Football without fans is nothing, someone please tell theRangers…
Football without fans is nothing yet yesterday, theRangers made the decision to take away all of the away tickets offered to and bought by Celtic fans for the game at Ibrox this afternoon. What a baffling decision, especially when there were other options available to them lot and considering its such short notice.
In a statement released by theRangers, they said: “Intelligence received by (the)Rangers and Celtic on Thursday suggested groups of ‘risk’ supporters in a significant number had purchased tickets from the Celtic allocation.
“(the)Rangers’ security team decided it would be unsafe to allow these ‘risk’ supporters into the stadium, and with Celtic unwilling to cancel just their tickets, the decision to cancel all tickets was taken.”
This begs the question of who we consider to be ‘risk’ supporters. How many of us Celtic fans do theRangers consider as untrustworthy? If you read Follow Follow you’ll see that the Green Brigade are the supposed ‘culpits’ here, being charged with buying the tickets that theRangers were selling for their stadium that holds over 40k people. Indeed the same website will tell you that around 1500 tickets were sold to the Green Brigade.
The reality as it turns out is completely different, members The Bhoys bought a number of tickets to go to the game with their families as they live locally and 35 tickets in total were involved. At no stage did theRangers specify who could or could not buy tickets – these tickets were all sold to Celtic supporters via the promotion on the official Celtic FC site and that was as simple as that.
Incidentally being an ultra doesn’t make you dangerous nor does it mean that you don’t have families with the weans wanting to be taken to a game. Dad duties and all that.
Maybe we could understand a little bit more if they elaborated on some of the details, but of course, they’re keeping their cards close to their chest, them and their chums at Police Scotland. The only instance of violence at a women’s Glasgow Derby so far is ironically when one of their coaches ASSAULTED our former manager Fran Alonso with a cowardly attack from behind that was caught on camera by Sky Sports. Police Scotland must have missed that broadcast. It seems it’s their staff that should be banned from attending the games, not the Celtic fans, and there was no statement from theRangers about that incident.
When Glasgow City played us at Celtic Park last season, their fans were put in a different section from the rest. An obvious decision, right? Apparently not, as theRangers were happy for us to mix with each other, which posed a security risk from the start. There was always a risk if the game was going to be moved to Ibrox, but it’s up to the home side, theRangers in this case, to sort out policing for the match. Our fans should be able to safely attend their stadium without having our access denied for bogus reasons.
The sizeable Celtic support that would have attended the game would have spurred our Ghirls on. In such an important game in the title race, what a coincidence that we’re not allowed in!
The removal of away fans is something that I disagree with in the men’s game, so I’m devastated to see it carrying over to women’s football. Fans are a huge part of the beautiful game and I wholeheartedly believe that this match should be postponed until the home club can sort out the police presence that they believe we need at the game. It is up to them, not us.
Sadly Celtic have not requested a postponement, nor have they asked the SWPL to insist that the game is played behind closed doors for the integrity of the competition. Any positive result achieved by theRangers women side tomorrow – whether that be a win or a draw – will be tainted by this decision to remove Celtic fans. Three times this season theRangers fans have attended Celtic hosted matches without a spot of bother from either set of supporters. That is exactly how today should happen too but sadly having already ruined the match experience in the mens game they are now doing exactly the same thing in women’s football. Shame on them.
Jessica Elliott
Incidentally, The Celtic Star broke this story yesterday morning with an article which had this headline: Breaking News – Celtic supporters banned from Ibrox for Women’s game tomorrow which is a fairly accurate summary of the story. That though was not the view taken by a reader (or lurker) by the name of Ramon who wrote this:
“Trying to make a headline out of nothing!.. plus the photo is completely unrealistic, the womens game is very poorly attended, so why show a snapshot implying a full stadium?.. and make a headling (sic) like that.. its click bait!!! Celtic fans deserve better than this drivel!!”
Out of nothing – 700 Celtic supporters who follow the Women’s team and had bought tickets – with plenty of young children looking forward to going to the game is nothing apparently. But the comment about the photos – the ones in that article (top two here) were from the most recent Celtic FC Women v theRangers match in the Sky Sports Cup at Airdrie in January 2024.It was a home match for Celtic and all fans of both teams were accommodated in the main stand.
The rest of the crowd shots in this article were from the same venue, again a Glasgow Derby between Celtic and theRangers from October 2023 and the last two from the Women’s Scottish Cup Final at Hampden last May. Many of the supporters in these photographs will be affected by theRangers decision to ban them from Ibrox tomorrow , after their support was mad welcome at the Celtic FC Women home matches.
But Celtic fans deserve better than this click bait and inaccurate photos from very poorly attended games in Women football – the camera must be lying, Ramon eh?
The Celtic Star – Editor
Why give a troll the attention they crave ? Every You tube video of the women’s game has negative comments on it by people so “uninterested” in the women’s game that they feel compelled to post a comment telling everyone ,ignore them they are an irrelevance, COYGIG .
Have been ignoring them since The Celtic Star started covering the women’s game and watched it grow. No-one sees their comments other than me as they are never approved and deleted, but this once I thought I’d have my say. The click-bait insult was the final straw, when it comes to that we are far from the market leaders. It’s not what we do. HH