BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 20th June 2025
(Photo:@Homesoffootball)
You may have seen in the media that this week Scottish Football and its problems have inspired another quite different Holyrood ‘Round Table’ to discuss the best way forward on what is seen as being an increase in ‘Disorder’ at Scottish Football grounds.
I was there, and it was a good meeting, not because the participants identified a simple ‘tick box’ solution but because the honesty and openness in the room from the chair down identified there isn’t one.
There was unanimous agreement that the problem is complex, societal and deep rooted and shouting at the SFA, SPFL or the clubs won’t solve anything.
But we also agreed the range of solutions needs to include both ‘carrot and stick’ elements and that communication is complex
The hard fact is football has long been a convenient vehicle for crowd and individual expression of a mix of emotions from joy and happiness to aggression, almost untraceable rebelliousness and even criminality.
Some informed commentators also think some clubs turn a convenient blind eye to ongoing crowd behaviourisms because of commercial reasons like how group aggression can historically unite and polarise fans whether it is against their key rivals, or the world or whatever.
And as for our media?
!!
Historians would tell you that bad behaviour in, at, and around football matches is nothing new and is probably not any worse now than before.
What is new is high degrees of fan organisation whether its TIFOs or Pyros or street parties or coordinated badness.
‘Elite fan groups’ in football are not new either.
My favourite one is the long-time elite, the serially inclusive and self-policing Tartan Army.
The ‘club within a club mentality’ that the media now call ‘Ultras’ is an innate human response when some individuals strive to feel and look more important than their fellow members/fans.
It happens in golf clubs political societies and just about everywhere else too.
What is new now is we have an all-inclusive name and some disturbing current models from around the world.
Set against a very hard fact that we live in an age of anger that is unprecedented and who knows what might transpire?
When it was my turn to speak at the round table I talked about the backdrop of our angry society and suggested we should assess Ultras by my 3 Fs Model.
Is it a Fad?
Or a Phase?
Or the Future?
The answer is, and will always be it’s all 3.
Why?
Because of the very simple fact that different fan groups within clubs and individual fans within groups are different.
I deeply believe that ‘organised’ fan groups within clubs are here to stay and that can indeed be a good thing for football.
I wholeheartedly welcome fans who care enough to put in and take more out.
But and there are always buts in football.
All I would ask is that they are or become good citizens for the fans of their clubs who are not on the ‘inside ‘and for society in general.
My recent emails tell me that we have current issues because some of the Ultras groups haven’t matured enough to think about the effects their behaviours are causing on their own people.
That needs addressing by SLOs and clubs and will be part of Ms Constance’s Round Table’s responses.
Here’s an Andyism.
You can rate any society or country by how it treats its weakest members and right now organised football fan groups, both formal and or informal are not always good citizens.
That is also not new and remains the key challenge for us all.
This Week’s Sting
1. When Juventus Met King Donald of Mar a Lago
2.Uefa Nonsense
3. Viva Azzurri
4.One Hamilton Play at Cumbie, The Other at New Douglas
1. And Infantino was There Too
Gianni’s Club World Cup is upon us.
The games are on when it’s too hot and the crowds are very poor.
Very poor. (Did you see Andy’s wee Trumpism, there?)
Some of the competitors wouldn’t win the Inverness Welfare League.
This week King Donald took some time out from planning another war that isn’t a war to welcome a Juventus party to his White House Press Briefing.
And Mr Infantino gate-crashed having travelled first class to get there.
Trump busy in his war mongering looked up and asked the Juve players, “Could a woman make your team fellas”?
(He didn’t mention how to grab them, (women).
Nor notice how he’d bewildered the Italian team and didn’t even listen to their answer)
He then said there was a Club World Cup game coming up at DC, (Washington), and it was “Totally Sold Out’, ‘Totally Sold Out’.
(It wasn’t and lots of tickets were still on sale).
Infantino’s new competition that isn’t new, just different, will come to life a bit when it nears the end but it will never be real despite the Channel 5 presenters waxing lyrically over the top nonsense like modern day football Comical Alis.
Crowds are not interested whether in the USA or across the TV world.
And Infantino is at the White House with his bestie, King Donald, comfy, and pally, while one of his members, Iran is under threat from another member, and who knows how many of his countries will have been barred from going to next year’s World Cup.
And still no response to some tricky questions from the Palestinian FA?
The Bayern Munich supporters in the USA for the competition told Fifa what they think of it all the other day in a pointed banner.
I have to say I agree with them and would have been even more pointed if I’d written the comment.
2. The Annual Nonsense That is ‘Qualifying’
We, and other mid-sized nations have representatives at Uefa yet we have somehow all allowed our clubs to be continually shafted by the nonsense that is ‘preliminary draws’ for the annual Uefa riches.
Rangers getting Panathinaikos in the second of three rounds is tough and the hard fact is that each of our 5 ‘Qualifiers’ have in reality only qualified for the qualifiers.
It’s all outrageous when England might have 6 clubs in the Champions League proper.
The rich getting richer and more powerful, repeat, repeat, repeat ad nauseum by the Uefa machine that we are part of.
