Hearts have announced that they are seeking a meeting with Celtic Football Club to discuss some of the unsavoury events that took place during Saturday’s league match at Parkhead.
As usual it would seem, there was some trouble in and around the section of the stadium allocated to visiting supporters, with nine people being ejected from the ground and three being arrested. As well as the meeting with Celtic, Hearts have asked for written details of the reasons for each of the ejections from the stadium, which the Glasgow club have agreed to.
As is almost always the case after a Hearts trip to Parkhead, various messageboards and phone-ins have been full of fans complaining about perceived rough and inconsistent treatment dished out to the Hearts supporters by the police and stewards, and indeed the club itself has received an ‘above average’ number of complaints on this subject direct from various parties.
It sounds like the usual case of nastiness occurring on both sides of the fence, with the only people being appropriately dealt with happening to be on the visiting side.
I’ve seen this sort of thing happening so many times over the years and eventually it was the main reason why I stopped going to Parkhead – to me it just simply isn’t worth the hassle going there.
Now before any Celtic fans start getting all hot and bothered about this, I am by no means just pointing the finger at their club and supporters. Part of the problem, a big part in fact, is the considerable percentage of absolute knuckle-scrapers that sit in the Hearts section at this fixture. I’m not sure if these guys go regularly to Hearts games or not (I’m inclined to think that they don’t and only turn out for games where there might be trouble but that’s just a hunch), but they frankly make you embarrassed to be a Hearts fan with some of the behaviour they come out with, whether it be sick or sectarian songs or just the way that they handle themselves in general.
Before Parkhead became the all-seated arena that it is today, Hearts generally used to take a pretty sizeable travelling support through there – it was very rare that you’d see any less than 4,000 or so on that away terracing. But these days you’re talking less than 1,000, so these idiots trying to make their political statements or whatever are now much more visible as they form a much larger percentage of the support, which gives people a very false impression of what the Hearts support as a whole is generally like.
That said though, the stewarding and policing at Parkhead (and indeed Ibrox) has always been an absolute disgrace. Yes there are idiots in the away end, but there are just as many if not more on the other side who continually get away with exactly the same sort of **** that Hearts fans are ejected for. And when they see that they get away with it, it only encourages them to do it more.
I once witnessed a young boy of no more than five years old being hit in the side of the face by a coin coming from the Celtic end. When the lad’s father, who was understandably both worried and raging, approached the nearest police officer about it he was told that he should sit down or he’d be ejected. As you can imagine it got a bit heated after that, and it didn’t help when the policeman actually called the guy an ‘orange b*****d’ (I kid you not). This is the sort of people that we’re dealing with here i.e. no better than those they are meant to be ‘policing’. How these people continue to get away with this is beyond me.
That was the last time I ever set foot in that stadium for a league match, and it’s very evident that I’m not alone. I don’t think there’s any side in the league bar Rangers who can guarantee to sell out that tiny away section, so Hearts fans are certainly not alone when it comes to this sort of treatment.
We, as football supporters, pay good money to go and watch our sport live, especially at the stadia of the country’s top sides, and we don’t do this only to be treated like a bunch of animals. It’s simply not worth it.
Hearts’ Operations director Campbell Ogilvie had this to say about the situation:
‘Where supporters have breached the SPL Unacceptable Conduct regulations we cannot condone those actions, however we’re aware of a very strong feeling about the way certain issues were handled on Saturday.
‘With that in mind we’ll work closely with Celtic to ensure that any future issues are minimised.’
It would be nice to think that something radical could be done to get rid of all the **** that has plagued this fixture for such a long time now. Generally the Hearts-Celtic fixture is a pretty decent contest by SPL standards, so it’s a shame that it has to be continually spoiled by factors that are nothing to do with football.
I wish those looking into this good luck with their investigations, but I’m not holding my breath for anything changing for the better in the near future.
