[0762]

I'm afraid to say you sound like a media man trying to present an acceptable image of this vile fixture Saint Charles Owl, a fixture that has been hijacked by anarchists, racists, sectarians and all sorts of low lifes that crawled out of the gutter. The Manchester riots, that occurred a few years ago, were merely a wake up call to anyone who tries to play down the real issues that surround OF rivalry and the misuse of this word PASSION!! I can remember walking out of the House of Fraser store (W End of Edinburgh) with my girlfriend a good few years ago and coming across a lad in his early twenties who was lying in a pool of blood on the footway, almost at the point of dying and we comforted him - he'd been razor slashed on the neck by a passing Rangers fan and the lad's only offence was that he was wearing a Hearts scarf!!!!!! His life was saved by a woman who had been passing by and she was a qualified nurse - a real professional at work, who blocked the blood flow, and how lucky was this young guy to be alive! That's only one horrible historical stat of thousands Saint Charles Owl!!!!!! The football side of this debate pales into insignificance when one looks closely at the ramifications on social life/human life and the poor victims who have been affected, directly and indirectly and I'm not just referring to recent times; the contentious issues go back a long, long time. Football, as an accountable sport, does not need this fixture and that's a fact!! It's regularity has disappeared from the Scottish football scene and IMO it has not been as greatly missed as many of it's protagonists insinuate.