A wild night for songs of praise instead of bile
THE dire warnings had been made. The consequences spelled out loud and clear to the Rangers fans. After being hit with two separate UEFA charges for sectarian singing — with 3,000 seats roped off at Ibrox last night as punishment for the first offence — the club confirmed it would not be taking tickets to the team’s next away fixture in Europe.
They had also reiterated that a repeat of any bigoted chanting could see a future home match played behind closed doors.
But with the club’s hierarchy holding its breath for good behaviour ahead of last night’s Europa League play-off tie with Legia Warsaw, nobody could have guessed what would happen mere seconds before kick-off.
The visiting fans — with former Celtic keeper Artur Boruc in their midst, brandishing a megaphone — unveiled a gigantic banner featuring a huge image of fellow Pole, the late Pope John Paul II.
The message underneath to the Legia team stated: ‘Be Not Afraid’.
Yet if anyone at Ibrox was quaking that the display would draw out an adverse reaction from the base elements within the rank-and-file, mercifully nothing came.
There were even a few laughs from the home fans about the stunt.
For on a tense, raucous, ultimately thrilling night when Rangers fans had plenty to sing about after reaching the group stage for the second successive season — thanks to a late winner from Alfredo Morelos — the sectarian songbook was conspicuous by its absence.
In fact, the worst behaviour came from the Legia fans lighting pyrotechnics and filling Ibrox with smoke leading to a short delay with 16 minutes remaining. UEFA sanctions will surely follow for the Poles.
In the end, the only cringeinducing performance of the
banned Billy Boys song this week came on Monday night from Jimmy McCavern and his dodgyaccented boys as the notorious razor gang made their debut in the latest series of the BBC’s popular gangster drama Peaky Blinders.
Sunday, however, against Celtic back here in Govan in the Old Firm derby may yet prove different altogether.
The rowdy section BF1 in the Broomloan Road stand that houses the Union Bears will be back open then after its closure last night for sectarian singing during a match against St Joseph’s of Gibraltar earlier in the tournament.
On the empty seats where that fans’ group normally sits was instead draped a respect banner from UEFA’s ‘Equal Game’ campaign that football should be open to everyone while the big screens beseeched the fans to ‘refrain from embarrassing our great club’.
It worked well but now how to curb it on the domestic stage? Former Rangers strikers Kenny Miller and Steven Naismith
insisted ‘the only way’ to eradicate sectarian singing in Scottish football is by introducing strict liability that sees clubs held accountable for the actions of their supporters.
‘For years it has gone on and there’s a fine, but the only way to deal with it is definitely harsh measures like stadium closures,’ said Naismith on BBC Sportsound.
Miller added: ‘We’re talking about this now because of potential ground closure. So, if that was to be introduced in the domestic game, nobody wants that, but it’s going to take these harsh decisions.’
The big problem remains that the majority of Scottish clubs are not in favour of introducing a policy of strict liability.
But whatever happens during Sunday’s Old Firm game, the return of European football to Ibrox — and the swift and, last night, effective response from Rangers to UEFA’s actions — has shone an uncomfortable light into dark places that the SPFL and Scottish FA seem either unwilling or unable to address.