RICHARD GORDON this evening on BBC Scotland’s Sportsound show revealed that Aberdeen recently invoiced the Rangers for the cost of replacing TWO HUNDRED broken seats in the away end, following the recent meeting between the sides on 6 February. The Rangers won that game by 4 goals to 2 and the 1800 traveling supporters certainly made their presence felt.
Now the extent of the damage to the seats has been revealed, and ironically on the BBC, given the current row about the national broadcaster being biased against the Ibrox club by indulging in trial by television via Sportscene.
Aberdeen documented the damage done, and this will have been done immediately after the game when the Rangers were still on the premises. The visitors will have left Pittodrie known the extent of the damage and that an invoice would be in the post.
There was therefore no need for Aberdeen FC to release a statement like the one Billy Bowie of Kilmarnock FC released last night – a point that we made on The Celtic Star earlier today – see HERE.
Nor were there any statements from Patrick Thistle, Hamilton or Livingston after the mini-pitch invasions by the Rangers supporters.
But the number of broken seats is interesting. Celtic had 8000 tickets for the game at Rugby Park and from the images that Killie have been using it looks like there are around 30 to 40 damaged seats – that’s around 0.5% o the seats ‘used’ by the Celtic supporters on Sunday – they may have been sat on at half time by some supporters but during the game, everyone was standing.
Now at Pittodrie earlier this month the Rangers had 1800 supporters packed into the away end and managed to destroy 200 seats – that’s just over 11% of the seating damaged.
WOOPS: Richard Gordon has revealed that Aberdeen invoiced the club from Ibrox for 200 broken seats from their recent visit, that is close to 10% of the tickets given to away fans. Kept very quiet by the BBC.
— Joe McHugh (@videocelts) February 19, 2019
Let’s compare and contrast…
Celtic at Rugby Park – 0.5% seats damaged. Statement. Indignation. MSM all over the story. Celtic paying for damage anyway….damaged seats at the front of the stand and the damages almost certainly caused by the crowd surging forward at the goal.
The Rangers at Pittodrie – 11.1% of seats damaged. No statement, no indication. Nothing in the MSM. The Rangers have received an invoice, the BBC knew about this but it is only tonight that it gets mentioned. The quality of damaged seats suggest that something more that a crowd surge was going in here. Vandalism is likely to have been a factor.
Celtic apologised to Billy Bowie on Sunday. It looks like he now owes Celtic an apology for releasing that ill-advised statement last night – one which even one of his own players is contradicting today, saying that there was no malice or badness in the pitch invasion – see HERE.
