Scotland game last night

[1884]

Try living near Hampden and tell me the same. Obviously not all Scotland fans or people who say they're in the Tartan Army do this. But a signifcant number have and always will be drunken, xenophobic idiots. True this could be said of any set of fans, but it is certainly noticeable with Scotland fans.

This could be said of any group of people in all walks of life. Well, maybe not in Saudi Arabia and Salt Lake City and the like...

[1884]

I actually only moved in last month so I'll get back to you next year. Football fans in general are morons but the topic was about the Scotland game. Hence why the comment was about Scotland fans funnily enough. If you want I shall give you a blow by blow account of every football fan I see that acts this way in future. As for booing the Anthem, it is clearly moronic and no I don't boo when Rangers sing God save the Queen as it is Britain's national anthem. I have booed when they sing Sectarian songs but that's another matter. There are a huge number of Scottish fans and indeed Scottish people who have a chip on their shoulder with regards to England. Oh and what about the great Scottish fans that against Czech Rep in March booed Iwelumo's name when it was announced and cheered Boyd's?

Myth.

[ODAB]

It's not a myth, it's embarassing. What's worse is that is based on complete nonsense and miconceptions. I've actually been accused of being English and not a real Scotsman by a group of Tartan Army "Foot Soldiers" for not wearing a kilt to a game. When I pointed out the kilt wasn't Scottish I was challenged to a fight. In fairness the gentleman in question was so drunk I'm pretty sure he'd have knocked himself out. I've also seen another fan encourage a pub full of fans to sing anti-English songs at his girlfirend, who is English but lived in Scotland her whole life. The pub duely obliged making her feel awful and having to leave. Some people will claim it's banter and with many people it might well be. But there is a large percentage of our population that do carry that chip around.

Edited September 10, 2010 by ODAB

[SingaporeSaint]

It's not a myth, it's embarassing. What's worse is that is based on complete nonsense and miconceptions. I've actually been accused of being English and not a real Scotsman by a group of Tartan Army "Foot Soldiers" for not wearing a kilt to a game. When I pointed out the kilt wasn't Scottish I was challenged to a fight. In fairness the gentleman in question was so drunk I'm pretty sure he'd have knocked himself out. I've also seen another fan encourage a pub full of fans to sing anti-English songs at his girlfirend, who is English but lived in Scotland her whole life. The pub duely obliged making her feel awful and having to leave. Some people will claim it's banter and with many people it might well be. But there is a large percentage of our population that do carry that chip around.

def chip and shoulder

[Dr Christmas Jones]

It's not a myth, it's embarassing. What's worse is that is based on complete nonsense and miconceptions. I've actually been accused of being English and not a real Scotsman by a group of Tartan Army "Foot Soldiers" for not wearing a kilt to a game. When I pointed out the kilt wasn't Scottish I was challenged to a fight. In fairness the gentleman in question was so drunk I'm pretty sure he'd have knocked himself out. I've also seen another fan encourage a pub full of fans to sing anti-English songs at his girlfirend, who is English but lived in Scotland her whole life. The pub duely obliged making her feel awful and having to leave. Some people will claim it's banter and with many people it might well be. But there is a large percentage of our population that do carry that chip around.

PISH

I went to Belgium a few years ago with about 10,000 of the Tartan Army.At the end of the game this dude in a Scotland shirt started abusing the guy behind the kiosk.I went up and apologised to the Belgian guy and he replied there are always a few like that.Then,whilst trying to get into town,I had to pass through the main queue for the underground.Although I had a Scotland top under my Stone Island knit,this guy called me a casual barsteward.I wasn't going to explain to him or the 1000 or so waiting so just smiled and kept going.You see what I'm saying,2 out of 10000 is a small proportion.

As for your mates girlfriend,how did the whole pub find out she was English.Should she not have been p!ssed off with the so called friend that told the whole pub and not the guys that were having a laugh.Because I'm sure it was a laugh or because of crimes by the English 500 years ago she would be robbed,raped and killed with Sgian Dubhs unless she left the pub.

