SO, farewell then to the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act.

The controversial legislation is on its way out and won’t be missed for two reasons; most of us ignored it and the rest had no idea such a thing existed in the first place.

Introduced by the SNP government in 2011, the OBFA arrived with good intentions in that the world would be a slightly better place if some songs disappeared for good from our football grounds but such a flawed law was never going to work and, as many of us expected, achieved absolutely zero in terms of curbing the worst behaviour.

Not wishing to generalise – aye, right – this was concocted by middle-class politicians, hardly typical football fans, who wanted to tell the proletariat what they could and couldn’t sing on their days off after a hard week of work.

Indeed, it would have been possible to be charged with offensive behaviour at a football match even if nobody had been offended.

Of course, there will be some who believe a civilised country such as our own should not, in the year 2018, still be debating songs of hate, death and murder being aired at a sporting event, and we are talking about Celtic and Rangers here, especially when the two get together.

I watch more football than most. I grew up in Glasgow. I went to a non-denominational (proddy) school despite my background being, shall we say, staunchly challenged, and I’ve heard all the songs so many times that most, but not all, fly straight over my head.

I do wonder if the Rangers fans who sing the Billy Boys, which is banned but never brought up by the SFA, will ever get bored with “standing up to their knees in Fenian blood” or wake up one day and realise chanting about paedophilia and the Lisbon Lions’ imminent deaths is utterly vile.

Similarly, those younger Celtic supporters with no real knowledge of the Troubles might stop to think, unless that was beyond them, that singing about a paramilitary group, which doesn’t actually exist anymore, is an embarrassment to their club.

I’ve watched quite a few of those who indulge and they’d need a couple of stabs at spelling IRA. Personally, I have no big issue with the old loyalist and republican songs, which show no sign of falling out of the top 40, although it is puzzling to me that, for so many, they remain a thing.

The fact is, everyone who fought in 1690 is dead. There can’t be many around from 1916 so, in a way, nobody is actually harmed by such “traditional” ditties, even if the messengers couldn’t point out Derry’s walls if you showed them a picture of the city or who think the Dublin GPO is where Bono buys his stamps. Even the Billy Boys and Provo songs are just that. Songs. Nobody is literally standing in the entrails of their enemy or planting a bomb. It’s a few neds, lagered up, giving it laldly at the game because, frankly, that’s what has always happened.

Offence is taken, not given. This is important to remember. It’s why the OBFA was destined to fail.

One man’s party song is another’s disgrace to humanity, while the rest of us go about our daily business not really caring one way or the other.

I sent out a Tweet the other day which expressed my wish that my life was so empty of worry that one of my most important concerns was “naughty songs” sung at matches. Well, that brought them out the woodwork if not necessarily from their cellars.

Faux outrage was everywhere, as blind indignity hit the roof while reason left the room.

Among the pearls of wisdom, the word fenian apparently wasn’t sectarian, hanging an effigy with a Rangers scarf wasn’t bigoted and my attitude to the importance of the issue – below among others such as the NHS, our school system, tax avoidance by the rich and those intolerable pot holes in Glasgow – was a stark reminder of how the Nazis rose to power.

This very earnest young man needs access to the History Channel. And a lobotomy.

It is impossible to debate this issue in an adult fashion. There is no come and go. Very few admit to the fact that some songs on their side might need to be toned down or kept off the set list altogether. It’s all about what the other lot are saying, as they wander away from their glasshouses, dropping one stone at a time.

Again, this brings us back to freedom of speech – which applies even to people you don’t get on with – and what is and isn’t offensive.

I love the self-style Scottish psychopathic comedian Jerry Sadowitz who goes to seriously dark places for laughs. I’m going to see him in the next few weeks. I am not taking my mum who wouldn’t last two gags.

I realise what I find funny would make others run for the exit. It’s called taste. And choice.

Most rational people would agree, surely, that some of the stuff which pores from the stands is abhorrent. But we do live in a world in which Katie Hopkins’s evil rantings about shooting migrants, including children, has become mainstream, and so forgive me if I find that far less acceptable than a drunk bloke going on about Bobby Sands or a guy riding a white horse.

People, please, let’s have some perspective.

That is not to say that I give a pass to those who sing about Rangers’ new signing Greg Docherty hating the IRA (lads, really) or Nacho Novo being killed by the same group.

Aberdeen supporters singing about Neil Simpson’s appalling tackle on Ian Durrant is disgusting and also immature. Only this month at Fir Park, Hamilton’s Dougie Imrie had to stand there and digest some Motherwell supporters’ lewd remarks about his mother. Oh, the banter.

Is this very personal abuse better or worse than what you hear at every away game involving the Glasgow’s big two?

Indeed, Partick Thistle have one that tells both the queen and Pope what they think of them. I bet there are more than a few who see this as an attack on the religion they pretend to still follow.

It fascinates me that so many remain fascinated by all if this. We are for the most part more liberal than we once were, certainly Scotland is one of Europe’s secular nations, and yet at our football there are many who haven’t progressed beyond the 17th century.

And with the best will in the world, no amount of legislation and finger wagging from vote-chasing politicians is going to change a thing.

But do you know what might? Atheism and book reading. It works for me.