Lennon attacked by fan

[ian1964 10,411]

by George Galloway MP on Thursday, 12 May 2011 at 09:10

 

Forget that rather facile comment by a legendary manager about football being more important than life or death, to a present-day one it is about just that. Or rather more specifically, death.

 

 

 

Neil Lennon, the manager of Celtic, is a Catholic, a republican and courageously outspoken. It shouldn’t be necessary to append these adjectives to his name but it is because of them that he has received his latest live death threat, a bullet in the post. Prior to that there have been deadly letter bombs and more bullets, his home in Glasgow’s West End is bristling with security devices, his wife has to go to a safe house with their child when Celtic are travelling and Lennon is under police protection, but clearly of the most cursory nature. On Wednesday evening as he stood on the touchline guiding his team to victory over Hearts at Tynecastle a home supporter leaped the wall scampered past what is laughably known as security and landed a blow before being overpowered by Lennon’s coaching assistants. His assailant hasn’t appeared in court yet but you couldn’t get odds anywhere that the man is anything other than a virulent and violent Protestant bigot.

 

 

 

If Neil Lennon decides at the end of this week and the league campaign that he’s chucking it in then no one would blame him. Scotland, however, would die of shame.

 

 

 

The reaction in Scotland has been curiously muted. It’s as if that because we’ve lived with anti-Catholic bigotry for so long it’s not unexpected, if slightly over the top. Some have even turned it onto the victims, that it’s really the Tims’ fault for maintaining separate schools. If those letter-bombers or that attacker had just shared a sandwich with a Catholic at play times if would never have come to this.

 

 

 

Some even went further. George Foulkes, Baron Foulkes of Cumnock, is a former chairman of Hearts, the club the attacker follows. He’s a lickspittle Labour man with a despicable record. In 1993, he was forced to resign as Shadow Defence Minister after being convicted of being drunk and disorderly during in incident in which he struck a Police officer. And in September last year he, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter stating their opposition to the Pope’s state visit to the UK. On Sky News on the day after the Lennon attack Foulkes joked that if Celtic moved to the Irish league that would solve the problem.

 

 

 

Bigotry is clearly in the genes too. His son Alex, another Hearts supporter, is a sectarian football hooligan. He was convicted of hurling abuse at Celtic fans – the longest and most sustained police officers had witnessed - and when arrested told the police they’d be in trouble because his father was an MP and his mother was on the police board.

 

 

 

No one would argue that Celtic fans are spotless – one was jailed this week for racial abuse of a Rangers’ player – but they have never been guilty of the sustained, anthemic, sectarian chanting and singing that the Rangers support has disgraced itself over more than a century (Rangers will have to play their next European away game supporterless because of it). Their songs are rebel ones about their heritage, rather than foul abuse at the other half of the Old Firm’s religion. And it was only in the mid-1980s that Rangers signed its first Catholic player. Pele couldn’t have got into the team before then.

 

 

 

It took UEFA, the football authority, to bring the first official sanction on Rangers. Rafts of politicians, councillors and sheriffs could have done it for aeons before, but didn’t. And the police have traditionally stood back and allowed the support to ‘fuck the Pope’ and bathe in ‘Fenian blood’, despite the flagrant breaches of at least two laws. Only in the last match between the two sides, after what us Scots would call a previous touchline stramash, have the police promised zero tolerance.

 

 

 

Where were they when this crazed numpty, who could have been carrying a knife, jumped over the barrier and launched his attack on Lennon? Given the previous history plod should have been in the dugout with him, or at least hovering in the technical area. And what about the stewards who are meant to stop these incursions? Missing in inaction! Tynecastle, Hearts ground, should now be closed until there are guarantees that such an incident can never re-occur. As should Ibrox, Rangers ground, at the first chirrup of what used to be called a party song but is better described as sectarian bile.

 

 

 

It isn’t just the authorities who have been craven over the decades in the face of this, the left are equally guilty. In the wake of the last letter bomb to Lennon I tried to organise an anti-sectarian rally in Glasgow’s George Square but my erstwhile political colleagues deliberately scuppered it. There had to be a ‘balanced slate’, you see, not just Catholics or Celtic supporters – presumably a Church of Scotland minister and a former ‘Gers player who had recanted! – because it couldn’t just be about the victims. It wasn’t intended to be, but why the hell not! If Lennon had been black or Asian, or a Sighthill asylum seeker they’d have been out on the streets at the drop of a leaflet.

 

 

 

Scottish piety about being a tolerant country has been exploded by the sustained sectarian attacks on Lennon. It’s the bigotry which dare not speak its name. To his credit the First Minister Alex Salmond, another Hearts supporter, has condemned the attack. But until there’s drastic action against these sick-making Protestant hate-merchants it’s just so much mouthwash. We all need to stand behind Neil Lennon. Or, perhaps more accurately, in front of him.

[ian1964 10,411]

Hearts fan,{????},on real radio saying that Rangers fans were in the crowd and were responsible for most of the songs and aggro!!!!!!!!

[Danny 0]

http://www.gersnetonline.co.uk/vb/showthread.php?28283-The-Lennon-situation

 

Lennon really is his own worst enemy.

 

I remember that time he wound up Rangers fans at Ibrox then just fobbed it off as nothing more than 'humour' and said he didn't want to talk about it.

 

Just can't help himself.

[bluedan 93]

Got exactly what was coming to him. Look, im glad it wasn�´t a knife or one of these bombs but lets face it, he got a slap and if it wasn�´t at the stadium then pretty high chance it would have happened in the street.

He brings it all on himself and perhaps now he might take a long hard look at himself and discover what a horrible rat of a man he is.

This has been brewing all season. I don�´t buy into this crap about �´being able to go to your work place and be safe�´. In everyday to day jobs then sure, of course. But this is FOOTBALL, something that really tugs on the emotions of everyone that loves it. Emotions boil over, not an excuse but a fact.

 

Lennon is no stranger to life up here, he knows exactly how things work yet he still acts and plays like a complete twat. If you are going to continuesly wind up oppo fans and players then you reap what u sow.

[craig 5,195]

Galloway is a persona non grata these days. A scrotum of the highest order, someone who you wouldnt pish on if they were on fire.

 

Ian, where did Galloway's utter pish come from anyway ? Someone needs to set that muppet straight.

 

Obviously someone doesnt like Neil Lennon (would be quicker working out who DOES like him...) but to throw it out as being sectarian is nonsense - there is absolutely NO PROOF of this whatsoever.

 

Also, is Celtic's heritage really steeped in the IRA ? They must be so proud George.

Edited May 12, 2011 by craig

[Gazza_8 233]

Your video has also been removed Gribz!!!!

 

The American government are watching Gribz and Zappa after reading their bin Laden and 9/11 comments.

 

[Zappa 0]

I see your video of Lennon assaulting a Hearts fans has been removed Zappa!!!!!

 

Just replaced it with a better one mate...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQuDMa2RZtw