Janey Godley: Until we find a solution to containing football celebrations, we will all fail

When is a mob TOTALLY a mob? When they are dressed in Rangers scarves riding a horse statue and singing songs about Irish Catholics being a blight on modern society as they break a serving police officers tooth and injure his colleagues. There you go, conundrum sorted.

Watching Scottish Tories encourage the ‘Rangers fans, stay safe and party” in tweets (some that were hastily deleted) was an interesting event. As Glasgow was relegated back to Level 3 in the covid league, Rangers fans were asked to stay at home and not celebrate their kick ball win. But that was too much to ask, how dare they not be allowed to congregate in their thousands, set off fireworks and start punching each other as they veer between guarding statues and vomiting on them.

Some police were injured as we saw many videos of happy jubilant men who are celebrating a win, throw stuff at them with anger foaming out of their mouths.

This football super spreader event was well organised and discussed on social media for weeks, we all knew it was happening, everyone knew. We let it happen.

Glasgow city centre was a no-go area, as the singing about “origins of religious blood and the lower leg depth of where the said blood reached”, scared people going about their business and then it turned to anger and the happy jubilant people started fighting each other. The NHS is already under pressure, I can’t imagine how the nurses in Glasgow emergency units felt on Saturday, awaiting the surge of madness coming at them. There are videos online of shop keepers petrified in their shops with glass windows and doors being banged by massive angry/happy/drunk crowds as cops with riot gear push back on them.

George Square was carnage, statues were climbed, piss was everywhere, flower beds trampled, broke glass, plastic bags and rubbish strewn throughout the square and then that’s when Tory politicians started to delete tweets and go very quiet online. Like that father who decided it wasn’t ‘his fault’ the kids stayed up late, even though he told them they could.

Then came the false equivalence of “Well what about the unmasked covid breach when people from the illegal gathering at Kenmure Street” as last week we saw hundreds of people protest the deportation of two Asian men in Glasgow’s most culturally diverse part of the city in the south side.

That protest had babies in prams with an impromptu picnic in a bus shelter of Scottish Pan bread and Irn Bru as a community came together, there were many in masks, the cops stood quietly and there were no police injured and nobody threw a shite at a statue.

When the immigration van released the two men and the ‘Hostile environment’ came to a close, “no pasaran” was chanted and toddlers clapped. Globally many people shared their feelings of pride in Glasgow, standing up to racism and immigration fear, that Trumpian ‘build that wall’ feeling was drowned out by ordinary Glaswegians who begged for their neighbour to be released.

We had many politicians on the right in the UK call the Kenmure Street stand off and the protestors an “Act of legal rebellion” but those same people were suspiciously silent when thousands of union flag waving football fans trashed the city centre and caused the police who quoted “due to a level of disorder” they will make use of the powers available under section 14 of the public order act 1986 to disperse those who chose to gather. 20 people were arrested and three police officers were injured.

When the crowds were cleared from Kenmure St, the locals cleared up, recycled their litter and left the place tidy. Images online afterwards show a quiet tidy street. The same cannot be said about George Square and the surrounding area.

George Square had the reek of urine 8 hours after the Rangers happy kick ball celebrators staggered home.

It’s reported that police will be using footage to find the rest of the happy fans who threw missiles at the cops for further action.

There are no easy answers to this, people know its not all about football, there is an underlying “get it up ye” to the Scottish government from a section of unionists as the Scottish Tories who tweeted support to the fans, who then deleted them, shows that plainly. There was sectarian chanting and as a Rangers fan myself, I was ashamed. We know its not all fans who behave like this, that goes without saying. But trying to pass it off as a ‘small minority of incidents’ when social media is flooded with extensive video evidence shows that the violence and public disorder was pretty horrendous. The city centre was under siege during a pandemic.

READ MORE: Robina Qureshi: Raid attempt shows Westminster's hostile environment has no place in Glasgow

Can’t they have football celebrations inside football grounds? There are toilets and contained facilities and they KNEW this was going to happen. Why let it be marched and spread through the city while using so many police resources?

Keep it all contained, let all Glasgow teams scream, sing, bang fireworks all inside the stadia and let the club pick up the bill for the clear up. It's highly irresponsible to let the anger and virus spread like a tsunami of sectarian rage throughout the busy city.

People will blame Sturgeon for letting this happen, people will blame the cops for not doing enough, people will blame the Tories for egging them on, on social media. Ultimately the people who used the city as toilet and smashed glass into the streets and flower beds will wake up and blame someone else.

Until we find a solution to containing football celebrations of ALL GLASGOW TEAMS and tackle loud open sectarianism, we will all fail and watch it repeat year after year.