Just after 7pm on Saturday night Celtic’s Supporters Liaison Officer tweeted about the frightening scenes before yesterday’s match at Easter Road.
Getting 3,591 fans into the Whyte & Mackay Stand on a Saturday afternoon shouldn’t be too much of a problem with pre-match meetings between Police, Stewards and representatives of both clubs taking place to ensure that things run as smoothly as possible.
John Paul Taylor has the near thankless task as the one man operator between an incredibly passionate supporter base that covers 50,000 Season Ticket Holders and the same amount of matchday fans who are met with complete indifference by those running the club.
No offence here JP but in the main people don’t e mail on a Monday after it.
Where are the club personnel when this is going on. Surely our security guys must witness what’s happening. Do they feed back? Who is looking after our interests in this? It continues game after game?— Eddie Toner (@eddie_toner) October 28, 2023
It seems that Police Scotland decided on a very heavy presence for the away support yesterday with fans held back far from the turnstiles then funnelled through very narrow areas to reach the ground.
With Police on horseback there wasn’t much evidence of common sense with reports of a number of fans being crushed.
There was no comment after the match from either club or Police Scotland but it looks like JP’s inbox will be busy on Monday morning.
In September 2018 there was bad crushing under the North Stand at Celtic Park before the Glasgow Derby with new arrangements in place for the reduced number of away fans allowed to the match.
After accepting the initial whitewash which blamed the supporters Celtic were forced to put new arrangements in place for future matches that made the 58,000 home fans the priority.
Will @CelticFC publish the outcome of the post match debrief? Transparency is essential, given the serious health & safety issues being raised
— PaulT (@ptoland01) October 28, 2023
All of these situations are created by the police and are totally avoidable ..
There was no purpose to what they did today.
Obviously decisions made by someone who has never attended a game as a paying fan— 71 Baby (@Catheri75925626) October 28, 2023
Being funnelled in between 2 police horses, while being screamed at to keep away from the horses! Then 3 check points. Kept at a check point for about 5 minutes even though the turnstiles were empty. Got to the queue around 2.15 got to our seats just as the players came out. pic.twitter.com/NSI0xokU1A
— GMcC ?? (@gillianmcc51) October 28, 2023
In the pic taken by my 15 yr old son you can see the empty turnstiles 4 women on horses were holding all the fans back then we were all let through which created a surge on the turnstiles and a huge crush I then had to pull myself and my son out for our own safety disgraceful . pic.twitter.com/8h3Q5cEX9u
— (McCabe?) (@johnmcc17199131) October 28, 2023
Look at the access to that turnstile
I’ve literally went up the steps in front of that girl pic.twitter.com/CPWK6w3TQH— Owen Gorman (@OwenGorman67) October 29, 2023
JP
Police Scotland and Stewards.
Their management of the queue bordered on criminal.
The stop start of people walking to turnstiles caused chaos.
If they had let the queue be fluid and take its natural course there would not have been a problem.— Owen Gorman (@OwenGorman67) October 28, 2023
This happens all the time.
Celtic pay lip service but nothing is done .
There is no justification on holding fans back , using horses , when turnstiles are empty …..
These situations are created by the police a d it has to stop before someone is seriously hurt— 71 Baby (@Catheri75925626) October 28, 2023
Lawwell is an accountant and Nicholson is a lawyer.
If Nicholson can clearly explain to Lawwell that there is a real financial risk
to CFC plc if any supporters are injured, due to negligence by the club,
then PL might actually do something?
Well, the Board only seems to focus on the money…? 🙁
Shocking ? from the police but what can you expect from them ?
Orders from the orange bastards from above, probably scared we waved palastinian flags again. HH
I remember something similar but on a bigger scale happening around The Jungle in 1985 at an ‘Old Firm’ game (as they were known as back then)…
Unfortunately Scotland is still under the command of The Butchers Apron Johnny…
So yeah – Those orders from those ’peepil’ that you state could very well happen indeed –
We are sadly not yet an independent country yet because of our own mental stupidity in the referendum…
But we haven’t gone away you know –
Time for a Scottish Sinn Fein me thinks !
I am a Thistle fan and similar issues arose at Ibrox for the Scottish cup tie back in February.Thistle brought 2900 fans to the game. Despite arriving 40 minutes before kick off l didnt get into the ground until 7 mi nutes past three.There were several problems slow turnstiles ,high levels of stop and search and kettling with Police horses.The situation wasnt helped by cans and water bombs being hurled by home supporters .There didnt seem to be any issue getting over 40 000 home fans in .I think the official attendance was 45.000.
The situation was frightening and totally unnecessary. Sensible movement of fans quickly should be the priority.Kettling should have no place unless there is serious risk of public disorder ,there was none at Ibrox that day.
If people were treated like this going to the cinema theatre or the dancing politicians would be all over it.
It seems football fans particularly away ones are different and treated like cannon fodder as we saw in the Paris European cup final 2022.
This issue needs to be addressed before we have a tragedy.