Booze won’t halt game’s decline

Sir, - Craig Smith (The Courier, November 5) pleads the weakest case imaginable at the worst possible moment to support lifting the ban on alcohol at football grounds. He notes the

practice he has witnessed of people starting drinking at 8am on match days. That could be anything from four to seven hours, or even more, before kick-off. Why would they need even more drink when they get to the grounds?

Decades of incidents preceded the hideous, drink-fuelled sectarian ugliness after the 1980 cup final that prompted the ban. I am old enough to remember the infamous, so-called “bottle party” at Dens Park during a Dundee v Celtic match long before that, and many others in between.

Craig Smith tries to gloss over Scotland’s dreadful, endemic relationship with alcohol as “problematic.” Tell that description to the emergency services, especially in our A&E departments.

And he shoves a caveat right up the gravamen of his argument with the seriously daft notion that “some sort of token scheme” or a ban on spirits might help regulate consumption. That is a pathetic blend of wishful thinking and immature naivety.

He wants Scottish football fans “to be treated like adults again.” They don’t need more access to alcohol to do that.

The low-life thugs who throw coins, set off flares and otherwise taint and tarnish football will not behave better with access to booze at football grounds.

If football clubs want to keep going they need good results on the pitch, and to create a familyfriendly atmosphere on the terracing. I remain to be convinced the downward spiral of the game could ever be reversed by lifting the booze ban.

Michael Mulford. Hogarth Drive, Cupar.