JUSTICE FOR SINISALO, CELTIC, BUT MANY QUESTIONS REMAIN
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Like all of you, I’m sure, I was pleased to see this morning, that someone was finally caught and jailed for the disgraceful behavior at last month’s Glasgow Derby at Ibrox.
More Must be Done to Protect Players Like Sinisalo, Celtic Staff and Fans
34-year-old Andrew Watt, was jailed for 8 months for throwing a Buckfast Bottle, one of dozens of objects that were launched at Celtic players, especially our goalkeeper Viljami Sinisalo.
We shouldn’t make light of such things, but honestly, looking at this muppet as he was led into court, I found myself thinking “If I asked chat GPT to draw a ned with a string of previous convictions and a predilection for tonic wine, it would spit out an image of this guy’s exact likeness.”
I should say at this point, as someone who is partial to an occasional “bottle oot the fridge” whenever I’m back in Scotland, not all Bucky drinkers are violent delinquents.
However, it does seem to be the tipple of choice for many of Scotland’s violent delinquents.
Anyway, it turns out that Andy-Bhoy (I’m going to call him that because I know how much it’ll annoy him and anyone like him who reads this) had 21 previous convictions for various offences. At least two of these convictions were for football related offences, and one of them saw him jailed for ten months.
Andy-Bhoy was also the subject of a 3 year football banning order running up to 2015.
Now, before I wade into Rangers, I want to say that it is to their credit that this cretin was caught and convicted so quickly.
Whilst Rangers could and should have said more to publicly condemn the widespread thuggery among their support on May 4th, clearly Watt’s swift detention and imprisonment was made possible because Rangers cooperated fully with the police on this case.
For that, they have my respect and my gratitude. I hope it proves to be a sign of things to come under the new regime there.
However, Celtic can and should ask a number of questions of both Police Scotland and the leadership at the Ibrox £1.49ers in the wake of this case.
First of all, how the hell does a proven and convicted football hooligan with a multitude of previous crimes to his name, gain access to any football match at Ibrox Stadium, let alone one as poisonous and volatile as a Glasgow Derby?
Secondly, how is it that Police Scotland can detain and kettle dozens of Celtic fans because they “think they might have Pyro on them”, yet allow a number of Rangers fans to enter the stadium not just with alcohol, which is banned in the ordinary spectator areas, but alcohol contained within glass bottles, which are also banned?
I think we have to question the priorities of the police here, and of whoever organizes the matchday security at Ibrox.
Rangers clearly have an issue with hooliganism amongst a minority of their support. It is a minority, but its a sizeable one. And again, should we really be surprised that so many of them thought it was acceptable to throw missiles at Celtic players, staff and fans, when a stand-sized, club sanctioned tifo is unveiled encouraging fans to “take aim at rebel scum”.
Again, the new owners have only been in the door for ten minutes, so I am willing to give them a bit of leeway to set this right. However, our first trip to Ibrox next season is scheduled for August 31st.
By then, I expect Andrew Cavenagh and company to have their own procedures fully in place for dealing with this kind of thing.
The previous owners of Rangers tolerated thugs like Andy-Bhoy because they believed the money they brought in was worth the potential for violence and bad PR. I suspect the new owners won’t make that same erroneous value judgement. Time will tell in that regard.
Hopefully, this is the first of many thugs rooted out of the Rangers support. Scottish football will be better, and Scotland will be a safer place if that happens.
In the meantime, I hope for Andy-Bhoy’s sake that his handling of the prison shower soap is better than Jack Butland’s handling of a football these days!