Religion doesn’t matter in our house.. my wife is a protestant and my father in law had a Gers season ticket!

IRELAND LEGEND BONNER SAYS BIGOTRY HAS NO PLACE IN SPORT

CELTIC legend Packie Bonner has told how his Rangers-supporting father in law switched allegiances from club to family to bring his son to watch him play for the Hoops and Ireland.

The one-club keeper said that at first his future dad in law Tommy couldn’t admit to his Ibrox pals at games that his daughter Ann (right) was going out with a Celtic player – but would then stand up for him if he was getting pelters from the crowd.

And the bond between them was such that Tommy ended up travelling the globe watching Bonner play for Ireland, bringing his lad Andrew to see his dad play as well. Bonner said: “It’s never been an issue in my family.

“My wife’s protestant, her dad was a Rangers supporter – a season ticket holder.

“When we married he supported me, travelled the world, watching Ireland. So our house has been very much where religion doesn’t really come into it, whatever side.

“And I suppose the best way to deal with it is if you, whoever you support, you support and get on with it, as long as you don’t bring it home.

“He was brilliant because I suppose he was having a hard time from his fellow Rangers supporters when they realised I was going out with his daughter and then marrying his daughter.

“My dad died and he kind of stepped into the breech a little bit to say he was coming to support me, which was a big thing for any man to do.

“At that time it wasn’t the done thing. I remember him sitting up in the stand at Rangers and having the issue that when we had just started to go out together, he couldn’t admit to his friends or his people around about him that Packie Bonner was going out with his daughter. And every time they were giving me absolute stick up in the stand, he would be standing up for me – but he couldn’t admit that I was going out with his daughter. But listen, he made that big step to come and support me and he brought my son for years and years and so on, and as I said, he travelled the world supporting Ireland too in the good times.

“I look back on it now and not every man would do it, to be perfectly honest.”

It has never been an issue for us – those things have never come into question from whatever side