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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Graeme Young

Jim White reveals Rangers embarrassment from afar as he rips 'clown' who soured Celtic clash

Broadcaster Jim White has revealed he found out about the shameful scenes of Joe Hart 's goal being covered in glass by a punter inside Wembley.

A Rangers supporter launched a bottle onto the pitch at half time and that forced the Celtic keeper to alert referee Willie Collum to get ground staff to remove the shards that had spilled over the pitch.

That incident was followed by another low point as a Celtic employee required stitches after being struck with a glass bottle.

Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou slammed the "idiots" responsible with multiple calls from the Scottish football community to issue lifetime bans since.

And White admits a fan - watching the action from Glasgow before the Football League Trophy Final at Wembley - flagged up to him that things had gone south at Ibrox.

Speaking to talkSPORT: "I am sitting in a suite at Wembley, with some Sutton United fans and some Rotherham United fans.

Jim White (SNS Group)

"One of them has got his phone, watching it on Sky Go, he's watching the Old Firm he says 'I've never been, I heard the atmosphere is really special'

"I said 'It absolutely is, I've been to so many I couldn't even want to hazard a guess how many I have been to.'

"It is very special.

"I speak to him later on and he said, 'have you seen this?'

"He was pointing to his phone, Joe Hart clearing bits of broken bottle from his own goal mouth, I'm like yeah, is that really what it has come to?

"Some clown threw bits of broken bottle into the goalmouth, Hart had to be helped by a bunch of ground staff at Ibrox to clear up the grass, so no player would get injured.

"The idiot who threw the glass on probably doesn't even think that one of the players who could get injured by falling onto a piece of broken glass and it could have been a Rangers player.

"It came out of that end, it came out the Copland Road end.

"We talk about how the special the atmosphere is....."

Simon Jordan offered a counter argument as he believes clubs across football face a difficult challenge in trying to stem individual acts of disorder.

And he believes it remains a case of reactive measures in a bid to rid the beautiful game of the underbelly that often spoils special occasions.

He said: "We can't move into the tyranny of the minority.

Joe Hart reacts as glass is removed from the pitch (SNS Group)

'We can't superimpose an individual's behaviour over the entire atmosphere of a stadium.

"You can't legislate for people who want to behave in a certain fashion and make that representative of the entire spectacle itself.

"You cannot eliminate people's behaviour, you can only react to it, try and deter it, so it goes under the moniker of the tyranny of the minority."

The debate continued before White admitted the flashpoint was remarked upon by those watching the fixture from inside English football's national stadium.

White said: "The bottom line is at Wembley yesterday they were sitting shaking their heads thinking 'is that what goes on?'"

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