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Lennon hits out at pub’s ‘stamp on Brown’ stunt

DISGUSTED Neil Lennon last night hit out at a Rangers pub that has urged customers to stamp on an image of Celtic captain Scott Brown’s face. The Bristol Bar in Glasgow posted a video on Facebook showing new safety measures in place to combat the spread of Covid-19. To promote social distancing, the floors are covered in signs telling people where to stand and in which direction to walk. However, there is also a row of pictures of Brown dressed as a clown, accompanied by the message: ‘Wait here! Feel free to stamp on this clown.’ Now Lennon has voiced his anger over the move, saying: ‘I’m not happy about the Bristol Bar thing. I’m disgusted by that. It’s bang out of order. It’s totally unnecessary. It really angered me.’ The anti-sectarian charity Nil By Mouth has already criticised the stunt. Charity director David Scott said: ‘There’s a fine line between football rivalry and nastiness, and this pub has misjudged it. ‘Let’s not forget that before Covid-19 hit earlier this year we’d seen incidents with players, including Scott Brown and

Alfredo Morelos being subjected to pretty nasty verbal abuse by halfwits in the city. Nothing good or positive comes from this sort of stunt.’ On footballing matters, meanwhile, Lennon has been left disappointed that his bid to sign goalkeeper Fraser Forster on a permanent deal from Southampton looks dead. Celtic had been keen for the goalkeeper to return after he excelled on loan last season but have become frustrated by a change in message from his parent club. ‘We are disappointed with the Fraser issue,’ said Lennon, who has also been tracking former England No 1 Joe Hart. ‘It’s kind of bizarre the way it’s panned out. ‘The impression we got at the end was that he wanted to stay at Southampton and fight for his place, which is his prerogative. But we were (previously) led to believe something else. ‘Is hope of a deal finished? From what I gather, yeah. We can’t keep leaving the door open. We have to make decisions. ‘If it was to reverse tomorrow we would go: “Yeah, on you come”, but we’re not getting any indication of that happening. ‘We’re talking to a couple of representatives of a couple of goalkeepers so hopefully we’ll have good news sooner rather than later on that.’ Celtic had been criticised for letting the experienced Craig Gordon leave to rejoin Hearts after he rejected a pay cut to remain as back-up. But Lennon stressed that the 37-year-old had been keen to depart to get game time. He said: ‘Craig made a decision. Not financially. He wanted to play more football and that was something we couldn’t guarantee him here. We still wanted to have him around because he’s a great professional.’ Lennon also confirmed that his second string who played the last 30 minutes against Nice on Thursday will start the opening hour against Lyon tonight before being replaced by his strongest line-up. The Celtic boss also hopes that playing again in front of up to 5,000 socially-distanced fans in Lyon’s 60,000 Groupama Stadium can prepare his side for the Premiership season starting behind closed doors on August 1. He said: ‘It is the new norm, but hopefully only for the short term. This experience will benefit us when we return.’