THE CELTIC supporters who were filmed chanting ‘You can stick your F****** Poppy up Yer Ar*e’ at Dens Park on Wednesday night, will drag the well behaved Celtic support into the emerging debate about strict liability.
Rangers fans have been behaving badly all season and there have been stabbings, mass brawls in the city centre, coin throwing incidents at Ibrox where visiting supporters are regularly struck and the Assistant Referee at their game at Livingston was hit by a pound coin and his head was split open.
Hearts fans are emerging as the new Bad Boys of the Scottish game. A granny had her head split open on Sunday before the match at Murrayfield and we have all seen the video of the Hearts thug throwing the bottle that hit her. Disgracefully Ann Budge choose not to say anything about this incident yesterday.
Their supporters were also filmed fighting among themselves at Murrayfield and on Wednesday one of them hit Hibs boss Neil Lennon – the man Scotland’s Shame hates the most – with a pound coin. Another Assistant Referee was also struck at this match.
Neil Lennon’s agent came out yesterday and called it for what it is – and it is a huge problem that Scotland finds hard to talk about, to even admit that it exists but every one of us knows that it is there.
If you remember when John Reid was Chairman at Celtic he spoke about these matters but he also admitted that Celtic could only do or say so much regarding the offensive chants – he was referring to disgusting lyrics in their Famine Song – because there is always one Celtic supporters chant that they can throw back at us.
So is it time for the Celtic supporters to review our songbook, especially at away games? Why should we? The anti-Poppy sentiments, for instance, can be regarded as legitimate. Had the Poppy not been hijacked by the Ulster bigots, had it simply remained a remembrance for the fallen in the two World Wars – including Celtic stars, it would never have been an issue at all with the Celtic support. And remember that never used to be an issue with the Celtic support.
And when the British Army is blowing cannons at Ibrox and parachuting in to land on their turf in the obscene Army Forces Day – who the hell has this got to do with football? – then the sentiment behind the anti-Poppy chant is at least explainable. The irony that the Rangers supporters are pretending that they are still the same club that shafted HMRC for over £100m that could have been spent on the Armed Forces is not lost on anyone.
And Poppy Scotland yesterday got involved, noting the regular donation from Celtic – it is usually £10,000 per annum – and saying that the chant at Dens Park was from a minority of the support. (The two wars, especially the Second World War was fought against Fascism and for Freedom – so the right to object to wearing a Poppy is consistent with this objective).
Tom Rogic played his 150th game for Celtic the other night. He is a wonderful Celtic player who NEVER gets his name sung. In the match report the other evening, before this all blew up (if you pardon the pun), we noted that there seems to be more songs about the Troubles than the Team.
Most of the Celtic players will have no idea whatsoever what these songs are about. Think back to the St Johnstone game in the League Cup Quarter Final. Scotty Sinclair went out to warm up in the second half behind the goal and the Celtic supporters in that stand started chanting his wonderfully creative song – the player, who was suffering from a loss of confidence, was moved. Days later he scored a wonderful, beautiful back heeled winner against Aberdeen.
There is plenty of opportunity to play ‘the Rebs’ on the way to and from the game on the supporters buses. But what is sung inside the grounds should be more about supporting Celtic with some notable additions such as Fields of Athenry, Grace and The Soldiers Song.
These three songs give the reference to Celtic’s roots perfectly. They also prevent anyone being able to point a finger at the Celtic support, when others are behaving badly.
And Beautiful Sunday is better when sung as a joyous celebration of a humbling of them…
It is time to box clever Bhoys.
