Why is a rapist still allowed to play for a Scottish club?
It’s ten past three on a Saturday afternoon, sunny but cold, at Clyde’s Broadwood Stadium.
You are sitting beside your young daughter who, like so many girls these days, loves her football.
Suddenly, she’s shouting with excitement as the ball is swung into the penalty box. The striker takes a touch before spinning the defender and shooting into the corner of the net.
She screams in delight, on her feet, punching the air, as the striker wheels towards the crowd.. and it’s David Goodwillie.
David Goodwillie who – along with his pal and fellow footballer David Robertson – was found by a judge to have raped a young woman clearly incapable of giving her consent before abandoning her unconscious and naked in a stranger’s flat.
David Goodwillie who on Tuesday had his appeal against that ruling thrown out and who, yesterday, shamefully, was allowed to turn out for Clyde.
His victim is not alone in asking why? Why the directors of a club that presents itself as a respectable, community hub with family values continue to play such a man?
It is not about rehabilitation and giving people a second chance because Goodwillie has never asked for a second chance.
He has never admitted a thing, never apologised, never uttered a word of contrition for what he did that night and for what he continued to do to his victim by refusing to admit his guilt ever since.
Lord Armstrong , who heard the original case, was clear enough. He said: “I find that in the early hours of Sunday, January 2, 2011, at the flat in Greig Crescent, Armadale, both defenders [Goodwillie and Robertson] took advantage of the pursuer when she was vulnerable…and that they each raped her.”
That pursuer, Denise Clair, bravely gave up her anonymity as she pursued the footballer through the civil courts after the Crown Office, for reasons that remain murky and difficult to understand, dropped the case.
Today, she speaks publicly for what she says will be the last time as she prepares to rebuild her life, to ask why the man who raped her is still playing at a senior level?
Why is a man like that be held up as a role model for young boys and girls?
So, back at Broadwood, are you, like your daughter, cheering another goal by Goodwillie?
Or are you asking yourself if this club’s directors have any daughters? Or if they have any shame?