blood. The section which booed a dead Hibs chairman and wished death on one of their players at the weekend.

If he’s too gutless to call that out properly without attempting some pathetic equivalence argument then he should just shut up about it altogether.

He would look and sound less like a cowardly fool.