[Real Madrid]

There were lots of embarrassing moments on Tuesday night and I suppose the way their anthem was treated was one of them. This must be how some (A minority in my view) old firm fans feel when the majority start their sectarian shite.

Scotland now seams to divide a lot of club supporters. Many who for some reason or another feel more British than Scottish will not go to the games (which i our resident Dundee United supporter may fit in to) for the anti British feeling. Apart from the anthem I only heard one chant of stand up if you hate England. For others its is some of the antics of a small minority of the crowd but you will get that with any group of fans, be it Saints, Sunderland or Scotland.

Will i boo if we ever play England again, probably not but I wont stand up or if I do I will turn my back.

Will I boo when Rangers sing that song, possibly but they do it to wind up the other sides maybe if we all stopped reacting they would stop.

[Sookie Suncaps]

Saturday, 11 September 2010

TARTAN ARMY TERRORISTS SHAME SCOTLAND AGAIN

TAM FERRY is not a name I know too well. And I'm pretty sure there are not many readers out there who recognise the moniker.

However, it seems he is some sort of ''spokesman'' for the Tartan Army. Funny, I thought that was Hamish Husband. But we will leave aside any possible internal wrangling.

We all know the Tartan Army. They are the geezers who berate Old Firm fans for living in the past, harping on about, and singing about the Battle of the Boyne, the Potato Famine and IRA terrorists.

Yet these kilted buffoons get kitted out in ridiculous psuedo military attire - many Scottish soldiers in the REAL tartan Army may find this offensive - while singing about a battle in 1314 and never getting more up to date than April 1746.

Of course, in this free and democratic society, that is their right. If they want to prance around like prize prats they are perfectly at liberty to do so.

What they have no right to do is shame Scotland with their rude, boorish and entirely un-Scottish behaviour whenever the national anthem of a visiting country is played at Hampden.

They were at it again last week when their boos, jeers and catcalls echoed around the old ground when the Liechtenstein anthem was played.

The following day the president and acting chief executive of the Scottish Football Association, big bluff straight talking George Peat took them to task. At last.

But, instead of showing contrition, the Tartan Army fired back a reply through Tam Ferry which attempted to ridicule Peat for having the temerity to launch any sort of critical comment at them .

In many ways it is hard to blame Ferry and his cohorts among this wee band of deluded Jacobites. For, for years, they have lived a charmed life with hardly a word of critical comment written or spoken about them in newspapers, radio or television.

Jim Traynor of Daily Record and BBC fame is a noteable exception, and because he has told the truth about them, has been subjected to abuse by kilted clowns in airports, on planes, and in the streets of many a foreign town when on assisgment.

Not wee Silly Billy though. He has even been spotted on at least one occasion - Copenhagen - out on the razzle with the feathered fools and leading them in that appalling dirge which goes back to laud a battle fought 376 years before the one Rangers supporters sing about, and which he finds so offensive.

I know among the press pack I am not alone in my views about the Tartan Army's behaviour, though, Traynor apart, I am on the only journalist willing to write the views so many of my colleagues express in private, but are too cowed to express publicly, perhaps by the stifling atmosphere of politcal correctness which stifles any decent debate in this country - and by country I mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Therefore, I am indebted to a regular writer of letters to the Herald, Glenn Elder of Glasgow, whose latest rational contribution was published in that paper's Fans With Laptops, section on Friday.

Mr Elder wanted to know why Peat's condemnation of the Tartan Army booing the national anthem of vistors has waited so long? Why, he asked, did the SFA president not take them to task for their treatment of God Save The Queen when Northern Ireland were at Hampden?

It is a very good question.

Mr Elder went on to remind readers that several years ago he wrote to the Herald over his embarrassment at hearing the German anthem booed while sitting with German friends at Hampden. He continued by correctly recalling, the following year both the French and Italian anthems were abused by the Tartan Army.

I have no doubt Mr Elder is a true Scot. A man with a partiotic pulse, but also the sort of Scot whose internationalism means he can never be as closed minded and self serving as those hordes of the Tartan Army in their psuedo militaristic uniforms.

Tam Ferry and any other so called ''spokesman'' for them would be well advised to remember another, and much more proud chapter in this once great nation's history. It is called The Scottish Enlightenment.

