GORDON STRACHAN shamed the media and police in this country as he tore into the environment Scottish football has allowed itself to become.

The former Celtic and Scotland boss was talking to BBC Sportsound about the role that fans play in abuse towards players and why it’s so easy for some of them to react. The amount of bile that gets fired at players and coaches on a regular basis with nobody batting an eye-lid is deplorable.

Speaking about the problem, Strachan even recalled incidents in the past and how he warned his players they would have their character’s assassinated by the press if they were to give a bit back.

Strachan called out Tynecastle as one of the most poisonous places he’s had the displeasure of experiencing as Celtic boss. A Hibernian fan and a Celtic manager a lethal cocktail for morons.

“I’d have a word with every player in my team and say ‘Listen, we live in a really sensitive world, we have fans hanging over the side shouting, swearing and screaming and we have a media that will rip you to pieces if they feel like it. They will destroy you on your personality so we have to be ready’.” Strachan told the BBC as cited by SunSport.

“We explain to all the players because it’s not easy to control yourself when you see the faces of hate screaming at you from a yard away. It’s not easy.

“We’ve let this grow for 15 or 20 years. I think we had the technology of stopping this 20 years ago.

“I used to watch games and see people sitting with kids and making horrendous gestures, swearing, using all sorts of language. We could have zoomed in on them and embarrassed them.

“You didn’t have to fine or ban them, you just zoom in and go, ‘Is this your husband? Is this your employee?’

“That would have stopped anyone doing anything like that again so we let it grow for 20 years. We let it fester.

“When I was at Celtic I used to get it at Tynecastle in particular. And my wife, my mother and my sister…unbelievable things they said.

“A couple of guys were on the dugout and were telling me they knew where my mother lived and they were going round to sort her out.

“I asked the police to do something and his exact words were, ‘Watch the game.’

“Guess what happens six years later? Someone jumps out of the same area and smacks Neil Lennon on the head.

“We should have clamped down on this a long time ago.”

Too many times we see people crossing the line with nothing getting done while innocent fans have a camera pointed at them by Police Scotland, their priorities are not straight and we doubt we’ll see much done about the vile abuse that goes on.

2 COMMENTS

  1. During his playing days, when he played against Celtic, I admit, I occasionally uttered the odd expletive regarding wee Gordon’s parentage. Such utterances, were born out of concern for the damage that he could inflict on Celtic. That withstanding, Gordon was a very influential impact player who could change the flow of a game with a single, sublime pass. Today, I would be delighted to have a in-depth conversation with the wee man, one of outstanding ability, after which, I would happily pick up the bar tab.

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