Cheeky Rangers fans deserve to be “battered” if they show up in the Aberdeen end at Hampden.
That’s the view of journalist Bill Leckie, who made the claim in his latest column for the Scottish Sun ahead of the ViaPlay Cup Final clash on December 17th.
The comments come after Aberdeen cancelled suspicious ticket purchases for the Hampden showpiece following the ill-judged decision to put the briefs on general sale.
An excerpt from the column, which earlier droned on about Rangers and the FFP breaches south of the border, reads:
“Aberdeen have taken plenty stick for the ticketing blunder that saw Rangers fans infiltrate their ranks for next month’s Viaplay Cup final. Rightly so, too.
“They’ve openly admitted that putting a batch on general sale opened them up to trouble and was a daft idea.
“But they’re still not a tenth as daft as the Bluenoses who bought those tickets.
“I mean, what did they think was going to happen when they turned up at Hampden?
“That the Red Army would applaud their cheek and offer to buy them a Bovril?
“No, they’d have been battered, lifted, ejected, banned or possibly all of the above.
“And they’d have deserved whatever came their way for taking a rivalry that’s already deeply unpleasant and inflaming it even more.”
Rangers fans would’ve “deserved” Aberdeen battering
It’s quite something to suggest any Rangers fan who buys League Cup Final tickets in the Aberdeen end deserves to be physically assaulted.
Say whatever you want about the contemptuous feeling in Scotland, but we don’t need to tell you that violence is never justified over a game of football.
It’s irresponsible at best and vindictive at worst to suggest otherwise but whatever the case, we’re sure Aberdeen will have a few seats to spare come the Hampden Final.
The entire ticketing fiasco came after Aberdeen panicked in the face of big statements over ticket allocations, previously demanding a 50/50 split with the Ibrox club.
The club’s CEO Alan Burrows was forced to apologise for the situation which saw the club scrap a tiered ticketing system and put them up for a general sale where punters could buy four tickets a go.
It’s not clear how many Rangers fans bought tickets in the Aberdeen end for the ViaPlay Cup Final but going by the Dons response it appears some did.
Dons “rivalry” a tired line
Aberdeen’s 10k season ticket holders can’t fill 25k at Hampden and we doubt they’ll muster such a response as they try desperately to sell 19.5k.
But far from swallow a very painful pill regarding the club’s size, we’ve let this painstaking charade play out in public with rage-baiting over big bad Rangers aplenty.
Whilst some believe that the ticket allocation is evidence of “inherent bias” towards Rangers, others apparently reckon that Gers fans deserve to be battered for the crime of purchasing a ticket to a football game.
As for the “rivalry” with Aberdeen; let’s just say Rangers only pay attention to Aberdeen when they play Aberdeen and the Pittodrie club is virtually never a topic of discussion otherwise.
The same really cannot be said for the Dons support, with the entire club’s success season-by-season seemingly judged solely on how they match up against the Rangers squad.
Kris Boyd sent the Pittodrie club’s fans scrambling last week when he claimed that the Dons up their game when they face Rangers.
We might pinch that big striker they’ve got, right enough.
