A Dundee official has labelled trouble within Dens Park on Boxing Day as ‘seriousdisorder’ and that scenes were ‘a throwback to the 70s’, as Celtic fans fought among themselves inside the stadium’s concourse.Celtic secured all three points against Dundee thanks to goals for Georgios Samaras and Gary Hooper, but the shock for Dundee came from the visiting support and their booze fuelled behaviour.
Dundee FC operations manager Jim Thomson, said: “There was widespread drunkenness, and I mean widespread, within the Celtic support. We were confiscating drink from supporters in the concourse leading to the turnstiles. They were clearly drunk coming in and we had a decision to make on whether we let them in and we took the decision that we had to let them in because we would have had other consequences if we didn’t.
“Once in, they were abusing our turnstile staff, our canteen staff and even fighting among themselves, and I mean serious disorder within the concourse. All in all it was just not a nice experience. In the 20 years I’ve been organising games here at Dens Park I have never seen anything like that – it was a throwback to the 70s that we are all probably ashamed of.
“I would say that the scheduling of the fixture didn’t help. Nonetheless, I don’t want to make light of it, but I can have a skinful but I’m not going to go and behave like people did last night. It’s just not acceptable.”
According to further reports drunken Celtic fans urinated where they stood and trashed the away end toilets.
Thomson claimed that he stopped counting those fans ejected when he got to 40 in number, but one erroneous report claimed over 70 Celtic fans were involved in running battles, a Scotzine source put the number at around 30 Celtic fans, with the trouble starting before kick off as fans were being penned in towards the turnstiles outside the away end – far from the running battles that the newspaper paints a scene of.
One Celtic supporter reportedly blocked the way of a number of younger fans, creating a flash point in which the fan refusing to move was pushed back and through the turnstiles, when the three fans were through they were targeted by the fan and members of a Celtic supporters club, which escalated in
Fuelled by booze other so-called fans got involved as Tayside Police along with Stewards, according to our sources ‘lost control of the situation and let the fans fight among themselves’.
A Tayside Police spokesperson confirmed that five supporters had been arrested, four Celtic supporters and one Dundee fan, she said: “There was a level of disturbance at the match, primarily within the Celtic section of the stadium. Five people are to be reported to the procurator fiscal for alleged football-related offences. Officers responded to the incidents quickly and took appropriate action.”
Meanwhile, Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell has apologised to Dundee, he said: “We are very proud that Celtic supporters enjoy such a great reputation and it is therefore extremely disappointing that the behaviour of a small minority has tarnished the good name of the club and our fans in this way.
“Clearly, we apologise to Dundee Football Club – we will work with them and look into any incident which is raised and if we can identify any individuals involved, we will obviously take the strongest possible action.
“We have received a number of complaints today from our own supporters about the conduct of this minority – we cannot allow our supporters’ enjoyment of our matches to be affected in this way and we will not sit and allow the club’s reputation to be damaged. Our supporters over many years have earned such a fantastic reputation for positively supporting the club, we will not allow this to be taken from them. It is time for all our true supporters who care about Celtic to unite with the club and find a solution to this problem.”
The police, authorities and even the broadcaster showing the game on Boxing Day night have been criticised by some quarters for allowing the game to go ahead at 7.30pm, which gave fans plenty of time to get boozed up.
Thomson added: “The game should never have kicked off at 7.30pm on Boxing Day. It was a disaster waiting to happen. It gave the supporters too much time to get drunk. It’s just a joke to play a game at that time on that day. Everyone knows this time was chosen to fit in with the TV schedule but the atmosphere at the game was just frightening.
“That was meant to be the Celtic v Rangers game as we got Rangers’ place in the SPL. If that had been an Old Firm match do you think it would have been played at that time? I very much doubt it.”
Celtic could face sanctions from the Scottish Premier League over the trouble, if it is noted in the referee’s report. Source: http://www.scotzine.com/2012/12/serious-disorder-at-dundee-match-as-celtic-fans-fight-among-themselves/
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