James Forrest
The Emperor of Ice Cream
Well, in the end it took a giant of European football to show Police Scotland and the professional pearl-clutchers who every year complain about our title party in the Trongate what a real football riot looks like.
No messing about. No wee performative stand-off. No mildly chaotic title party being treated like the sack of Rome by people who have clearly never seen Rome sacked.
Paris gave them the full tasting menu: battles with police, fires in the streets, shops vandalised, roads blocked, fireworks fired at officers, attempts to storm a police station, hundreds arrested, dozens of police officers injured, cars burning. The full continental package, served with tear gas and a side order of actual public disorder.
That is what a riot looks like.
What Glasgow had was a predictable, unmanaged title celebration which spilled into confrontation, disorder and bad behaviour in places, but which has since been talked about as if Celtic fans turned the Merchant City into Fallujah with flares.
I’ve waited a couple of weeks to write this, because I wanted to make sure I was written calmly. Because I really get pissed off with the narrative surrounding these title celebrations we have. It was the news of what happened in Paris that finally got me to put something down.
Perspective matters.
After PSG won the Champions League, French police arrested hundreds of people across France, including hundreds in Paris, and reports said dozens of police officers were injured. The disorder was truly wild. It made Manchester look like a picnic in the park.
That is not me making light of what happened in Glasgow. It is me asking people to stop behaving as if Glasgow witnessed something unique, unimaginable and beyond the experience of modern urban life.
Major football celebrations create public-order challenges everywhere.
That is not a Celtic problem. That is not a Glasgow problem. That is not a “football fans are animals” problem. It is a planning problem. It is a civic-management problem. It is a policing problem. It is a political problem.
Above all, it is a problem made worse by pretending thousands of football supporters will simply vanish quietly into the night because someone in a meeting room thinks that would be convenient. That is where Glasgow keeps failing.
Every year, we go through the same circus.
Celtic win the league. Everyone knows supporters will gather. Everyone knows where they will gather. Everyone knows what the likely pressure points are. Everyone knows there will be alcohol, noise, pyro, crowding, police lines, social media clips and people waiting to blame Celtic supporters for the collapse of civilisation.
Then, when the entirely predictable thing happens, the authorities emerge looking shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen that thousands of supporters might gather after a title win? Apart from everyone.
Police Scotland accused Celtic of failing to take responsibility for supporter conduct outside the stadium, while reports also made clear that there had been ongoing conversations involving Celtic and Glasgow City Council over the possibility of an organised event or fan zone. So, there it is. They knew.
Of course they knew. Everyone knew.
Yet no proper managed alternative materialised, and that is the point. If you do not provide somewhere for people to go, do not act stunned when they go somewhere anyway. This is where the debate becomes insulting.
Police Scotland, Glasgow City Council and various media voices talk about these gatherings as though the solution is simply for Celtic fans not to exist in public. As though celebration itself is suspicious. As though the safest fan zone is one that exists only in the imagination of people who never have to organise anything real.
But look around Britain. Other cities cope.
Shock horror, I know.
Arsenal held a Premier League victory parade through north London, with huge crowds lining the streets, open-top buses and a major civic celebration. Aston Villa announced an open-top bus parade through Birmingham city centre after winning the Europa League. York City’s return to the Football League was marked with a victory parade backed by the city council, with supporters expected to line the streets.
These places did not discover some secret lost to Glasgow. They planned. They accepted reality. They treated supporters as citizens rather than an invading army.
That is the difference.
Nobody is saying those events are perfect. Nobody is saying every fan behaves. Nobody is saying football celebrations do not create disruption. But serious cities understand that collective joy is not a policing failure. It is something to be managed.
Glasgow, by contrast, seems locked in this miserable cycle where it refuses to provide an adequate managed outlet, then blames the supporters when unmanaged gatherings become difficult. That is not leadership. That is civic cowardice.
The city wants the economic benefit of Celtic. It wants the hotel bookings, the pubs full, the international profile, the cultural identity, the tourism, the matchday revenue and the global association with one of Europe’s great football clubs.
But when Celtic supporters actually behave like supporters, when they gather in numbers and express joy in the streets of their own city, the same city suddenly looks at them like a public-health emergency. It is absurd.
And after Paris, it looks even more absurd.
Glasgow had Celtic fans gathering in the place Celtic fans always gather, in a situation everybody knew was coming, after a season everybody knew could end in a title party.
The authorities had months to think about it. They had years of precedent. They had every warning they needed. Still, we ended up with the same old story: unmanaged celebration, police confrontation, media outrage, politicians muttering, council defensiveness and Police Scotland demanding urgent talks afterwards, as if the need for planning had only revealed itself once people had already filled the streets.
That is the bit which drives me mad.
