Scottish football

Is the Rangers crisis undermining the false economy of Scottish football?

Mick Fealty on February 24, 2012, 9:10 am

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There’s always been something slightly delusional about football. Listen to a football fan talking, and it’s ‘we’ did this and ‘we’ did that. The truth is that the commercial relationship between fans and their clubs has long since been notional. These are big joint stock companies whose relationship with their fans is purely sociological. The Rangers FC crisis is living proof of that departure in the interests of club and fans. The Glasgow Herald has discovered there is barely any …

Hearts fan convicted of breach of the peace but not assault over Neil Lennon incident

Turgon on August 31, 2011, 7:55 pm

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Hearts fan John Wilson has been found guilty of breach of the peace for an incident during the Hearts vs. Celtic match at Hearts’ Tynecastle stadium on 11th May this year. The jury of seven women and eight men deleted the reference to making a sectarian remark from the charge relating to breach of the peace, and that the offence was aggravated by religious prejudice. They returned a not proven verdict for a second charge, which alleged Wilson assaulted Mr …

New Scottish law offers freedom from being offended, but at what cost?

Mick Fealty on July 20, 2011, 3:37 pm

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It may be a direct outworking of the SNP’s unparalleled success in the last Scottish Parliamentary elections in Glasgow that it has so hastily moved its proposed Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill. Sectarianism in Scotland is, by and large, a Glaswegian problem. But, as Kevin Rooney notes on Spiked: The Bill introduces two new offences. The first, that of ‘offensive behaviour’, will cover ‘sectarian and other offensive chanting and threatening behaviour related to football which is likely …