Dangerous act of disturbed individual is only reason to self-police

When surveyed by the BBC, of Scotland’s 42 senior (cough) clubs, only Partick Thistle, Queen of the South and Annan Athletic thought Strict Liability should be introduced to tackle crowd trouble.  39 clubs either had no view on the matter, or were convinced by the overwhelming weight of evidence that Strict Liability is a shorthand for doing something which has proven to be ineffective.

Partick chief executive, Gerry Britton, insisted that putting fans through the courts did not deter others from criminal activity.  But then, in a classic of the intellectual genre, he said, “The Tartan Army are brilliant [at holding misbehaving fans to account]if anyone is up to anything, they’ll be the ones to get them out.”

So all we need is a sprinkling of “Tartan Army” types in kilts at each game to intercept a random no mark in the process of throwing a missile.  With insight like this, I am sure it is only a matter of time before Gerry is running the SFA.

Self-policing by fans has a role to play, but don’t tell me to be against throwing missiles because a section of a stand could close, throwing missiles is wrong because it is the dangerous act of a seriously disturbed individual.  Those who would not call out this behaviour for the latter reason will not do so for the former.