The answer is not to pretend disorder is fine. It is not. People throwing bottles, damaging property, threatening police or intimidating residents should be dealt with. Nobody serious argues otherwise. But that is exactly why managed celebrations matter.
If you want fewer flashpoints, create fewer flashpoints. If you want people away from residential streets and business fronts, give them somewhere better to gather. If you want to reduce friction with police, stop with the talk about fans as though they were a mob running wild and looting and burning all in their path.
If you want safer football celebrations, plan them. Do not moralise after failing to plan.
Other cities manage to work with clubs. Other cities manage to host parades. Other cities manage to close roads, establish routes, stage civic events and treat football success as something the public is allowed to enjoy.
In Glasgow, everything becomes a lecture. Everything becomes blame. Everything becomes Celtic fans as the problem. It is tiresome.
And it is dishonest.
Because the choice is not between total prohibition and chaos. The choice is between managed celebration and unmanaged gathering. Every time the city refuses the first, it increases the chances of the second.
That is not complicated. It is almost painfully obvious.
Paris should be a warning, but not in the way the scolds think. It should not be used to say: look, football fans are dangerous and must be controlled. It should be used to say: major football moments generate mass public gatherings whether authorities like it or not, and the cities that pretend otherwise are the ones setting themselves up for failure.
Celtic supporters will celebrate. They always have. They always will. The question is whether Glasgow wants that celebration managed, directed and made safer, or whether it prefers to let it happen unofficially and then perform outrage for the cameras afterwards.
Because that is what this has become. A performance. A miserable civic pantomime.
Police Scotland complains. The council explains. The media inflames. Celtic are blamed. Supporters are demonised. Everyone promises lessons will be learned. Then the next title comes around, and nothing has changed.
Paris has just shown everyone what real post-football disorder can look like. If Glasgow cannot look at that and develop a little perspective about its own situation, then the problem is not just disorder.
It is imagination. It is competence. It is the complete failure of a city to understand one of the biggest institutions operating within its own boundaries.
Celtic are not some minor inconvenience Glasgow has to endure. Celtic are part of the city’s identity. Their victories matter to hundreds of thousands of people.
That does not mean supporters get to do whatever they like. It means those victories have to be planned for. You know, by adults, like adults.
Like every other serious city seems capable of doing.
The alternative is the same tired script we get every year: unmanaged joy, managed outrage, and everyone pretending they had no idea what was coming.
At this point, that is not a failure of foresight. It is a choice.
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The post The Trongate blame game was a joke. Celtic fans deserve better from Glasgow. appeared first on The Celtic Blog.
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No messing about. No wee performative stand-off. No mildly chaotic title party being treated like the sack of Rome by people who have clearly never seen Rome sacked.
Paris gave them the full tasting menu: battles with police, fires in the streets, shops vandalised, roads blocked, fireworks fired at officers, attempts to storm a police station, hundreds arrested, dozens of police officers injured, cars burning. The full continental package, served with tear gas and a side order of actual public disorder.
That is what a riot looks like.
What Glasgow had was a predictable, unmanaged title celebration which spilled into confrontation, disorder and bad behaviour in places, but which has since been talked about as if Celtic fans turned the Merchant City into Fallujah with flares.
I’ve waited a couple of weeks to write this, because I wanted to make sure I was written calmly. Because I really get pissed off with the narrative surrounding these title celebrations we have. It was the news of what happened in Paris that finally got me to put something down.
Perspective matters.
After PSG won the Champions League, French police arrested hundreds of people across France, including hundreds in Paris, and reports said dozens of police officers were injured. The disorder was truly wild. It made Manchester look like a picnic in the park.
That is not me making light of what happened in Glasgow. It is me asking people to stop behaving as if Glasgow witnessed something unique, unimaginable and beyond the experience of modern urban life.
Major football celebrations create public-order challenges everywhere.
That is not a Celtic problem. That is not a Glasgow problem. That is not a “football fans are animals” problem. It is a planning problem. It is a civic-management problem. It is a policing problem. It is a political problem.
Above all, it is a problem made worse by pretending thousands of football supporters will simply vanish quietly into the night because someone in a meeting room thinks that would be convenient. That is where Glasgow keeps failing.
Every year, we go through the same circus.
Celtic win the league. Everyone knows supporters will gather. Everyone knows where they will gather. Everyone knows what the likely pressure points are. Everyone knows there will be alcohol, noise, pyro, crowding, police lines, social media clips and people waiting to blame Celtic supporters for the collapse of civilisation.
Then, when the entirely predictable thing happens, the authorities emerge looking shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen that thousands of supporters might gather after a title win? Apart from everyone.
Police Scotland accused Celtic of failing to take responsibility for supporter conduct outside the stadium, while reports also made clear that there had been ongoing conversations involving Celtic and Glasgow City Council over the possibility of an organised event or fan zone. So, there it is. They knew.