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Like you, Mr H, my feeling is that nothing positive will transpire – but credit to Campbell Ogilivie for trying. For decades, it has seemed that the Strathclyde Constabulary view the away fans as the “reason” for any breaches of the peace by home fans. Therefore its the away fans’ fault – full stop. I recall a Parkhead game 20-odd years ago when a brick came through our bus window in the carpark after the game. As women and children (and men too!) cowered under the seats, a police officer came on to the bus and lectured us in very strong terms about our behaviour. Unbelievable – needless to say I have never been back since. I agree with you that we have a problem with a small section of yobs – could they be the same ones who frequent the North Enclosure at Tynecastle, nearest the away fans in the Roseburn Stand ?
There’s probably some overlap, but then some of the guys in there are probably just kids having a laugh, so you can’t point the finger at just anyone who happens to sit in that section. It used to be the case that some of the guys who went to this fixture were in fact Rangers fans – not sure if that’s still the case cos it’s more than 4 years since I was at this fixture.
Give over. You have the worst supporters in Scotland even more so than Rangers. The saving grace is that you only have a few. If you had more they could be quite dangerous
I’d say we have some of the best supporters in Scotland, considering what we have to put up with from Strathclyde police every time we go to Parkheid to support our club. Personally, I won’t ever go back. I want to take my young daughter to football matches – I won’t ever subject her to the terrorism & heavy-handedness employed by said organisation.
I might add, before you come back with your no doubt “witty” retort, that there is NO justification whatsoever for an adult steward punching a 10 year old boy in the face.
I’ve sat in the Celtic end at Tynecastle many a time and I can honestly say the behaviour from the Hearts fans around us (and outside the ground, at that wee narrow tunnel) has always been utterly disgraceful. Having confederate and Nazi flags waved at us was bad enough, being pelted with various missiles was worse but the mob assault outside the ground was unbelievable (this happens on a regualr basis). The polis just stood and watched all of this going on. I’m not saying what alledgedly happened at CP was right, it wasn’t, but we have to endure the same if not worse at your ground. Both clubs have to discuss these issues as fans make the game what it is.
Well I did state clearly in the article that some people who go in the Hearts end for matches against Celtic are complete pondlife, but they are not representative of the support as a whole, which is why the vast majority don’t go near Parkhead any more. Perhaps it’s the same when Celtic visit Tynie – they only get around 2000 tickets now and they embarrass their club pretty badly by chanting their pro terrorist and anti protestant rubbish. Maybe the decent Celtic people are also staying away from this fixture. This is very sad as the idiots are winning.
Every club has its share of nutters. That is not the point. The fact that Celtic and Rangers have more nutters than Hearts is simply down to the relative size of the supports – the actual percentages will probably be around the same. The point though is how the police and stewards deal with it, and how they tar every supporter with the same brush. It’s time those in charge realised that the nutter element is a minority at every club, and act accordingly. The heavy-handedness just incites trouble, when the stewards and police’s job should be to defuse it. Their job is to protect the honest supporter, to make football grounds a safe environment for all, not victimise and abuse them.
Good article – glad to see Hearts trying to do something about Celtic’s scum stewards and the bigoted psychos in the Strathclybe Police. What really gets my goat is the double-standards – the L&B Police treat the Tim and Hun fans like they’re made of porcelain when they’re over here (Christ knows what games TDBhoy’s talking about – I live in Gorgie and it’s literally years since I saw anythign liek what he’s talking – Rangers’ fans trying to smash the windows of Lothian buses fuill of kids, yeah, but mob assault? Not that I’ve seen in many a long year).
With cctv’s all over the stadium & especially the away end i find it hard to believe that these morons weren’t chucked out for nothing. As said it’s ashame when good fans are caught up in it but i too have nearly been attacked coming out of tynecastle so the danger is for all away fans & unless you report the goons it will continue.
