TIPPING POINT

Personal abuse has got to end, declares Brown

SCOTT BROWN says he hopes no player ever has to face the kind of vile abuse he received about a family tragedy.

The Celtic captain was goaded by a Rangers fan over the death of his sister Fiona from cancer as he boarded the team bus following this month’s derby victory at Ibrox.

Brown was happy to receive an apology from Rangers and now hopes the revulsion expressed on both sides of the Old Firm divide will help to prevent such shameful scenes in future.

‘They (Rangers) sent an email, so that was lovely of them to actually do that,’ said Brown.

‘Fans from both sides were phenomenal, to be honest. Hopefully it doesn’t happen to anyone else.’

A 15-year-old boy was charged following the incident on September 1.

Being taunted over her death with the line: ‘How’s your sister?’ was something extraordinary. It was so many notches below the normal bile players receive that it must have barely registered at first; it was repulsive in the extreme.

Brown could only stare at the perpetrator. And it is to his enormous credit that he didn’t react.

The horrified, caring but, most importantly, human response that subsequently emerged from both sides of the Old Firm divide seems genuinely to have warmed his heart.

Indeed, the fierce reaction — with Rangers getting in touch to issue an apology to the player, and fans of the Ibrox side helping identify the culprit — has left the 34-year-old midfielder hoping that perhaps a line in the sand has been drawn when it comes to the awful abuse faced by footballers.

‘I don’t really like to comment on it (the death of his sister) because it is something that still hurts me to this day,’ said Brown yesterday. ‘It is not a nice thing to be said because you never know what could happen with your family or who it can happen to. ‘They (Rangers) sent an email (apologising) so that was lovely of them to actually do that. Fans from both sides were phenomenal, to be honest. ‘Rangers fans pointed the guy out to the police. That was phenomenal from them. ‘It was a nice touch from the Rangers and Celtic fans (that they all condemned what happened). ‘Hopefully, it doesn’t happen to anyone else. Here’s hoping that’s the end of it.’ Had no one captured footage of the Celtic captain being taunted on his way on to the bus, and then shown it online, the incident may well have gone unreported. Like so many others down the years. For Brown, of course, one of the most combative figures in the Old Firm rivalry, there have been countless occasions when he has been targeted.

The incident outside Ibrox represented the tip of an ugly iceberg of abuse.

‘It’s not just one incident. It’s happened over the last 12 years of my career,’ he declared.

‘It’s hard, it’s sad and it shouldn’t be happening. I play football to win. Ninety minutes, you can shout and swear at me as much as you want on the park — but don’t go into detail off the park like that.

‘But you do get it all the time walking down streets. This time it happened when I was walking to a bus. Do you want people to stay away from buses? It can be done on the street and nobody can stop it.

‘I have got used to people shouting this and people saying that.

‘It’s one person with a daft 30 seconds which they may probably regret afterwards, but they said it and that’s the problem.

‘It’s hard because people can also (send abuse) on Twitter or Instagram to you directly.

‘What’s happened to me has happened to a lot of other people as well.

‘It’s not just about me. It’s happening with other players as well. It shouldn’t be in football, but it is.’

Brown believes that social media is partly to blame for the huge rise in the personal abuse he has faced since making his debut for Hibernian in 2003. But the retired former Scotland captain has vowed never to let it affect his performances on the pitch.

‘Anyone can write what they want on social media,’ he shrugged.

‘Someone sitting in the house that has probably never played sport thinks they will drink a bottle of vodka and then go and write something online. It’s easily enough done.

‘You are always going to get a bit of stick. For me, it’s about how you bounce back from it. You block those people out, you focus on your football and you go out there and prove everyone wrong.

‘It’s about how you deal with it. It’s about being mentally strong.

‘People can shout things and say things. I will just focus on what I need to do. I will just keep playing football with a smile on my face.’