Of course they knew. Everyone knew.
Yet no proper managed alternative materialised, and that is the point. If you do not provide somewhere for people to go, do not act stunned when they go somewhere anyway. This is where the debate becomes insulting.
Police Scotland, Glasgow City Council and various media voices talk about these gatherings as though the solution is simply for Celtic fans not to exist in public. As though celebration itself is suspicious. As though the safest fan zone is one that exists only in the imagination of people who never have to organise anything real.
But look around Britain. Other cities cope.
Shock horror, I know.
Arsenal held a Premier League victory parade through north London, with huge crowds lining the streets, open-top buses and a major civic celebration. Aston Villa announced an open-top bus parade through Birmingham city centre after winning the Europa League. York City’s return to the Football League was marked with a victory parade backed by the city council, with supporters expected to line the streets.
These places did not discover some secret lost to Glasgow. They planned. They accepted reality. They treated supporters as citizens rather than an invading army.
That is the difference.
Nobody is saying those events are perfect. Nobody is saying every fan behaves. Nobody is saying football celebrations do not create disruption. But serious cities understand that collective joy is not a policing failure. It is something to be managed.
Glasgow, by contrast, seems locked in this miserable cycle where it refuses to provide an adequate managed outlet, then blames the supporters when unmanaged gatherings become difficult. That is not leadership. That is civic cowardice.
The city wants the economic benefit of Celtic. It wants the hotel bookings, the pubs full, the international profile, the cultural identity, the tourism, the matchday revenue and the global association with one of Europe’s great football clubs.
But when Celtic supporters actually behave like supporters, when they gather in numbers and express joy in the streets of their own city, the same city suddenly looks at them like a public-health emergency. It is absurd.
And after Paris, it looks even more absurd.
Glasgow had Celtic fans gathering in the place Celtic fans always gather, in a situation everybody knew was coming, after a season everybody knew could end in a title party.
The authorities had months to think about it. They had years of precedent. They had every warning they needed. Still, we ended up with the same old story: unmanaged celebration, police confrontation, media outrage, politicians muttering, council defensiveness and Police Scotland demanding urgent talks afterwards, as if the need for planning had only revealed itself once people had already filled the streets.
That is the bit which drives me mad.
The answer is not to pretend disorder is fine. It is not. People throwing bottles, damaging property, threatening police or intimidating residents should be dealt with. Nobody serious argues otherwise. But that is exactly why managed celebrations matter.
If you want fewer flashpoints, create fewer flashpoints. If you want people away from residential streets and business fronts, give them somewhere better to gather. If you want to reduce friction with police, stop with the talk about fans as though they were a mob running wild and looting and burning all in their path.
If you want safer football celebrations, plan them. Do not moralise after failing to plan.
Other cities manage to work with clubs. Other cities manage to host parades. Other cities manage to close roads, establish routes, stage civic events and treat football success as something the public is allowed to enjoy.
In Glasgow, everything becomes a lecture. Everything becomes blame. Everything becomes Celtic fans as the problem. It is tiresome.
And it is dishonest.
Because the choice is not between total prohibition and chaos. The choice is between managed celebration and unmanaged gathering. Every time the city refuses the first, it increases the chances of the second.
That is not complicated. It is almost painfully obvious.
Paris should be a warning, but not in the way the scolds think. It should not be used to say: look, football fans are dangerous and must be controlled. It should be used to say: major football moments generate mass public gatherings whether authorities like it or not, and the cities that pretend otherwise are the ones setting themselves up for failure.
Celtic supporters will celebrate. They always have. They always will. The question is whether Glasgow wants that celebration managed, directed and made safer, or whether it prefers to let it happen unofficially and then perform outrage for the cameras afterwards.
Because that is what this has become. A performance. A miserable civic pantomime.
Police Scotland complains. The council explains. The media inflames. Celtic are blamed. Supporters are demonised. Everyone promises lessons will be learned. Then the next title comes around, and nothing has changed.
Paris has just shown everyone what real post-football disorder can look like. If Glasgow cannot look at that and develop a little perspective about its own situation, then the problem is not just disorder.
It is imagination. It is competence. It is the complete failure of a city to understand one of the biggest institutions operating within its own boundaries.
Celtic are not some minor inconvenience Glasgow has to endure. Celtic are part of the city’s identity. Their victories matter to hundreds of thousands of people.
That does not mean supporters get to do whatever they like. It means those victories have to be planned for. You know, by adults, like adults.
Like every other serious city seems capable of doing.
The alternative is the same tired script we get every year: unmanaged joy, managed outrage, and everyone pretending they had no idea what was coming.
At this point, that is not a failure of foresight. It is a choice.
Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.
The post The Trongate blame game was a joke. Celtic fans deserve better from Glasgow. appeared first on The Celtic Blog.
Continue reading...
