Scottish football has spent the last year working round the clock to show that the game can find a way to curtail anti-social behaviour in the stands and put its house in order.
They have bowed to government pressure to get to grips with ultra groups lobbing pyrotechnics around football grounds. Aberdeen, Celtic, Hibernian, Motherwell, Partick Thistle, Rangers and St Johnstone have all been punished by a form of strict liability for the illegal use of flares and smoke bombs in grounds.
A pilot project was launched to raise awareness over the sheer stupidity of throwing devices burning at 2200 degrees around like paper aeroplanes.
In return for convincing the politicians that they could keep a lid on things, football was trusted with a controlled pilot programme allowing clubs to start selling alcohol in Scottish grounds for the first time in 46 years.
They were almost there. Edging closer to a day, after the May elections, when fans might revel in the chance to enjoy a pint in a football concourse before kick-off like civilised human beings.
The mindless minority spoil it for everyone in the end. Five minutes of mayhem at Ibrox placed all that good work in serious jeopardy.
They will all come crawling out of the wood work to conflate the issues in the coming days. The politicians, the radio shock jocks, the headline grabbing opportunists will flock to the airwaves to blame boozed up fans for the post-match trouble and dismiss the return of alcohol to grounds.
To be clear, the scenes at the final whistle were an embarrassment to the game, a disgrace.
Yet to pin all of the blame for what happened on drink is simplistic. A 1pm kick-off limited the licensing opportunities for punters to get tanked up before kick-off and the scenes at full time were a potent cocktail of factors; pent-up bigotry, ingrained hatred, frustration, anger and coked up neds imbibing substances unrelated to the contents of a can of Tennents Special.
It is not at all clear that alcohol was the prime driver and, if St Johnstone or Arbroath plan to keep selling pints to supporters before games, the scenes at Ibrox should have no bearing on that. Fans of other clubs should not pay the price for the mess created by two sets of supporters who can’t spend two hours in the same space without allowing their emotions to spill over.
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The two warring tribes will seek, as they always do, to shift the blame on to the other lot. For the first time since 2018 there were 7500 Celtic fans back in the Broomloan Stand and when an unacceptable number spilled on to the pitch to celebrate Tomas Cvancara firing their side in to the Scottish Cup semi-finals with a penalty shoot-out winner, they ended any hope of a repeat.
In a throwback to the 2016 Scottish Cup final, Rangers ultras, covering their faces with balaclavas, took the bait when they ran from the Copland Road stand to confront their rivals. One of their number was huckled away for what Celtic coach Martin O’Neill described as a “tete-a-tete” with a member of his staff.
As stewards and police formed a hi-viz line on the 18-yard line to keep the two sets of fans apart, members of the Union Bears – the ultras group sanctioned by Rangers – took to the field of play and advanced three quarters of the way up the pitch to lob live flares into the opposition support.
Last week the great and the good of Scottish football gathered for the final Enhancing Scottish Football Roundtable in Edinburgh. Convened by Minister for Sport Maree Todd, the get togethers serve two purposes. They have allowed politicians to run the rule over how football runs its affairs. And they have allowed football to show the politicians they can police themselves without outside help.
How the game responds to the scenes at Ibrox is key to what happens next. Clubs can’t hide behind finger pointing at others or take refuge behind societal issues. They can’t stand back and pin responsibility on the footballing authorities.
While Celtic are already at war with the kind of neds accused of storming the Ibrox turnstiles before kick-off – refusing to lift a long running blanket ban on the Green Brigade – Rangers now have an issue with the Union Bears they need to deal with as well.
The SPFL have recently utilised rule H37 of their articles to dock clubs of 50 tickets for future away games as punishment for anti-social behaviour and you can put the kettle on for the SFA applying a similar sanction for what happened at Ibrox.
The governing body have released a statement condemning the behaviour and promising an investigation in line with Judicial Panel Protocol. The only man who finished the day feeling worse than Rangers coach Danny Rohl was the SFA Compliance Officer.
These are dangerous times for the manager of Rangers. Twice in a week his team have spent long spells dominating a depleted and underwhelming Celtic team at Ibrox. Twice in a week they have failed to win the game.
Parkhead captain Callum McGregor and vice-captain Kieran Tierney joined Alistair Johnston, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Arne Engels and Jota on the sidelines as O’Neill was forced to take a water pistol to a gun fight.
Arguably the poorest Celtic starting XI to take to the field at Ibrox in 40 years, the visitors struggled to control midfield, offered little in attack and failed to muster a shot on target over 90 minutes. After draining away games against Stuttgart, Rangers, Aberdeen and Rangers they needed a half-hour of extra time like they needed the second coming of Wilfried Nancy.
Their salvation came, in the end, from dogged, resolute defensive displays from Auston Trusty, Liam Scales, Julian Araujo and young substitute Dane Murray.
A pretty awful game at times, the lack of quality and endeavour from both teams in the final third was striking.
Despite having a first-half strike ruled out for a narrow offside against Scales, Celtic mustered precious little threat over the 120 minutes. In contrast Rangers had 24 strikes on goal and failed to beat the excellent Viljami Sinisalo with any of them. The sudden penalty kicks were as wayward as their finishing in open play, James Tavernier and Djeidi Gassama failing to hit the target.
Last week the Ibrox club angered fans by announcing plans to bring forward the usual season ticket renewal date by two months. Some accused them of rushing the process to guard against the season going belly up if they crashed out of the Scottish Cup quarter-final stage.
Third in the SPFL Premiership, the league is now all they have to play for and trips to Falkirk, Celtic and Hearts offer no guarantees at all of a glorious end to the season.
Good luck to the marketing men charged with flogging those tickets. Spending £40 million to finish behind Hearts and Motherwell is a strategy unlikely to have fans queuing up to join the next chapter.
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