It looks like derby away day lock outs again this season, and indeed for the foreseeable future.
As we reported yesterday, Celtic have told theRangers that they won’t be taking their allocation due to safety concerns. Have you noticed how this reason is either ignored or buried within the coverage of the mainstream media articles – especially in the Daily Record – and none of them ever use these photographs of the Celtic fan who is lucky to be alive after being hit across the head by a buckfast bottle thrown at full force from the Govan stand into the small away end corner at Ibrox at the start of this year.
Here, once again, are the photos and unlike the rags they don’t lie…
And theRangers who started this whole debacle a few years back after one Celtic victory too many at Ibrox was too much for the poor wee bears to take. And again as we reported yesterday it was on the Daily Record’s own podcast where the explanation for this change from the traditional allocation can be easily found being explained by the Daily Record’s Rangers supporting reporter Gary Ralston, something that the paper never seems to refer to these days. Here it is once again…
Ticket Allocation Chat?
Again,as always, the problem started with shitebag Rangers Fans, their Board and their Media…
Gary Ralston. Daily Record Rangers Podcast. August 2017. Vocalising the Rangers fans crying to cut allocation after being scudded: pic.twitter.com/OzIUn4sDY6
— 🍔 Gastro Celtic 🍀 (@Gastro_Celtic) July 27, 2023
Not that Celtic fans occupying one stand at Ibrox and Rangers fans having the other three has always been the case since their stadium was rebuilt in the early 1980s. Many Celtic fans reading this will have been to Old Firm games there and had tickets for the Broomloan, the Govan, the Enclosure (below the main stand) and the Main Stand and our editor tells me he’s been in them all watching Celtic play the old Rangers club.
Here’s The Maestro account on social media mentioning this earlier today…
Ibrox, Nov 1983
McStay and McGarvey combine beautifully to put managerless Rangers to the sword. Celts win 2-1. Celtic fans on three sides of the stadium celebrate after RFC had offered unsold tickets in the Govan Stand to CFC. 😂 pic.twitter.com/BKdRJx0XT7
— The Maestro (@McStayMaestro) July 28, 2023
It’s also been reported by Daily Record that the latest Ibrox club are expecting to be offered a ticket allocation for Celtic Park! You couldn’t make it up, although when it comes to the basket case that is theRangers, nothing should come as a shock. They embarrassed themselves with their “This is the Old Firm” day, pulled out of playing Celtic in Australia then had to to a play to pay-off deal with the promoters to stave off another court case and many more millions of debt – then tried to turn that into a positive with the PR spin from their propaganda pals at the Record.
Away days in this country looks like it’s becoming a thing of the past. Sadly, and this latest news won’t do anything to change that for the better. The irony the other day in the Aberdeen CEO excitedly talking about the uptake in away ticket sales for his team’s visit to Livingston on the opening day of the season. Burrows is a decent bloke, surely he must see the irony here?
Not even 48 hours out and we’ve sold over 3,000 of our initial ticket allocation (3,500) and have asked Livi for another 750, to take us to 4,250.
It’s anticipated they will go fairly quick too, so if you want to be there as we open 2023/24, make sure you get in early… 🔴👍🏼👊🏼 https://t.co/KOkTnmhTgz
— Alan Burrows (@Alan_Burrows) July 26, 2023
Back to ticketing matters for the Glasgow Derby. Hearts and Hibs have in recent times cut their away allocations for the visits of both Celtic and theRangers but have an agreement in place with each other to safeguard the importance of the Edinburgh Derby so a full away stand in provided at both Tynecastle and Easter Road for these games. Where there is a will there is a way.
Both Celtic and indeed theRangers should have a reasonable away following present on Glasgow derby day, but one club took that stance to destroy that from happening and it certainly wasn’t Celtic.
Celtic aren’t being petty in refusing tickets from theRangers. They are just doing what’s right by the Celtic supporters who have been consulted and fully support the club. The away corner at Ibrox is unfit for purpose in terms of safety and it’s quite frankly incredible that Health and Safety concerns have been dismissed by the relevant authorities, the media and of course the latest Ibrox club and their salesman CEO. Michael Nicholson and the Celtic Board are standing their ground and rightly so, and if that affects the away day experience, then so be it.
They have watched as a member of their own staff was hit in the head by a glass thrown from the CORPORATE section in the main stand. The Celtic staff member has been left scarred for life. The thug is currently serving a prison sentence for the serious assault. And Joe Hart came out to play the second half in that same game only to discover that glass from a previously broken bottle had been scattered across the goal mouth by theRangers support in the Copeland Road stand.
The Record and the rest of the papers don’t mention these instances much – all have happened at Ibrox since the allocation was reduced at the insistence of the latest Ibrox club – and when they do, they try to balance it up with ‘Rangers(sic) have also had concerns about their own fans attending games at Celtic Park’ despite no instances at all to back this up.
Only one club started this, and only one club can end it. The ball is firmly in their court, but they childishly won’t budge, and I can’t see it ending anytime soon, sadly. Their grandstanding demand for an away allocation at Celtic Park is easily dismissed by Celtic who will say that only tickets for a safe area for away fans will be considered, and theRangers offer is unacceptable as that corner has been proved to be unsafe.
Or maybe they could just tell the salesman, in the words of Leigh Griffiths…”Yer club’s dead mate, beat it.”
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
I honestly do not have a problem with clubs reducing away allocations as long as their own fans fill the space denied to visiting fans.
It does the game up here no good at all to watch a game on the telly where vast areas of stands have no one in them yet one stand or section is bursting with fans.