Dear All
I am not a football fan.
I don’t follow football at all.
I am also working class and can’t kick a ball to save myself; I am not going to be called up to play for Scotland anytime soon.
Football is all about two ‘armies’ fighting in an organised ‘square go’ on grass with plenty of witnesses standing on the sidelines.
You can stick the heid in, use the boot, stick it with your chest, but no hands.
There are rules.
On the sidelines, many turn up to see the battle and hope their ‘young team’ do the business and shout abuse.
And of course a small minority like to go over the score with some sort of nastiness of violence.
At the top of the pile, we have supporters’ organisations.
Celtic Football Club has a supporters group and that brings us to Joe O’Rourke.
He has caused a stink by saying Protestants should be drowned.
Joe O’Rourke has now said he has stopped using Twitter after his comment sparked a sectarian row.
Maybe Joe could use a visit from the Plod to remind him that incitement to violence is a big no no.
O’Rourke is the general secretary of the Celtic Supporters Association, I have never heard of him because I don’t support fitba, on Twitter, he was chatting about the Titanic.
A user called Ian James Wilson told O’Rourke:
“Aye while the Prods were building the Titanic all the Catholics were building an iceberg.”
O’Rourke replied:
“Brilliant, the only problem is, the ones who built it didn’t sail on it.”
The comment provoked outrage, and O’Rourke, of Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire, said yesterday:
“I am genuinely sorry.”
Words matter, it was a silly attempt at humour, but in doing so, he forgot that he isn’t just Joe O’Rourke; he is the general secretary of the Celtic Supporters Association.
He has responsibility to ensure the integrity of his Association, such as it is and also to the wider community.
In this case a bad joke has come a cropper for him, but it isn’t a hanging, drowning or burning at the stake offence.
A suitable punishment 10 hours of listening to Celine Dion, ‘My heart will go on’!
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
2 comments:
celtic fans not secterian you must be kidding their rotten to the core it is just covered up better by them just like what happened at celtic boys club
cjm
Celtic have numerous vile supporters past & present including Colin Duffy (from Lennon's home town) Eddie Copeland(Ardoyne) but to name only a couple and I nearly forgot Father Brendan Smyth wanted to take charge of their boy's club
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