Nick Cusack

I have read this forum for years (usually only when we win) without ever setting up an account, however, I really feel compelled to pitch in on this one. I had taken decision long ago to stop attending matches against the old firm as I find the experience so unpleasant but added the games to my family season ticket this season as a show of solidarity for the decision to keep three stands. Sunday’s events reaffirmed for me why I can’t attend these matches. On my way into the family stand, I was treated with contempt and aggression after pre-emptively offering up my gym bag for searching – to the extent that I was ordered to remove a pair of socks that the security person suspected was a pyrotechnic device. In the family stand! I then enter the stadium to find no fewer than seven police officers lounging around under the stand eating pies and drinking hot beverages and then as go to take my seat find myself confronted with a sea of giant tricolours and banners across from me – apparently easier to conceal upon entry than a pair of socks. (The obligatory pyrotechnic display followed later in the match.) I had decided not to bring my sons to this game after the last Celtic match (“why do they hate the royal family so much, dad?”) but even as an adult I would really rather not sit in my own stadium listening to incessant singing about terrorist organisations and Orange b*stards (I am a practicing Catholic, just for the record) so ended up doing something that I have never done - in over 30 years supporting the club – and left the match early. To then discover that the Celtic supporters were able to vandalise our stadium while we pay for security to harass St Mirren supporting families and Police to stuff their faces just compounds what was a seriously displeasing episode. I don’t know what the solution is to this – personally, I will take the games on my season ticket next season (they may be include as standard anyway) but will never again set foot in our, or any other stadium, when either of these vile, poisonous football clubs are playing.

I have read this forum for years (usually only when we win) without ever setting up an account, however, I really feel compelled to pitch in on this one. I had taken decision long ago to stop attending matches against the old firm as I find the experience so unpleasant but added the games to my family season ticket this season as a show of solidarity for the decision to keep three stands. Sunday’s events reaffirmed for me why I can’t attend these matches. On my way into the family stand, I was treated with contempt and aggression after pre-emptively offering up my gym bag for searching – to the extent that I was ordered to remove a pair of socks that the security person suspected was a pyrotechnic device. In the family stand! I then enter the stadium to find no fewer than seven police officers lounging around under the stand eating pies and drinking hot beverages and then as go to take my seat find myself confronted with a sea of giant tricolours and banners across from me – apparently easier to conceal upon entry than a pair of socks. (The obligatory pyrotechnic display followed later in the match.) I had decided not to bring my sons to this game after the last Celtic match (“why do they hate the royal family so much, dad?”) but even as an adult I would really rather not sit in my own stadium listening to incessant singing about terrorist organisations and Orange b*stards (I am a practicing Catholic, just for the record) so ended up doing something that I have never done - in over 30 years supporting the club – and left the match early. To then discover that the Celtic supporters were able to vandalise our stadium while we pay for security to harass St Mirren supporting families and Police to stuff their faces just compounds what was a seriously displeasing episode. I don’t know what the solution is to this – personally, I will take the games on my season ticket next season (they may be include as standard anyway) but will never again set foot in our, or any other stadium, when either of these vile, poisonous football clubs are playing.