‘Embarrassing. Not acceptable,’ Scotty Sinclair shines a light on shameful racists

HOW good was Scotty Sinclair yesterday? Young Mikey Johnston grabbed the headlines with his two great goals and rightly picked up the sponsors man of the match but there were many fine performances from Celtic Stars yesterday against Dundee, including in particular Scotty Sinclair who perhaps had his best game of the year.

That sets him up nicely to go play the last two games of the year away to Aberdeen and Rangers whose fans have racially abused Sinclair since his arrival in Scotland.

Aberdeen admittedly are new-comers to this vile ‘sport’ – one of their supporters was heard on a video taken from their end at Hampden at the start of the month as Sinclair stepped up to take a penalty in the Betfred Cup Final. This racists outburst was heard and it has to be noted, there were no voices objecting to the racist abuse heard from Aberdeen fans around the racist.

The Rangers fans have a much longer charge sheet when it comes to dishing out racist abuse towards Scotty Sinclair at their Ibrox, at Glasgow Airport and on an on going basis online.

And a word about the BBC on this subject. Racism at football has become a national news item since he incident involving Raheem Sterling and the BBC News programmes continually refer to a series of recent incidents that have happened in ENGLAND.

This is on the national BBC news, yet the racist abuse suffered by Scotty Sinclair – an Englishman – in Scotland has never merited a mention, not even once. Why is that?

Sinclair has been speaking about the racism that he has suffered since arriving in Scotland. On the most recent incident, involving Aberdeen supporters, the Celtic Star had this to say:

“I saw it on social media. I was flicking through some things and came across it.

“It’s one of those things that shouldn’t be happening. It’s 2018. When I tweeted about it, I called them uneducated and that’s what they are.

“They are uneducated in this area and they have black players in their team, so it’s very confusing. This is what I don’t understand. Why would someone use that sort of slur towards black players?

“It is embarrassing. It’s not acceptable for anyone in society to even think they can use that sort of language, whether they are at a football game or in the street. But it’s always around and it’s such a shame to keep hearing these racial slurs.”

Sinclair also praised Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling for standing up to racist abuse down south and he is pleased that there is a news focus on this issue in England, even if his own sufferings in this regard are being ignored down there.

“I think there’s more light to it now. Even with Raheem still experiencing it down south and speaking out.

“It seems that there is more light to it and people are hopefully taking more note of the situation.

“In the past players might have been racially abused and thought, ‘Never mind, I’m not going to say anything because nothing gets done’.

“Hopefully, as things start being done, we can move into a more positive light.”

Sinclair also spoke of his appreciation for the wide support he has received from all quarters on this issue.

I’ve had a lot of support from all sides and all sorts of fans. They know that it’s wrong.”

The Celtic Star will not led the Aberdeen racists spoil his enjoyment of the occasion when Celtic travel to play at Pittodrie on Boxing Day in what is as it stands this morning a First v Second encounter in the Premiership. Hopefully it stays that way today!

“The Pittodrie atmosphere is great. It’s always loud, especially with our fans.
It’s great to play there. All the players look forward to these games and raise it.

“These are great days for the supporters. But every game is difficult because everybody wants to beat you.

“We are going to go there, give 100 per cent and make sure we win.”

Then after Pittodrie, Sinclair will move on with his teammates and an even small band of supporters to Ibrox next Saturday, to face the Rangers. Sinclair has been the subject of several sickening racist incidents from within this stadium and he is disappointed that the number of Celtic supporters have been reduced for this match.

“It’s disappointing that we won’t have so many of our supporters at Ibrox, but you just blank that out and get on with it.

“I’m experienced now. I have been in the game for what seems like a long time now. You just go out and enjoy the occasion.

“But it’s such a shame that our supporters won’t be there in the same numbers.

“Normally we have seven or eight thousand and now it’s seven or eight hundred. But that’s the way it is.

“We’ve just got to get on with it, go out there and make sure we win.

“We want to win every game, no matter if it’s Rangers or Dundee. It’s the same.

“That’s why we’ve become champions. We don’t worry about anyone else. We always just concentrate on ourselves and expect high standards of ourselves.”

Sinclair also revealed some of the details for the players’ own Christmas arrangements, given the need to prepare for the Boxing Day game, this restricts the time with family.

“We’ll spend Christmas morning with our families, with our kids. Then we will have to train in the afternoon and travel up to Aberdeen.

“It’s not ideal, but we have a winter break coming up so we will spend time with our families then.

“It’s difficult, but most of us haven’t had much time off on Christmas Day before.”

About Author

The Celtic Star founder and editor, who has edited numerous Celtic books over the past decade or so including several from Lisbon Lions, Willie Wallace, Tommy Gemmell and Jim Craig. Earliest Celtic memories include a win over East Fife at Celtic Park and the 4-1 League Cup loss to Partick Thistle as a 6 year old. Best game? Easy 4-2, 1979 when Ten Men Won the League. Email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk

Comments are closed.