Jon Daly on being an Irish Catholic Rangers player
Jon Daly has a refreshingly simple take on becoming the first high-profile Catholic from the Republic of Ireland to sign for Rangers. If it doesn’t bother him, why should it bother anyone else? The 30-year-old striker declared as much yesterday when he showed up at Ibrox to talk about his move from Dundee United. Of [...]
Church backs supporting More than Gold campaign for Commonwealth Games
The Church is supporting plans to make the 2014 Commonwealth Games a Christian as well as athletic celebration. In a report to be put before the General Assembly today, Tuesday May 21, the Convener of the Mission and Discipleship Council the Rev Colin Sinclair will say how The Council has continued its support for the [...]
Football fans protest over measures to crack down on hate crime at matches
Thousands of football fans who claim they are being criminalised by “disproportionate” measures to crack down on hate crime staged a city protest today. Around 3,000 people packed into Glasgow’s George Square, many holding aloft banners with slogans such as “football fans not criminals”. The Fans Against Criminalisation group held the rally to express concerns [...]
Dundee sheriff criticises anti-sectarian legislation and blames denominational schools
A sheriff has cleared a man of singing inflammatory songs at a Dundee FC match, blaming “horribly badly drafted” legislation. Sheriff Richard Davidson blasted attempts to tackle sectarianism in football through laws banning certain songs, instead laying the blame at the door of denominational schools. Celtic fan Dion McLeish, 20, was found not guilty of [...]
Charles Green: Grass the bigots or you’ll get ban too
Rangers’ chief Charles Green last night told fans to shop pals who sing sectarian songs — or face being banned from Ibrox. The Gers chief executive insisted enforcing the hardline tactics is the only way the club will be welcomed back into Europe. He told supporters: ““This is something we can stamp out. It has [...]
Anti-sectarian football laws ‘working’
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill says new curbs aimed at clamping down on sectarianism at football matches and online are producing results. Police and prosecutors were given additional powers on March 1 2012 to crack down on sectarian songs and abuse at football matches and threatening behaviour posted on the internet or via mail. Kenny MacAskill [...]
Fears over police misuse of anti-sectarian powers
Leading lawyers have raised concerns that football fans in Scotland are having their human rights undermined by new police powers introduced to crack down on sectarianism. They are making their claims in public for the first time about laws that have seen supporters put under surveillance orders and even quizzed by detectives at airports when [...]
Tell Rangers fans what they cannot sing, urges McCoist
Rangers manager Ally McCoist believes the club’s supporters should be issued with a safe songsheet outlining just what chants are and are not acceptable. The Ibrox faithful were criticised after they were caught on camera singing a string of sectarian anthems and other unacceptable songs during Saturday’s Irn-Bru Scottish Football League Third Division match at [...]
Spiers on Sport: how long to kill off bigotry at Rangers?
It is 37 years since Willie Waddell, once a mighty Rangers player and successful manager, but by then the club’s managing-director, strode warily on to the Ibrox pitch to try to establish a defining moment in Rangers FC’s historic sectarian policy, writes Graham Spiers. The Glasgow Herald reported that Waddell intended Rangers to “divorce itself [...]
Alex Salmond to make Chariots of Fire available to every school in Scotland
A new edition of the film Chariots Of Fire, which tells the story of runner Eric Liddell, will be made available to every school in the country. First Minister Alex Salmond said: “From next term we are making sure that every schoolchild in Scotland can learn more about the achievements of Eric Liddell. “We have [...]
