KRIS COMMONS
Old Firm must unite against lunatic fringe
WHEN it comes to life as an Old Firm player, Tommy Burns hit the nail on the head and captured the madness of it all in one sentence.
When you play for Rangers or Celtic, said Burns, one half of Glasgow hates you while the other half thinks it owns you.
That’s it in a nutshell — and the abuse which Alfredo Morelos was subjected to in the city centre is just the latest reminder of how poisonous the rivalry can be at times.
We’ve seen this movie before. Over the past few years, the likes of Martyn Waghorn and Leigh Griffiths have been involved in incidents which have ended up being captured on video and posted online.
The one with Waghorn was a few daft schoolkids giving him grief when he was out in public, while Griffiths shot down some Rangers fans who were heckling him at an airport with a jibe of his own.
But it can be a lot more serious and a lot more sinister than that. The footage of Scott Brown being taunted outside Ibrox about his late sister is just one example.
There was also the incident with Nacho Novo last year, with some lowlife telling him to go and ‘die in his sleep’.
The existence of social media now means that these things are always brought to our attention, but it’s not like they weren’t happening years ago.
Not long after I joined Celtic in 2011, I got my first taste of exactly what life would be like in the Glasgow goldfish bowl.
I was sitting in my car at a set of traffic lights on Maryhill Road when a man came out of a shop, spotted me, and started giving it big licks, calling me all sorts.
I tried to just ignore him and laugh it off.
Now, I would like to reiterate at this point that this was a fully-grown man I would reckon in his mid-30s and not just a daft, young kid.
He then got on his push bike and started chasing me like a man possessed for a good mile or so down the road.
There I was, just two seconds in the door at Celtic, and I’m being chased in my car by a maniac on a bike.
You don’t see that in the brochure when you sign up.
There was also an incident I remember with Stevie Woods, the Celtic goalkeeping coach, when he picked me up one day and we were driving through the west end. There was an Orange Walk on and, in all honesty, I didn’t have a clue what it was. I hadn’t ever heard of it before, but Woodsy soon filled me in.
The traffic was really slow, so he told me to get my head down because he knew it would all kick off if anyone spotted us in amongst it all. I had heard one or two people saying what Glasgow was like, but nothing would ever have fully prepared me for it until I experienced it for myself.
These were real eye-openers for me.
Glasgow is fairly unique. As far as the lunatic fringe is concerned, it’s a city unlike any other.
Maybe only Buenos Aires — with
Boca Juniors and River Plate — can rival it. But let’s get one thing straight.
Narrow-minded bigotry and neds exist on both sides of the divide. It’s not exclusive to either Rangers or Celtic.
It also shouldn’t be used as some kind of points-scoring system. There is nothing more tedious than when both sides resort to whataboutery. I’m glad to see Nil By Mouth have come out and condemned what happened to Morelos.
It would be really refreshing if Celtic and Rangers could release some sort of joint statement doing likewise.
Too often with these things, we see the clubs engage in stupid tit-for-tat statements going back and forth.
It’s embarrassing and it only further empowers these idiots in the street.
I ended up having to cross the divide of Nottingham Forest to Derby County. I didn’t want to leave Forest, but I was basically pushed into a corner because they didn’t offer me a new contract.
Derby were keen to take me, so off I went. I had family to think of because it was around the period me and my wife Lisa were going through a really tough time personally.
Forest fans gave me all sorts of abuse when I went back there with Derby and I remember even having a Zippo lighter thrown at me when I went over to take a corner. It missed my head by inches.
But none of this even comes close to Glasgow. What I would say, though, is that you can’t tar everyone with the same brush.
I’ve had a great laugh with some Rangers fans over the years and a bit of banter about when Ally McCoist tried to sign me back in the day.
The rivalry can be good natured. That’s where the clubs must lead on this issue and take a joint stance. Now is not the time to point fingers or take the moral high ground.