Diginty on Tour? Methinks not
Football fans like all of us are a strange bunch. We love more than taking over a far away city, drinking all its beer and having a laugh and a joke with the locals. One can be forgiven for the odd fan taking a pee up a side street or around a corner. One can be forgiven when there are a few instances of public disorder and you can usually expect an arrest or two and the occasional letter in the local press complaining about the fans conduct.
What you do not expect is fans Urinating on Statues (not a good idea in Catalonia), hitting each other with broken bottles or getting arrested carrying a knife. You also don’t expect these fans to end up on the front page of EVERY morning paper on the day of the match.
Maybe the washing-up liquid that they were all taking with them to put in the fountains (very mature) was actually there to clean up after themselves.
First of all a wee snippet from Sky Sports:
Crowd trouble
Off the pitch, tension was mounting behind one of the goals where Barca and a smattering of Rangers fans were located, an incident which had escalated from the first half.
Objects were thrown between the two sets of supporters and, while security guards had been employed earlier to try to diffuse the situation, riot police made their presence known at the start of the second half.
It is understood that there was also an issue outside the Camp Nou with Rangers supporters who were conned by a French Ticket Agency attempted to force their way into the Stadium.
"Ave been bumped fur ma ticket, let me in or I will be up to ma knees in yir blud"
This letter that was sent into the opinion pages of a Catalan paper say it all. Apologies for the sketchy translation in advance. You can get the idea, as this Catalonian author has a long memory and can remember the dreadfull scenes of 1972.
PLEASE, DON'T EVER COME BACK AGAIN
"Dear Rangers supporters - never come back to Barcelona again. And not because your players themselves aren’t a legitimate team. No, it’s not because of that - the Nou Camp frequently hosts teams who are lazy, boring, who only defend, who run and kick their opponents, and who shouldn’t be in elite competition. On top of this, Rangers merely defend, run at the opposition and play dirty. Their defenders are butchers, their midfielders, heavy-footed; and their strikers just stand there like the furniture.
But even apart from the footballing aspect, the best thing would be for Rangers never to return to Barcelona, because every time they do, they make a mess of the place. 35 years ago, you (the Rangers supporters) destroyed the seats at the Nou Camp. This time we have enjoyed no less than 48 hours of brawls, provocation, rackets, fights and common drunk women throughout the whole city, which you have fouled however you pleased.
Stay at home and vomit in your own living-room, urinate in your sitting-room corners, fight with your neighbours, the Celtic supporters (who deserve a prize just for putting up with you) and foul the streets of Glasgow instead. Don’t come back here again, because it is not a laughing matter. And, by extension, don’t play in the Champions’ League either. You are not at that level neither in a sporting nor human sense.
There are noisy groups of supporters who, although they drink vast amounts of beer, make friends at the same time. But you? Not you, because everywhere you go, you turn into a rubbish tip. You are undesirables. And so are those who fraudulently sell, or “rent out” their tickets. These people screw Barca over, because they trade their season tickets illegally. And in doing this they cause massive annoyance for other members of the club. A true Barcelona fan would not re-sell their ticket for the match. If you are not going to the match, give it to a family member, or you could even use the 'Seient Lliure' service (an automated ticket service used by some Spanish clubs including Barcelona).
From now on, the responsibility lies with UEFA and the club itself to ensure who the ticket is sold to. The best thing for all of us would be that you as a supporter, in a moment of lucidity, decide not to travel if you do not have tickets. As that is never going to happen, those who sell the tickets illegally must be brought to justice. But the best thing would be if we never had to play Rangers again."
I feel sorry for the many many decent Rangers fans out there who have the ignominy of being associated with these animals. Yes every football suport has animals, it seems that only some perform any style of self-Policing.
To quote their song "no-one likes us, we don’t care"
Yours in Celtic
Clydebuilt