For more years than we would care to remember now, Scottish football has fought against the backwater tag. Those arriving to our game - players and managers - from outwith these shores are generally transparent about the fact that they were counselled against moving to Scotland with the perception being that it is a step towards oblivion. The fact that English players going so far back as Alan Thompson and Chris Sutton to the more recent visitors such as Fraser Forster would not merit a look from the English FA no matter how high Celtic’s stock was, suggest a futile fight.
This season, whether it has been the relatively regular updates to a largely English based TalkSport audience, briefings with visiting south-of the-border journalists, or a bit of sparring with Premiership giants Manchester City, Brendan Rodgers could argue that he has had some success in shining a positive light on the Scottish game. It is unlikely to have dented too many long-held assumptions and yet as a nation nothing harms us more this week than the antics of the minority.
If anything confirms the prejudices about the Scottish game and the belief we are still out in the sticks, it was the monkey gesture evident in the aftermath of Scott Sinclair’s goal at Ibrox on Saturday. The player’s revelation that it is the first time in his professional career – he is 28 – that he has encountered visible racism paints picture of Scotland as the land that time forgot.
While there is an argument that the actions of just one in a stadium of 50,000 are not an accurate reflection of the majority, there is a feeling that the incident simply scratches the surface. On Tuesday evening, Sinclair was forced again to vocalise his feelings on the matter when a female going by the name of Amy Halcrow, used social media platform Twitter to post a photograph of her young daughter snapped against a mural of monkeys; ‘just bumped into Scott Sinclair at Edinburgh zoo.’ Wha’s like us, eh? Pitiful and cringeworthy, it is a pernicious message about a pervading climate of non-tolerance.
Similarly, our sister newspaper, The Evening Times, published an online video this week of Rangers fans – kids and all - filmed in an Orange hall partying to the full anti-catholic songbook. The Facebook comments it received made for interesting reading, with the general consensus being that this was not newsworthy in the West of Scotland. Really?
Scottish football is never going to be elevated into the top tier of European leagues given the financial disparity in the game but bringing forth views and prejudices give us all baggage that we could well live without. This week has been an embarrassing insight into some of the cultural nuances that we aren’t nearly so far removed from as we might have believed.
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