[1884]

Saturday, 11 September 2010

TARTAN ARMY TERRORISTS SHAME SCOTLAND AGAIN

TAM FERRY is not a name I know too well. And I'm pretty sure there are not many readers out there who recognise the moniker.

However, it seems he is some sort of ''spokesman'' for the Tartan Army. Funny, I thought that was Hamish Husband. But we will leave aside any possible internal wrangling.

We all know the Tartan Army. They are the geezers who berate Old Firm fans for living in the past, harping on about, and singing about the Battle of the Boyne, the Potato Famine and IRA terrorists.

Yet these kilted buffoons get kitted out in ridiculous psuedo military attire - many Scottish soldiers in the REAL tartan Army may find this offensive - while singing about a battle in 1314 and never getting more up to date than April 1746.

Of course, in this free and democratic society, that is their right. If they want to prance around like prize prats they are perfectly at liberty to do so.

What they have no right to do is shame Scotland with their rude, boorish and entirely un-Scottish behaviour whenever the national anthem of a visiting country is played at Hampden.

They were at it again last week when their boos, jeers and catcalls echoed around the old ground when the Liechtenstein anthem was played.

The following day the president and acting chief executive of the Scottish Football Association, big bluff straight talking George Peat took them to task. At last.

But, instead of showing contrition, the Tartan Army fired back a reply through Tam Ferry which attempted to ridicule Peat for having the temerity to launch any sort of critical comment at them .

In many ways it is hard to blame Ferry and his cohorts among this wee band of deluded Jacobites. For, for years, they have lived a charmed life with hardly a word of critical comment written or spoken about them in newspapers, radio or television.

Jim Traynor of Daily Record and BBC fame is a noteable exception, and because he has told the truth about them, has been subjected to abuse by kilted clowns in airports, on planes, and in the streets of many a foreign town when on assisgment.

Not wee Silly Billy though. He has even been spotted on at least one occasion - Copenhagen - out on the razzle with the feathered fools and leading them in that appalling dirge which goes back to laud a battle fought 376 years before the one Rangers supporters sing about, and which he finds so offensive.

I know among the press pack I am not alone in my views about the Tartan Army's behaviour, though, Traynor apart, I am on the only journalist willing to write the views so many of my colleagues express in private, but are too cowed to express publicly, perhaps by the stifling atmosphere of politcal correctness which stifles any decent debate in this country - and by country I mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Therefore, I am indebted to a regular writer of letters to the Herald, Glenn Elder of Glasgow, whose latest rational contribution was published in that paper's Fans With Laptops, section on Friday.

Mr Elder wanted to know why Peat's condemnation of the Tartan Army booing the national anthem of vistors has waited so long? Why, he asked, did the SFA president not take them to task for their treatment of God Save The Queen when Northern Ireland were at Hampden?

It is a very good question.

Mr Elder went on to remind readers that several years ago he wrote to the Herald over his embarrassment at hearing the German anthem booed while sitting with German friends at Hampden. He continued by correctly recalling, the following year both the French and Italian anthems were abused by the Tartan Army.

I have no doubt Mr Elder is a true Scot. A man with a partiotic pulse, but also the sort of Scot whose internationalism means he can never be as closed minded and self serving as those hordes of the Tartan Army in their psuedo militaristic uniforms.

Tam Ferry and any other so called ''spokesman'' for them would be well advised to remember another, and much more proud chapter in this once great nation's history. It is called The Scottish Enlightenment.

An interesting read, particularly because I know both Hamish Husband and Tam Ferry personally.

Fact of the matter is, and I know this is just too complicated for some people to understand or indeed accept, but there will always be fans of any given Country who choose to boo the National Anthem of the opposing Country at international matches (although I would like to add that I have personally never done this and never will).

Disrespectful? Absolutely.

Worth greetin' about? Definitely not.

So many more things in this world to worry about...

[Pop]

To be honest, how anyone can get upset by the silly nonsense that goes on at a football match is beyond me. You are supposed to boo your opposition. Its all part of the nonsense that makes the whole spectacle fun.