UNION BEARS: CELTIC FINALLY MAKE A STAND WHERE NO ONE ELSE DARES
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 7 minutes ago
- 4 min read
As some of you may know, in addition to writing blogs here and there, I’ve also been a teacher for almost 20 years.
I prefer to take a more laid-back approach with students when it comes to keeping their behavior in check. If they don’t cause problems for me, or the other students, during class, then what they do in their own time, or in their own homes isn’t any of my concern.
So, in this context I could kind of understand why (even if I disagreed with it) Celtic’s board has, until yesterday, taken a very hands-off approach in dealing with the Union Bears. Celtic Park is their concern, what goes on at Ibrox or elsewhere should, in an ideal world, be a matter which Rangers themselves deal with. Failing that, the Scottish Football authorities should step in and deal with it for them.
However, last month’s mother of all temper tantrums from those smack-snorting, gimp mask wearing, Smurf impersonators after Celtic had the sheer audacity to (let me check my notes...) win a penalty shoot-out at Ibrox, showed exactly why neither the SFA nor the Ibrox boardroom can be trusted to keep these serial statue molesters under control.
Not only is there an unwillingness to stand up to these Temu Fascists, but amongst the Rangers hierarchy it seems the Union Bears aren’t just tolerated, their Neo-nazi tendencies and their constant threats of violence and intimidation (sometimes even directed at other Rangers fans) seem to be actively encouraged.
In Smacking Down the Union Bears, Celtic’s Board Finally Did Something Right
Now, I think I have made it clear that my distain for this particular offshoot of the collective rats’ nest we all call Scotland’s Shame is well-documented. So too, however, has been my ongoing distrust and complete loss of confidence in the Celtic Board this season. In particular, I remain convinced that the only way to secure Celtic’s future advancement both as a football team and a business is the removal of our largest shareholder, not our owner, Dermot Desmond.
However, even a broken clock is right once in a while. Such is the case with the Celtic Board.
Rangers were given amble opportunity to root out this racist, poisonous pustule of a “fan group”. Instead, they chose to cower before them.
Likewise, the SFA and the ever-compliant cowards in the Scottish mainstream press, pulled out all the stops to push the “both as bad as each other” narrative to the absolute max after the Scottish Cup Quarter Final debacle.
All the while, Celtic kept a ban on our own ultras, The Green Brigade, for reasons that remain as clear as mud.
Just for the sake of clarity, I want to emphasize once again: The Green Brigade are ultras, the Union Bears are hooligans. There is a massive difference and they are not opposite sides of the same coin.
The Green Brigade are finally back where they belong, and now, I hope, Celtic will see this through and ensure that the Union Bears are put where they belong: as far away, not just from Celtic Park, but from any football stadium as possible.
They certainly aren’t the only ones within the walls of Ibrox who’s politics remain rooted in the 17th century. They aren’t the only ones ensuring the late, great Bobby Sands’ name lives on each week with their own, hate-fueled tributes to the former MP.
However, the Union Bears are an undoubted focal point for this hate, this racism and this utterly misplaced supremacist attitude and far-right political posturing that seems to have become especially virulent among the Rangers support over the past decade or so.
Cutting out the cancer that is the Union Bears would not suddenly cure this Rangers of the many, many ills they inherited from their deceased progenitor club. However, it would make an important statement about where Scotland’s second largest football club wants to position itself, and what kind of image it wants to project in the modern age.
Until such time however, and here is something I never thought I would say: I commend the Celtic Board for having the moral conviction, the courage and the testicular fortitude, as one of my friends likes to say, to do what must be done.
Fascists like the Union Bears have no place in civilized society. If Rangers won’t police their own, we’ll just have to do it for them.
I would close out on a conciliatory note though. If Rangers do, somehow, reverse course on this, and purge this toxic group from their stadium once and for all, Celtic should do everything they can to accommodate the decent Rangers fans out there who just want to see their team at Celtic Park.
However, for as long as their numbers include the Union Bears, Celtic Park must remain off-limits to Rangers supporters. That is non-negotiable.