Celtic Are Right To Be Concerned. Ibrox Remains Manifestly Unsafe.

In the middle of last month, the media were told that a deal had been reached between Celtic and the Ibrox club over the return of away fans to the fixture as of next season; around 2500-3000 will be available for the games apiece; it was hailed as a breakthrough.

In fact, if you read the small print, it was only one up to a point, and there was to be a determination from Celtic as to whether certain of our club’s concerns were being taken seriously before we would proceed to offer them an allocation for our ground and accept one for theirs.

Yesterday, John Kennedy was hit by objects thrown at the Celtic dugout. Now we see footage showing that Matt O’Riley was also targeted. The Ibrox club has been far too lax in protecting our people up until now; nobody should believe them when they talk about the safety of our supporters. It is inconceivable that we would subject our fans to that sort of thing.

Celtic are more than a little concerned at this, and we should be. It is out of control over there. That is not a safe stadium for our team to visit, let alone our fans. Next season’s ticket settlement depends on the safety of the fans; I would not be surprised if we added the safety of our players and staff to the growing list of concerns. This is, after all, not a first offence.

“It has been confirmed today that a glass bottle was thrown at Matt at yesterday’s match. The repeated targeting of our players and staff with missiles is quite appalling and completely unacceptable. We have already raised our serious concerns with Rangers and understand that police are investigating the matter,” said Celtic’s second statement of the weekend.

“Appalling and completely unacceptable.” Those are the words that jump out. But so too is the reference to “serious concerns.” A Celtic staff member was hit on the head with a bottle a couple of years ago. We cannot allow this to become the new normal there.

On 29 March last year, one of their fans, Alan Crawford, was jailed for 12 months for launching the bottle that struck Daniel Friel, our physio. It required four stitches and left a permanent scar. This is what the sherif said at the time;

“This was an attack on a man in the course of his employment. The throwing of a bottle was not only an act of mindless violence but it had significant consequences for the person you injured and will stay with him for the rest of his life. The court must ensure that this grave conduct at events such as this is discouraged and the public protected. A custodial sentence is the only appropriate method to deal with you due to the gravity of the offence and the use of a bottle as a weapon.”

Here is what is astonishing about that incident; Crawford was sitting in the “corporate seats” when he did this. This was one of the upper crust, a guy sitting in the high value seats, a guy who had probably hobnobbed with the top brass.

The case of Lee Findlay is at the other end of the scale; he was 17 when he hit a Celtic fan on the head with a bottle that he found lying on the ground inside the stadium; he picked it up and launched it into our supporters without a second’s thought, and it hit a fan on the head. He escaped a custodial sentence because of his age, but he got a five-year banning order.

The situation at that ground is serious. The impulse that compels both young kids and guys in the rich seats to do these things is the same one. It’s the same one that saw our assistant manager and one of our players targeted yesterday, and these are the incidents which we know about, the ones that are of a high enough profile to get headlines.

If you look at social media, you’ll know that there was severe disorder in the Gallowgate on Saturday night, and a cache of weapons was found in Glasgow Green. This is a Celtic area, filled with our fans, which was attacked by their supporters.

That’s what we’re talking about here, although the media has done its best to dance around that fact and called it an “Old Firm” fight. But that’s not what it was, of course; this was a deliberate attack on a Celtic fan area and people out for a Saturday night drink being forced to defend themselves. Again, this is not an isolated incident.

Celtic will take a long hard look at what Ibrox does about this, if anything. And we will base and future decision to take tickets for that ground – and thus whether to give any for ours – on what the response to this will be. If our fans are to be truly protected then every supporter who enters that ground for one of these games should be searched by police; yes, that will entail fans arriving long before games kick off, but that’s just too bad.

The SPFL should also start sanctioning clubs for this stuff. Ibrox’s previous history with it cannot be ignored, nor is it possible to suggest they are doing everything they can to assure the safety of our coaches and players, or our fans when they attend games there.

It is clear that Ibrox is a manifestly unsafe place for anyone of a Celtic persuasion. They even told a senior broadcast journalist – Chris Sutton – that they could not guarantee his safety there, a quite extraordinary claim and one that should have seen the SPFL step in immediately. But as usual they chose not to bother … and that’s part of why we’re here.

The police are going to have to step up to the plate too here, as they are clearly not performing as they should. Celtic is right to be concerned right across the boards. We cannot accept tickets for that ground, in whatever number, until this stuff is stamped out.