ALEX SALMOND was no doubt one of many dignitaries offering best wishes to Rangers prior to their match last week. But when I heard him say on radio "I know the fans will behave and make this a real festival of football" . . . or words to that effect . . . I could almost hear every listener in the country responding with a cynical "Aye, right!"
Being married to a sports writer, there was no way I was going to escape the match on television that night. No sooner had the final whistle gone when I inquired in the sweetest voice I could muster: "So when do the riots start?"
We changed channe
ls to catch the news and there they were, legions of pot-bellied morons in football shirts taking Manchester apart and kicking policemen to the ground. Nice.
Needless to say we then had the wringing of hands. Stout condemnation from Mr Salmond and Gordon Brown as they went to great lengths to blame "a minority of fans" for "shameful" behaviour.
Oh come off it! Like night follows day, nothing was more predictable than Rangers fans, especially when thwarted by a superior Russian squad and a fans zone screen on the blink, going berserk. There was no surprise in this at all.
Yes, it may be a minority but it's a wholly reliable minority, and not one confined to Rangers by any means.
For decades we have watched football rowdyism and violence wax and wane. It's not always as bad as last week, but it's sometimes worse. And it never, ever goes away.
For some obscure reason, we tolerate it. Football is such a holy cow in this country that we seem to have come to accept appalling, tribal behaviour and destruction as some sort of inevitable side-effect. Not only that but we expect decent people, in this case the taxpayers of Manchester, to stump up for it.
People who like, nay, are obsessed by the game appear to think there is nothing we can do about it apart from pay vast numbers of police officers and security men to attempt some kind of crowd control.
The truth is that we have never even tried to deal with it properly because to do so would mean slaughtering or at least temporarily starving that blessed bovine.
There is only one way to deal with those cretins and that is to hit them where it hurts. Rangers Football Club should be forced to pay for everything . . . every minute of police time, every single broken shop window and trampled fence, every damaged vehicle and train.
They should be made to pay for every aspect of medical care arising from injuries sustained as a result of their fans rioting and should cough up every penny of what it costs the taxpayer to accommodate their fans in jail, not to mention the cost of subsequent court action including the fees of defence and prosecution staff.
If as a result they can't afford to buy over-priced players from around the world, that's tough.
Alternatively, clubs whose fans cause damage or injury or even public nuisance, could simply be banned from playing their next three games, thereby screwing their chances of winning whatever league or cup they are currently pursuing.
Either way there would be consequences. And consequences that even someone possessing the density of a rioting football fan could appreciate. They misbehave . . . their team suffers. Cause and effect. One and one makes two.
If any other sport or leisure activity caused the same amount of grief and aggro because of its unruly followers, it would be banned. There would be an outcry.
What beats me is where all those outspoken community activists who demonise skate boarders, litter louts, dog poo leavers and graffiti painters are when football fans are tearing cities apart and putting each other and innocent policemen or bystanders in hospital. Speak up!
It's not the club's fault? I won't argue that. But it is the club's responsibility . . . who else's?
Degrees of fairnessI have every sympathy with developer and restorer Laura Strong who, in good faith, spent time and presumably money on her bid to buy Adam Smith's Panmure House from Edinburgh City Council, only to discover they sold it to someone else who offered £150,000 less.
The successful buyer was Heriot-Watt University, which may well be a worthy owner who will keep the building in public use. But if that's what the council wanted, they should have declared it from the start. Indeed Ms Strong did plan to hold cultural and community events there.
The other small point is that rate-payers are now £150,000 the poorer. The least the city could have done to be fair was insist the university matched, or preferably topped, her offer.
The full article contains 803 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
