Can-do fans

IT IS quite entertaining to read what politicians, and some newspapers correspondents, have to say about drink at football matches in Scotland (your report 17 February and Letters, 18 February).

There is clearly confusion over what the position used to be.

We are told that the ban of the sale of alcohol has made football grounds much safer. In fact it has done no such thing because in my 60 years of going to football matches fans have never been able to buy drink within grounds in Scotland. It is difficult to ban something that never took place.

The dreadful behaviour prior to the 1980s was due to fans either being drunk when they arrived or getting drunk on the copious amounts of drink that they carried into the ground.

Fans took a small refreshment, the bottle was used as a personal urinal and then hurled into the crowd. The hard-core preferred cans, emptied their bladders where they stood, and admired the can as either a jet propelled missile or a close-quarter knuckle-duster.

No segregation ensured injuries were sustained by friend and foe alike. Naturally friendly fire incidents tended to lead to outbreaks of civil war until a common enemy could be identified.

This is described as the good old days of Scottish football. Could it be that nowadays we all behave a little better?

Ian Lewis

Mayfield Terrace

Edinburgh