Why the media’s “Ultras” narrative around the Ibrox disorder is completely false.

Well, this was always going to happen. The media has not been shy about searching for deflections when it comes to pushing the spotlight away from Ibrox. Celtic supporters should be aware of the direction the narrative is now moving in.

Increasingly, the focus is being shifted onto “ultras.”

Early in the day, I wrote a lengthy piece about sectarianism in Scottish football. Sectarianism remains at the heart of this problem. Attempting to push responsibility onto ultras culture is simply another way of deflecting attention from the real issue.

Ultra culture is not new in Scottish football. It has been present in its modern form for years and it has been under media scrutiny almost from the moment it appeared. Some of that scrutiny has been fair. Some of it has not.

Clubs in Scotland have always had loud, boisterous and sometimes unruly elements among their support. The casuals problem in Scottish football was notorious, just as it was south of the border.

That history has not stopped commentators like Keith Jackson claiming he remembers a time when our stands were free of bother. I have no idea which era he believes he is recalling, but I would suggest his memory is either selective or very short.

Supporter culture is always evolving. Yet in many ways it remains exactly what it has always been. There is very little difference between the young supporters who now make up the North Curve and the young supporters who once stood in the Jungle at Celtic Park.

Anyone who claims there is some vast cultural leap between the two either does not know what they are talking about or is deliberately misrepresenting reality.

On Sunday I mentioned the disorder but deliberately chose not to write about it immediately. I waited until Monday. The reason was simple. I wanted to make sure that each article I wrote addressed a different aspect of what happened, while still pointing back to the same central issue.

That central issue was laid out in the first piece I published on Monday morning: “A Permanent Embarrassment. An Occasional Disgrace.”

That article placed the events in their proper historical context.

This has nothing to do with ultras culture.

That point needs repeating again and again because the media narrative needs to be challenged. At the moment the media is constructing it in a way that is flagrantly dishonest and deliberately moves the spotlight away from where it belongs.

The purpose of that opening article was simple. It laid out the long and uncomfortable history of disorder associated with Ibrox. There cannot be many clubs anywhere in football that can claim the dubious distinction of their supporters rioting at two separate European finals.

Once you acknowledge that historical context the attempt to blame modern ultras culture becomes impossible to sustain. It hasn’t stopped some moronic attempts at it.

Jackson, for example, has tried to equate ultras culture with supporters entering the pitch to celebrate victory. Fans have been doing that since football began. Attempting to link that behaviour exclusively to ultras culture is absurd, even by his standards.

Every article that tries to make that connection is a distraction from the real issue.

Let me put it another way.

When Hibs won the Scottish Cup at Hampden Park thanks to David Gray’s late goal, their supporters ran onto the pitch to celebrate. It was their first Scottish Cup in over 100 years. Some would say their fans deserved that moment.

The reaction from the Ibrox support was to charge onto the pitch and confront them. Commentators have analysed that event endlessly. The media built one narrative around it. The Ibrox supporters pushed another.

Then there is the version grounded in evidence and reality. That’s the one we have always defended against those who try to warp it. Hibs supporters celebrated a historic victory. Ibrox supporters ran onto the pitch looking for a confrontation.

At the time nobody blamed ultras culture for what happened. Instead, critics shifted the blame onto Hibs supporters for supposedly provoking the reaction. If that narrative sounds familiar it should, because the same narrative is being pushed today.

Supporters run onto pitches to celebrate victories all the time. Rival supporters do not automatically respond by running onto the pitch to attack them. That only happens in environments where a particular mentality already exists.

Blaming ultras culture is convenient. Especially for those who don’t want to take a harder look at where we are and why we are here.

The most visible group on Sunday may have been the Union Bears. They were the ones who ran the length of the pitch toward the Celtic support. Yet they were not alone. Supporters poured out from multiple parts of the stadium.

The Union Bears were simply the most visible expression of something larger.

As I explained earlier today, they are not ultras in the sense that groups like the Green Brigade are. The Union Bears are something far more troubling, with associations that go far beyond stadium choreography and atmosphere.

Yet even they are not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is the cultural mindset surrounding them.

Graffiti, stickers, broken seats and offensive songs are an unfortunate part of derby matches across world football. Some of it is distasteful. Some of it is disgusting. However, none of it is unique to Scotland.

Ultra culture exists across Europe and brings with it the same problems everywhere. Supporters entering the pitch to celebrate also happens regularly across football.

What makes this weekend different is not ultras culture and it is not the size of the away allocation. What makes it different is the behaviour of the home support.

It was the home crowd who escalated the situation into violence. That is the central fact and it is not the first time that supporters from Ibrox have escalated events in that way. These are not disputed claims. They are facts.

Those facts are precisely what much of the Scottish media is attempting to blur or ignore. Instead, we are presented with distractions and false equivalences.

This is not about ultras culture. It is about a club that cannot accept defeat and a culture that struggles to accept its place in the modern game.

Even that, however, is not new.

The current Ibrox club may be different from the one that existed before it, but the mentality surrounding it stretches back generations. It is rooted in grievance, entitlement and bigotry that should long ago have been rendered socially unacceptable.

Yet somehow it has not been.

There are people in positions of influence in this country who will talk about everything except that mentality. Not one of them appears particularly concerned with the wider health of Scottish football.

If they were, we would not still be having this conversation.

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