The Daily Record has published an incredible attack on Celtic fans- claiming that Buckfast bottles, lighters and other missiles rained down on ‘Rangers’ WAGs during Sunday’s Glasgow Derby.
Soon after Sunday’s match The Herald published a statement from Ibrox about attacks on ‘elderly and disabled fans’ and warned that evidence was being collected about possible hate crimes.
The Daily Record and Herald/Glasgow Times are among Celtic’s media partners, given privileged access to players and management and fed bland filler stories whenever the news cycle is quiet such as during international breaks.
For many years Celtic fans have been suspicious of the Daily Record, peaking in December 2002 when THUGS AND THIEVES was splashed on the front page following the Celtic players visiting Newcastle. A few months later the newspaper made a low key apology.
Today’s story has been written by Court Reporter Alan McEwan and seems to be based on the flimsiest of evidence with no photographic or video evidence attached to the story.
A large picture of Celtic fans exiting the stadium is used to compliment the story, further down there is a picture of away fans with one loyal bear looking like he may have recently thrown something
The first contradiction is that the sub-headline claims that the missiles rained down at the end of Sunday’s match, in the first line of McEwan’s report he claims the incidents took place ‘during Sunday’s Old Firm match’.
As a court reporter with more than a decade of experience, previously with The Scotsman, McEwan will know the difference between during and after the match. His second line states that the three women suffered the ordeal at full-time.
The Record had photographers at the match but none seem to have pictured missiles raining down on the WAGS, pictures of the away support would suggest that they were 99% males with ages raging from late teens to mid-fifties.
The Daily Record claims:
It’s understood the women, who we have agreed not to name, have complained through Rangers about security arrangements and how police handled the incident.
One source said: “A number of Rangers players’ wives joined friends in the away end for the match.
“They were among a group of women who were helped get to the front of the queue for the exit when bottles started being thrown into the away support.
“The police wouldn’t let them out though. Lighters and plastic bottles were also thrown into the crowd. You could hear glass smashing.”
Padded out with quotes from previous statements the report ends with the claim that ‘Rangers were approached for comment’.
Later this week Celtic Communication Manager Iain Jamieson will be sending out invites to club media conferences with the Record also holding a Seasonal Pass to the Media section at Celtic Park.
In March sales of the Daily Record were down to 73,405 per day. Online, despite publishing hundreds of pages per day the Record website had only 538,709 pageviews per day during March.
McEwan seems to have cleared his Twitter account of all post 2014 tweets.
Fckn Waifs and Growlers. I’m pretty sure they would be in the stand if they were that important that is.
Simply don’t buy the RAG,its all nonsense as their desperate attempts to try and remain relevant, which they haven’t been for many years.
If this is not true Celtic legal team should take this clown and his rag to task about his comments,also 150years I thought liquidation meant WENT OUT THE BOX maybe the should ask LORD HODGE.
I’ve seen the footage and as usual the record has it roundbabout the bottles came from the old Firm and one mug threw it back get the cctv footage and find him then name and shame him barred for life they don’t even rap fish and chips in Newspapers but the Record might not Qualify as a Newspaper,Now HH
Surely to refute these claims Celtic FC should make this so called reporter watch every minute of cctv footage the area.
This is a total fabrication, wags would’ve been in the executive boxes at Celtic Park. Does the Record really expect us to believe that the wags slummed it and got in with the away support?
Come on who’s kidding who here? This reeks of what aboutery of the highest order, they were shown to be who they really are at the Ipox game and are now trying to smear our support with the same bad name that they’ve got.
It’s all sensationalism with absolutely no proof, I was at the game and the only missiles being thrown was from the Rangers end, now if any of our support did throw anything they should be weeded out and punished to the full letter of the law but given it was the family enclosure that they’re claiming the missiles came from I doubt the veracity of their claims.
The Daily Returd ,cradle of filth hun rag,lying scum.