A Rebel’s Cause By Donald C Stewart

Date: 13th March 2026

A Rebel’s Cause

By Donald C Stewart

Unfortunately, if football is anything, it is a plethora of administrative minefields that blow up in the faces of people who least expect it.

Let’s be honest, the most that spectators hope for is to get up on a Saturday morning, get themselves ready, toddle off to the pub for a pint before they end up standing on a terrace, screaming and bawling and shouting at a successful team on the park.

That is bliss.

Jeopardy is when your team are not playing the way that you would hope they could and not managing to be at the top of their particular table or have a successful run in a cup.

Then you begin to get dispirited, disillusioned and disgusted in equal measure with those who are in charge of the club.

Whether your ire is targeted at the manager, the club board, the chairman, the owner or whoever, then you believe that you have an absolute right to spill out your reasons for being unhappy.

The fact is that you do have a right.

You pay your money at the turnstiles or through your club debenture or with a season ticket and get the opportunity to sit or stand and give your opinion on a fortnightly if not a weekly basis. Going to away games cements your status as a supporter in many people’s eyes because that shows the commitment that you have to the cause of your hometown club or the club that traditionally your family have supported or just the club that you fancied supporting because there was something peculiar about your engagement with it.

Club supporters are the major investors in clubs. It is not chairman, or the board who manage the clubs but supporters. Without them you can’t sell the sponsorship or manage to create an atmosphere that attracts television crews to sit in the cold October and November evenings with their pundits shivering at the side of the pitch making comment on your progress or lack of it.

Football needs supporters.

It is unfortunate that one of our biggest clubs Glasgow Celtic is locked in a disagreement with the Green Brigade. It is even more unfortunate after the Quarter Final scenes at Ibrox.

No matter what you think about the Green Brigade and their political symbolism, they have a right to an opinion.  I might not be a full-blown republican but do have sympathy with elements of their causes. Even if I didn’t, I find the pontification from authorities over political statements and the like to be less than mature.

Way back in October supporters from the Green Brigade were blamed for an altercation that was at best unfortunate, at worst criminal. They have been en masse told not to come back, until an agreement has been reached between them. They will both, club and Brigade, face the fall out from the weekend. A piece of unanimity between the two to support the investigation would help.

There have been opportunities to meet between the Celtic Board and the Green Brigade which have been taken up, but whilst the Celtic Football Club have remained relatively tight-lipped the Green Brigade on Friday the 7th of March set out their view in a public statement about how they felt that this whole process was not something that they had confidence in.

It’s difficult to disagree with them.

As somebody who has been involved in investigations in football as well as disciplinary action from the SFA I still find a lot of it quite baffling.

There are a number of decisions that are made which I think if they ended up in a court of law would be easily challenged and overturned

but the court of public opinion does not always get to see what goes on behind closed doors.

Much of the opinions expressed within Hampden Tribunals don’t get to be aired in public due to some of the archaic rules that you follow.

To be fair to the Scottish Football Association some of the rules are right and that we should not be airing lots of our dirty linen in public but sometimes you just feel that because everything is done behind closed doors those doors mask a lot.

We live in a febrile political environment at the moment where anything that’s done behind closed doors just feels icky.

So, the Green Brigade has attempted to push their agenda by going public.

It is important for supporters to feel that not only are they valued but they are also listened to, and whilst the actions of a minority at Ibrox sully the majority, it simply cannot be ignored.

Most supporters are reasonable people as indeed are the majority of people running a club.

It is when positions are taken and pontifications are thrown with people standing on the sidelines pointing fingers as if they are on the terrace, that sense gets lost. Or it is forgotten in a boardroom which is trying to retain a status when things become difficult. Add into that the scenes which were broadcast over the Sunday afternoon and fingers don’t need to be pointed, status is already lost and not having a settled support status between fans and Board makes things tougher.

As a Supporters Association of course our initial impetus is to side with the supporters but we’re not blind. We know that sometimes fans can act in ways which are difficult to defend.

I’m not defending the Green Brigade.

I’m not defending the actions of what happened over the weekend or what happened when the behaviour of some became an issue months ago with stewards.

But what I do think is that there are legitimate concerns over process.

If both sides do not see some kind of movement, then it leaves an icky taste in the mouth because once again bans and justice is dispensed from behind closed doors and supporters don’t feel the value that they should be feeling because they contribute massively to the spot itself.

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Tags: oor Donald, Scottish football