KEITH JACKSON COLUMN
SCOTTISH football. You had us at “hello hello”.
And now, in retrospect, that was probably part of the problem.
Falling head over heels with the game as a kid was the easy bit but if we knew then what we do now then perhaps we wouldn’t have got involved at all.
But back then it was impossible to know this was also a gateway to a world of rancid bigotry and general levels of behaviour that would be considered reprehensible in any sort of civilised society.
We ought to be ashamed of what’s been going on up and down the country lately but, just like in any relationship gone wrong, there’s an overpowering temptation to turn a blind eye to the worst excesses. A willingness to pretend it’s not as bad as all that.
But it’s really an act of self-delusion because the truth is, the more we ignore, the more we enable.
Until we reach the point where some utter balloon sees nothing remotely wrong with trying to take a Celtic player out with an empty bottle of Buckfast in the name of sporting rivalry. Again, the easy thing to do where this latest incident of jaw-dropping thuggery is concerned is to look the other way and make like nothing happened. What’s the big deal anyway?
It’s not as if Scott Sinclair was actually struck by anything so let’s not go wetting our panties over nothing. Just let Willie Collum pick it up and then shove it under the carpet. Move on. Nothing to see here.
After all, that was the reaction of the cops and the stewards who were on hand to witness this attempted serious assault. So if it’s good enough for the long arm of the law to shrug its shoulders then why should anyone else be bothered by it?
But hold on a second here. What part of this is deemed acceptable? That the guy who threw it was so hammered he missed his intended target?
Is that where we’ve got to now in this relationship of ours? That we can ignore bottles being launched at football players so long as the aim of the thrower has been blunted by the consumption of its contents?
To compound matters, Hibs released a statement on Saturday night insisting that the incident will be investigated and also claiming another bottle had been tossed on to the pitch from the Celtic end.
The accuracy of this official account has not been verified and Celtic have asked for evidence but so far they’ve been ignored. The whataboutery involved is breathtaking. No, it’s absolutely outrageous that this is going on inside Scottish football grounds and we should all be eternally grateful that the neanderthal who flung it was incapable of doing so properly.
Not that this should come as any great surprise. A functioning brain is normally required before hand-to-eye co-ordination can be successfully accomplished. And yet, time and again this season, a succession of these shameless simpletons have defied all the odds by actually hitting their targets.
The Rangers fan who cracked open the head of a linesman at Livingston. The St Mirren supporter who stoated a 50 pence piece off Alfredo Morelos.
The dolt in Celtic’s end at Rugby Park whose coin connected with Kris Boyd’s elbow. The tube in the main stand at Tynecastle who could have had Neil Lennon’s eye out.
In this season of unprecedented scummery, we have also seen a Hibs supporter landing a blow on the chin of a Hearts goalkeeper and a stricken Dundee United supporter being spat on by sickos in the St Mirren end while
Act now or it’ll be more than hearts that are being broken in the name of the game