I did hear that there was big trouble at Tynie after a Hearts-Celtic game last season outside the ground, although from what I heard the police were getting stuck into the Hearts fans pretty aggressively in response. But to be honest I think OF fans are treated leniently when they come to Edinburgh. Any Hearts people singing sectarian stuff or flying questionable flags get ejected at Parkhead and rightly so – the same should happen when they come through here, even if that means ejecting the entire 2000 of them when they’re pretending to be terrorists. It will take that level of policing to get the message across. Either that or they simply ban visiting fans from this fixture – I’d be in favour of that.
As for the stewarding at Parkhead, they should employ people from elsewhere to ensure consistent treatment. The cretins they have just now are probably among the worst bigots they have and tend to incite rather than prevent trouble – a bit like nightclub bouncers actually…
I just love how some of the fans from other teams on here seem to think that their fans are angelic. Let’s face all teams have idiotic fans and the more time we spend trying to say who is the worst the more time these morons have made decent fans think about them and trash other teams fans. I for one couldn’t care less what religion or what team someone else supports. I support Hearts and that’s all that matters to me and I don’t run around causing trouble about it.
I thought that this article was well written and took a balanced approach. The trouble with this debate is that it seems to inevitably descend into a “you’re worse than us” argument when actually we all have the minority that are as bad as each other. While I appreciate what sam-d is trying to say, I’m afraid that using terms like “scum”, “Tim” and “Hun” do not add anything to the debate, are somewhat distasteful and play into the hands of our detractors.
Mr.H I want to know exactly what you are referring to when you say ?anti protestant rubbish? What exactly can that be defined as? I have never heard any anti protestant songs at any Celtic away games. I say away games because to be fair there is a small element who do try to ruin it for the rest on those days by participating in some old Irish freedom rubbish but not anti protestant. But at home is a different matter. In all my years of going there I’m still to experience this age old myth that Celtic fans sing sectarian songs at Parkhead.
RK I will indulge you on this one occasion but after that there’s no more…..we are consistently referred to, whether it be from chanting or just shouting, as “dirty orange b*****ds” – I would say that falls into the category we’re talking about. Let’s not try and get into this debate too deep though – it’s been done before and it’s boring. If Celtic don’t want to acknowledge their problem then that’s their business – what we’re all agreed on here is that something should be done to encourage those of us who like to watch football to go back to what should be one of the top fixtures in the SPL calendar.
A fair comment, I understand that more people should be able to go to these fixtures without having to worry about the above mentioned. However, I don’t think its fair to say the majority of Celtic fans sing what was suggested. Yes i would concede that there are probably a couple of morons who shout things like that over to you crowd in some instances but I cant say I’ve ever experienced those chants in the stands.
I never said it was a majority, just that it happens and some get away with it while others don’t. As I said before, I’d be quite happy if they banned away fans from this fixture for a while.
Whether or not chants ACTUALLY infringe some modern PC human rights is (in some ways) only part of the issue here. What is it that causes grown men to stand with their backs to the game and face opposing fans over a fence, angrily shouting extreme insults and going through the full repertoire of mime acts ? Is it mob mentality ? Lack of education ? Or a warped idea of fun – “its what football’s for” ? So long as each group reacts in the same ‘traditional’ ways, then this problem will never go away. So, RK, I respectfully suggest that the animosity – even hatred- you see on the faces of some Hearts fans on the other side of the fence at Tynecastle is EXACTLY a mirror image of what is happening on your side of the fence.
As some have said above, many “good” fans have stopped going to these fixtures, leaving them to those who are willing to tolerate abuse & discomfort … even danger. A recipe for increasing the potential for trouble, some would say.
Perhaps banning away fans is actually an answer … after all, both clubs could fill the seats with their own fans without much difficulty.
That’s what Hearts should do. They’ve gone most of the way there anyway and to be honest, the way they’ve split that stand both makes it more difficult to police AND loses the club money due to having to sacrifice seats to segregate the fans. Mind you, if things continue the way they have done recently the near-capacity crowds every week will be a thing of the past…