Last weekend’s Glasgow Derby was much lauded for the drama, excitement and controversy Celtic’s draw with Rangers brought.
From VAR to penalties to players diving and handballs, the game had everything to make it a spectacle worth talking about.
It also had plenty of sectarian singing. Even before kickoff, the Ibrox crowd were heavily invested in a rendition of The Billy Boys as they belted out being up their knees for the first time in many in Sunday afternoon.
And there were at least three other occasions when the song was in full flow. After every goal by the home team, the crowd’s passion for blood ramped up and with Scotland’s new Hate Crime Bill now in full swing, you would expect Police Scotland to be up to their knees in arrests.
I’ll hold my breath on that one. But what I also would expect is for reporters and pundits who like to call out the Celtic fans on their songbook to show balance and do the same for the Ibrox crowd.
Tom English silent on Rangers fans’ sectarian singing
Tom English was quick off the mark to scold the Celtic fans for their songs in the Livingston win last weekend.
In fact the BBC journalist is generally quick off the mark to criticise anything to do with Celtic but, for some reason, the same courtesy is not extended to our rivals across the city.
But it’s been three days since the clash and English has mentioned the hate fest a grand total of ZERO times this week.
If You Know Your History: Test your knowledge on the Lisbon Lions with our quickfire quiz
The bottle incident gets a mention but in his lengthy post-match piece, nary a word was mentioned. Not a peep.
Even a quick glance on social media and there is nothing. Zip. Nada. It’s as if it never happened. But then maybe Tom needed to be told it happened because he was quick to say in the post-match analysis on BBC Scotland he never saw the bottle throwing at Ibrox.
So maybe he just never heard 50k Rangers fans in full flow. But that can’t be right because he definitely heard 7k Celtic fans at Almondvale. Go figure.
