WHAT do you do whenever you see a famous person in real life?
Do you nudge your pal and say; “There’s so-and-so aff the telly” then get back to your conversation? Do you stare or selfie. Are you the pain who boldly goes up and starts an uninvited chat?
If you ever have the misfortune of being in the company of any of the Scottish press pack who were in South Africa in 2006 to watch Rangers and Aberdeen, we will bore you with that time we met Bill Clinton and Sir Tom Farmer. We even have photographic evidence.
My abiding memory is telling my pal, let’s call him Andy, to address the man as Mr President, only for him let us all down by saying ‘awrite Bill.’ He’s from Motherwell...
- Watch: Belfast club 'disgusted' at ex Rangers star Nacho Novo being subjected to 'vile sectarian abuse'
My mate Chico met Nelson Mandela once, a story he retells at least three times a day. Or as he put it: “Nelson Mandela once met me.”
We’ve all got a daft anecdote about seeing someone famous, and it’s usually a singer, actor, sportsperson we admire. But what if you bump into a person on your naughty list.
Would you abuse them in public, or simply walk on by and at worst send them a sneer when they aren’t looking.
Or do you go up to the stranger, sing a song about them dying, film it and then put it online?
That happened to a well-known personality last Saturday whose ‘crime’ was to have once played for a football club which some people don’t support.
Nacho Novo, the former Rangers player, had arrived at Belfast airport, he was to present some awards to a football club in the city for 11 and 12-years-old, when he was spotted by a grown man wearing a football tracksuit, which immediately sets them out as being for the watching, who then sang a song about him being murdered by the IRA. Lovely.
The guy was a Celtic fan and wasn’t on his own. Novo seemed to be. How brave of him and his friends. They must be so proud – and most likely are.
If you haven’t seen it, the footage is easy enough to find but your life won’t be made better by watching. I am also not going to repeat the name of the guilty party as something tells me he’s rather enjoyed the notoriety.
At first, Novo takes it with humour but then reacts, understandably so, and asks the man why he was disrespecting him because he’d done nothing to him. If you ask me, Novo did seriously well to keep his temper.
The Spaniard, now 39, suffered a heart attack earlier this year while in Berlin playing for a Rangers team in a tournament for ex-players, and yet this mouth-breathing moron found it utterly acceptable to wish death on a fellow human being with recent health problems.
- Watch: Belfast club 'disgusted' at ex Rangers star Nacho Novo being subjected to 'vile sectarian abuse'
As Novo squares up to him, the man then steps forward and raises his hands to Novo’s stomach before replying “on you go son.”
What on earth is the matter with these people?
The man has apologised, blaming his behaviour on being drunk, as if that’s make things okay, but I’m not having it. He isn’t sorry, not really, only he realises his own life would be made more difficult if he hadn’t made a statement.
Why is it that there are some football fans who believe it to be perfectly fine to abuse another person who just happens not to play for the club they support.
Russell Martin got it last year when he was out shopping after playing in a Rangers game. Chris Sutton, at Burnley last Thursday, took a hell of amount of abuse from the home fans because he once played for rivals Blackburn Rovers. By all accounts, some of the worst things said came from the direction of the Burnley directors’ box!
I’ve lost count the number of times when former players working in the media area of the ground are subjected to disgusting thing shouted at them – and they have to stand there and take it.
I don’t know Nacho Novo at all but I do know that he would have put up with a bit of banter – it happens – but a line was crossed.
- Watch: Belfast club 'disgusted' at ex Rangers star Nacho Novo being subjected to 'vile sectarian abuse'
Celtic must act. Surely they can find out whether this guy is a season ticket holder and take it off him. A ten year ban seems to me to be the very minimum punishment.
Or if I had my way, a good kick up the ****.
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