One of the recurring issues we grapple with on this blog, depressingly often, is how those outside Scotland fail to grasp or be appalled by the nonsense many of us have come to accept as part of living here. That came up again yesterday with comments from Alan Shearer.
The Daily Record ran a piece claiming Shearer had “pinned his Rangers colours to the mast.” What utter rubbish. There is no Rangers in the sense they mean, for a start, but that wasn’t even the most ridiculous part of it. The suggestion that Shearer had somehow outed himself as an Ibrox fan is nonsense—taking a handful of comments and spinning them into fantasy. But that’s not even the aspect I took most issue with, although there’s plenty in that article to dispute.
No one seemed to bat an eyelid at Shearer’s comments heaping praise on the Ibrox atmosphere. He’s right that it’s unique in football, but he’s completely wrong to suggest it’s something worth celebrating. I find it nauseating and disgusting. This was a game where the home crowd sang about being “up to (their) knees in Fenian blood” for the full 90 minutes. Celtic players and our manager were pelted with objects. Praising an atmosphere that produces this sort of behaviour is grossly irresponsible at best—and at worst, it makes you an outright apologist for bigotry.
I’ve heard over the years that Shearer isn’t the sharpest tool in the box. These comments seem to confirm it. They come at a time when Scottish football is grappling with how to tackle antisocial behaviour, and Ibrox stands as a perfect example of what that behaviour looks like.
We recorded our sixth podcast last night and discussed strict liability, following on from my piece on it yesterday, which itself followed one I wrote before the game. I said then that allowing pre-match drinking and a 3 p.m. kickoff was a recipe for trouble. There would likely have been issues regardless, but those factors heightened the risk. And although the Ibrox club won, they celebrated in their usual poisonous fashion.
Strict liability is becoming an inevitability. If football doesn’t implement its own version, the government will impose one. The window for action is closing. A year ago, I wouldn’t have supported it. Now, I do. Another year down the line, I might even campaign for it.
Shearer has exposed himself as yet another clueless commentator from south of the border who doesn’t understand Scotland’s unique issues. His comments were loathsome. Anyone praising that atmosphere or the conduct of Ibrox’s supporters, without grasping the context of what’s being sung and done, should be mortified when it’s pointed out to them.
Shearer, however, might be let off the hook—partly because of his ignorance. He has no real frame of reference for what happens at Ibrox and seems incapable of wrapping his head around it. What infuriates me far more is the behaviour of a certain Scottish journalist, who I won’t name, who writes for a newspaper which I’ll also refrain from mentioning.
This individual went on TalkSport yesterday, ostensibly to discuss Scottish football. When asked about Brendan Rodgers’ comments at the end of Sunday’s game, he turned it into an attack on Celtic fans, accusing them of sectarian singing every week and questioning why Rodgers hasn’t spoken out against it.
All I can say is that this gutless little twerp has crossed a line with this comment. And, naturally, nobody on the panel challenged him to clarify those remarks or explain which songs he meant. He works in the mainstream media here. If sectarian singing were genuinely happening at Celtic Park every week, why isn’t he writing about it every week? If it were happening, I know I’d be writing about it and condemning it relentlessly because I don’t want that poison at Celtic Park—and I don’t think many of us do.
We do know there’s a ground up here where it does happen every week, yet he doesn’t write about that either. To attack Celtic supporters in the same week that sectarian bile poured out of all four corners of Ibrox for 90 minutes—and our players were attacked—is not just cowardly: it’s disgusting. And it forces the question: is this joker anything less than a dyed-in-the-wool bigot himself?
I’m utterly fed up with these people. I’m sick of the Shearers of the world—those who either pretend this isn’t happening or are oblivious to it, all while praising the poison as though it’s something we should drink up. But I’m even angrier at the cowards and charlatans in our own media who do understand this, who do see it happening week after week, and yet remain silent—unless it’s to lazily paint both clubs as equally culpable in some “plague on both houses” nonsense.
Let’s be absolutely clear: that is not true.
There is no Celtic fan equivalent to singing about being up to our knees in someone’s blood. No equivalent to “kill a Fenian before I die.” No equivalent to The Famine Song. Some Celtic fans sing Republican anthems, which might not be to everyone’s taste, but frankly, I couldn’t care less who is offended by them—especially if those same people aren’t even more offended by the Billy Boys.
If the former offends you and the latter doesn’t, the problem lies with you. And the Scottish media figure who went on TalkSport yesterday to attack Celtic fans is one of those people who, in the most generous interpretation of his remarks, is obviously one with selective hearing.
He chooses to be offended by one thing but not the other. If you’re not offended by a song like the Billy Boys, then I must wonder if you’re sympathetic to the sentiments in it. I suspect some in our sports media are.
I don’t care what motivated him to appear on that show and make those comments. Maybe it was a desperate bid to be talked about—his first time on the radio in a while, looking for a controversial soundbite. Certainly, no-one reads his shitty column in that rag he writes for, and they’re certainly getting no publicity from me.
But the hypocrisy reeks. He has no credibility on this issue or any related one because, to my knowledge, he’s never addressed it before. To bring it up now, targeting Celtic fans explicitly—just days after the shameful scenes at Ibrox—is either a sign of colossally poor judgment or a reflection of his own prejudices.
Whatever the case, it’s shocking. It’s yet another example of the attacks our club fails to defend its fans from. Time and again, Celtic refuses to stand up for us, leaving us to endure these insults unchecked in a media ecosystem with no sense of responsibility or accountability whatsoever.
Photo by Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images
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OK, so someone must know who the prat was and what part of the gutter press ecosystem he inhabits.
I can understand that James doesn’t want to share who this Clown is, however there are many of us who don’t have access to the same sources that James has and who don’t read the poisonous SMSM or listen to the rancid, bigoted Unionist drivel of the National broadcaster or even the lunatic dribbling from the Commercial Radio Stations so to pique our interest by writing about what this Clown has said without identifying him and his place of employment is disappointing. ( Almost said disappointed there).
Who the Fluck was it?
Some guy called Bill Lecky…
It’s got a thread on Wallow Wallow –
Where you find far more honesty than you ever would in The Scummy’s of The Scummy Scottish Football Media for absolute certainty !
I stopped reading after the author refused to disclose who the twat is.
Leckie went out with the mother of a girl I worked with a few years ago and she hated him.Said he was a fuckin dickhead.
If it’s leckie then that type of thing ye expect. Nothin less. Remember some years back when we beat them at ibrox at new year. The minutes silence for the disaster, was respected fully by the Celtic end, when they all expected it tae be disrupted in some way. Some in the media and amongst the ibrox support, were even lickin their lips at the prospect of an all out slur on the Celtic support. When it never happened, leckie, clearly disappointed, wrote in his column about an ‘orchestrated coughing’ in the Celtic end during the silence. Utter weasel, so nae surprises if it’s him that’s bein referred to.
If it was the other way round, and it was a Celtic leaning journalist ( is there such a thing?) being outed by a Rangers blog. we would have his name, address and telephone contact details. Sad bastards that they are!
What sort of country is this, where police and/or politicians allow racial anthems from 50,000 on a regular basis. If I could afford it I would live abroad