Scotland should think twice before football brings back the booze.
The Westminster Government is opening the door to the idea of allowing football supporters to drink alcohol in the stands again. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has argued that football fans are treated differently from supporters at other sports and that there may be a case for relaxing the restrictions, perhaps through trials
I think that would be a mistake.
Scotland has already been through this argument in the most brutal way possible, and sometimes rules survive for decades because the thing they were designed to prevent has not magically disappeared.
The obvious place to start is Hampden in 1980.
Celtic and the Ibrox mob had just played the Scottish Cup final when hundreds of supporters invaded the pitch and fighting broke out. Bottles and cans were everywhere. Police officers were injured and 179 arrests were made in connection with the match. Parliament was later told that the terracing had been littered with thousands of bottles and cans.
That was not a quiet pint while watching football.
That was football boiling over.
The legal restrictions on alcohol at Scottish football grounds followed, and they have been in place since February 1981.
People will say football has changed since then.
Of course it has.
Stadiums are safer. Policing is different. Grounds are better controlled. Supporters are treated differently. But one thing has not changed much at all: the emotional volatility of football.
A last-minute winner can transform an entire stadium in seconds. A derby can move from tension to rage to celebration almost instantly. A bad refereeing decision can change the atmosphere completely. A cup final can become something much bigger than ninety minutes of football.
Now add alcohol to that.
That is the part which worries me.
We do not even need to go back to 1980 to understand the danger.
In the 2016 Scottish Cup final, Hibernian supporters invaded the pitch after beating the Ibrox mob, and fighting followed after Ibrox supporters also entered the field. Players and staff became caught up in the disorder and police horses were eventually used to restore control.
And in March 2026, we saw serious disorder at Ibrox again after Celtic’s Scottish Cup victory, with pitch incursions, pyrotechnics, injuries and arrests.
So, what exactly do we gain by making alcohol more readily available while matches are actually taking place?
That is the question which matters.
You can drink before the game. You can drink afterwards. You can celebrate in the pub, commiserate in the pub and argue about the manager until closing time.
Why does the alcohol need to be in your hand while tens of thousands of people around you are experiencing the emotional rollercoaster of a football match?
The usual response is that rugby allows it. Racing allows it. Other sports allow it.
Fine. But football is not those sports.
Football has its own culture, its own history and its own problems. Rivalries are more tribal. The relationship between opposing groups of supporters can be much more hostile. The authorities themselves have recognised that football-related disorder is different in scale and character from what is generally experienced at other sporting events.
That does not mean every football supporter becomes an idiot after a pint.
Of course not. It means a minority can cause enormous problems when the conditions are right, and alcohol can make those conditions worse.
Poland understands that football needs particular safeguards too. I live here and know the football culture, and Polish law also places restrictions around alcohol at sporting venues and regulates where it can be sold and consumed.
So, this is not some strange Scottish obsession.
Different countries draw the line in different places, but the principle is not unusual.
And Scotland is not refusing to examine the issue altogether. There have already been limited alcohol trials at Hampden in designated concourse areas, with further licences granted after earlier trials passed without adverse incidents.
That is completely different from allowing free-flowing alcohol in the stands throughout a match. Controlled hospitality is one thing.
Turning the seating areas into extensions of the pub is another.
Football does not need alcohol to make it beautiful. The noise, the colour, the songs, the nerves and those moments when Paradise erupts are already enough.
If Celtic score a last-minute winner, I want to scream, jump, hug the person beside me and sing. Afterwards? Take me to the pub.
That is where I am perfectly happy for the drinking to begin.
Scotland learned this lesson after 1980. We have seen enough disorder since then to know that the emotional temperature around football has not disappeared.
So, Westminster should think very carefully before reopening that door.
And Scotland? I daresay most people are perfectly happy for Scotland to keep it closed.
Sometimes an old rule is not old-fashioned.
Sometimes it exists because somebody already learned, the hard way, what happens without it.
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This makes no sense. You undermine your own argument by citing recent outbreaks of hooliganism that happened while the alcohol ban was already in place. If disorder still occurs after nearly fifty years, then the ban clearly doesn’t stop it. If anything, it makes trouble more likely by pushing fans to tank themselves up before the match.
And the repeated “Ibrox mob” references? That just feeds the same tribal rivalry you claim to be worried about. It weakens the point and contradicts the argument you’re trying to make.
Haha, you man babies aren’t even allowed to drink beer at a sporting event? ? What a bunch of knuckle-dragging retards. Maybe try growing the fuck up.
Hahaha! Correct.
Don’t think it’s so much the alcohol these days Most of the masked idiots who invade the park would probably fail a drug test rather than alcohol
Anyway if someone wants to pay way over the odds for a pint of flat beer in a plastic tumbler then let them
They might not sell alcohol in stadiums but there’s plenty of pissed people there, stadium pints are notoriously terrible anyway, I really don’t think it’d make much difference and it’s extra revenue for the clubs. I’d probably have a couple.
I know some idiots blame alcohol for their own bad behaviour but I’ve always thought that to be bullshit.
The only people who will benefit will be the Board who will get their cut and if you can do without a drink for 90 minutes you have a problem.
Cant!
There is so much drinking and drug-taking going on within Celtic Park nowadays that it seems there is hardly any point even keeping the ban as it is so widely ignored. If however you did wish to keep it, there is a case to be made that it only needs to be kept in place for 2 clubs as they are the only clubs with significant public order issues among their fans. There are 19 or 20 league fixtures every weekend that don’t involve Celtic or the ugly mob, clubs that could do with the cash. Six quid a pint will ensure nobody is drinking it for any other reason than to keep warm at Cove, Elgin, Montrose, Arbroath, East Fife or Stranraer.
The original Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 was a kneejerk reaction to a tactical error by Strathclyde Police at the 1980 Cup Final – expecting all the trouble to occur outside the stadium after the match, there was insufficient police still within Hampden at the time of the trophy presentation to prevent pitch invasions and a memorable reenactment of ‘Peterloo’ resulted, with the police horses in the starring roles. The legislation was as much a punishment on fans for police failings as anything else.
It makes no difference to me. Like mentioned above many are wasted already on drink and drugs. Remember someone in the GB threw a grinder on to the pitch against the Ibrox entity. Which brought about one of the best jokes ever from pundit Lennon.
The only issue I see, is it becoming like the darts and football fan zones, where all the spoilt little bastards throw their £8 pints of plastic beer up in the air ruining it for normal people.
If they do bring it back, make it a separate section…maybe trial it in the ultras section and roll it out elsewhere for folk who want it.
I personally, like the vast majority, can manage without for a couple of hours.
As a 15yo I climbed the fence at Hampden in 1980 seen the hoses coming and was right back over! You can see me on youtube, I agree now we should stay alcohol free inside stadia.