THE clamour for a significant amount of away fans to return to Old Firm matches has been sated with a Rangers allocation of around 4% of Celtic Park’s saleable seats accommodated on Sunday.
The decision comes at the end of a long-running saga and amid a tightening of safety regulations with followers of the Ibrox club to be accommodated behind NETS at the weekend.
Rangers fans at Celtic Park[/caption]
And now it has emerged that you can count former Celtic boss Gordon Strachan as one man who isn’t so sure that this is the right direction of travel.
Strachan told makthavare.se: “I know everybody wants it, but I wasn’t sure I quite enjoyed the atmosphere with the nastiness that comes, because I wanted to promote the Scottish game throughout the world.
“There’s no doubt about it. There’s a nastiness.
“And it’s funny, I went to the World Cup.
“It was Argentina versus somebody. And I was sitting with Gus Poyet, and the atmosphere was fantastic.
“I told Poyet, ‘This is great, isn’t it?’ And Poyet told me, ‘What they’re saying is absolutely horrendous.’
“I just worry about that kind of thing, the violence.
“I’m a softer kind of person than the rest-of-Scotland person and I don’t think you need it. A bit of colour, I’ve got it.
“If I’m a fan, my first objective is to go to the game with my family and feel safe. So, I’ve got a bit of concern about that.”
Rival ultras groups always tend to be busy in the lead-up to the Glasgow grudge match.
There were shocking scenes in December when dozens of Celtic and Rangers yobs clashed ahead of the Premier Sports Cup final.
Footage showed football hooligans throwing punches and hurling pyrotechnics outside a coffee shop on Glasgow‘s Argyle Street as stunned customers watched on from inside Cafe Nero.
And we’ve ALREADY had the same thing ahead of Sunday’s match with Celtic ultras spray painting an entire train in green and white colours and declaring ‘this is our city’ as the build up to another massive Old Firm clash begins.
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