West coast fans not the only offenders

Sir, – In response to Alex Paton’s letter (The Courier, March 1) it would appear that Mr Paton must have been ‘following football for 60 odd years’ with his fingers in his ears.

Whilst I would agree that the sectarianism displayed by both sides of the Old Firm is unacceptable, may I remind Mr Paton of the thousands of members of the Tartan Army who disrespected the national anthems of England and other countries during recent games.

Only recently we had ‘supporters’ of Falkirk FC throwing fake eyeballs on to the pitch during a game against Dunfermline in an attempt to abuse their player Dean Shiels, while a player from the same club was hit with a lengthy ban for abusing Shiels about his disability.

We then had the recent case of the player who felt the need to leave Heart of Midlothian as his family were unable to attend games due to racial abuse directed at him from his own supporters.

Only last weekend we had the example of the manager of Hibernian using abusive language toward a referee.

Earlier in the season Radio Scotland broadcast an interview with Mark Walters, the first high-profile black player to play in Scotland, on the anniversary of his signing for Rangers.

By way of welcome he was pelted with fruit and was verbally abused at several grounds around our ‘tolerant’ country.

Every week commentators at Scottish matches are forced to apologise to listeners when bad language is picked up by microphone.

Mr Paton’s assertion that hatred is confined solely to Rangers and Celtic is far from accurate.

Steve Linnen. Ramsay Street, Monifieth.