I don’t remember ever hearing outrage from Campbell Ogilvy or whoever was our rep in Uefa back in the day.
I don’t ever remember any fightback from the other disenfranchised smaller nations.
When are the wee guys going to realise that we need to organise with each other and threaten to throw our toys out of the box and take our TV audiences with us?
3. Il Capo
I remember the first time I saw Gennaro Gattuso play for Rangers.
It was against Hearts and my first impressions was he was young, thuggish still learning, but he had an energy and drive, and I wished he’d been playing for Hearts.
Determination off the scale.
He built a great career after Advocaat failed to see how valuable he was and fast forward Gennaro is now manager of Italy.
He obviously got fed up waiting for Stevie to move on from the Hampden gig!
He’ll sort out the recent Azzurri problems and make them a horrible side to play against.
4. Cumbernauld Here We Come
Hamilton Accies men’s team were confirmed as playing home games for 2 or 3 years, at least at Broadwood.
Not a happy outcome for anyone although at least the Accies heart is still beating and this week’s board statement gives you their point of view.
I’ve lifted it and attached it to the bottom of this week’s Sting.
It’s maybe the only positive short term outcome that could have come from a messy and quite horrible sequence of events.
The fans and the town are the biggest losers and the recent well publicised spat ‘Don’t use our name’, between the board, not the fans, and Hamilton Accies Women and Girls is unedifying and ungracious.
Bizarrely the Women will continue to play their Premier League games at New Douglas Park and this alone is a sign of the deep discord between old regime, new regime and fans caught in the middle and just wanting the best for their club.
The Beeb sum it the spat up pretty well https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/czj4jpyl8g3o
But they don’t suggest any answers or the best way forward.
Hamilton have some great fans who have been through the ringer and here is a rarity in Sting.
Well done SPFL for facilitating and delivering a short term solution that was never a certainty.
Sting is:
A weekly blog from a long time Scottish football fan.
The opinions are mine, not corporate and I mostly cover stuff that the mainstream press ignores.
I’m the volunteer chairman at the Scottish Football Supporters Association.
Sounds posh and important but it isn’t really, it’s just me putting something back to a game that gave so much to me.
Football, in 2025 especially at the top has an inbuilt ability to forget where it has come from and that the ordinary fan, that’s you and me are the key stakeholders and funders.
We are simply the Scottish fan’s Trade Union and are free to join and always will be free.
If you’re a member thanks, football needs you and what you think and want, if you’re not a member then please come aboard, it’s a numbers game and the bigger we are the more clout we have with politicians and the football authorities.
We fight your corner and get listened to because when fans get together we can and do see the bigger picture.
Football needs to see the bigger picture, more often.
Andy’s Album of the Week
Various: The Art of McCartney
Last week we celebrated the wonderful talents of Brian Wilson and especially Pet Sounds.
He would have been 83 on Wednesday.
Macca was born in Liverpool just 2 days after Brian Wilson and is 83 today so today’s album challenge was to find a way to link two musical maestros.
‘’The Art’ allows that.
42 tracks by an array of well-known musical Artists celebrating 50 years of James Paul’s music and the late Brian Wilson gives a wonderful rendition of Macca’s ‘Wanderlust’, on track 5.
Wanderlust was the boat Paul and Family ended up on during a recording session holiday in the Virgin Islands.
Lucky Bs.
The track, not so well known, was in the film and album ‘Give My Regards to Broadway’ .
I love this album.
It was new to me this week but it’s like an old pair of slippers and didn’t need broken in.
It did however receive mixed acclaim and criticism on release.
Some saw it as a compelling homage and celebration of his tuneful genius.
Others cynically saw it as a ‘rent a celeb’ karaoke for naked commercial reasons.
As I said, I love it and my only constructive criticism is there some tracks missing.
‘Monkberry Moon Delight’ from his wonderful ‘Ram’ Album would be one, maybe sung by Paulo Nutini.
Also his USA Civil Rights Anthem ‘Blackbird’ should be there.
And Julie Fowlis should have sung it, maybe even in gaelic like she did as a promotional CD when she was just arriving on the scene.
Julie’s ‘Lon-dubh’ is quite magical and the music industry and the media in general didn’t know how to react.
Idiots.
I don’t think I ever heard it on the radio until Ali Smith had it as one of her tracks on Desert Island Discs.
The Art of McCartney would have been even more Artful with Julie’s tribute to Blackbird.
Appendix
The Hamilton Board Statement
To our valued supporters, partners, and the wider football community,
Hamilton Academical Football Club today confirms that, due to circumstances beyond our immediate control, we will temporarily relocate our home fixtures away from the Hamilton area for the 2025/26 & 2026/27 seasons respectively.
We have agreed a two-year lease with North Lanarkshire Council to play our home matches at Broadwood Stadium, with an option to extend for a third year if necessary. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity and support extended by our hosts. However, we also want to be absolutely clear: our long-term ambition remains to return to the Hamilton area at the earliest opportunity. Stronger, more stable, and better equipped to serve the club and its community.
This relocation has not been undertaken lightly. As part of our agreement, the club was required to commit to paying a full year of rental, operational, and security costs upfront, a significant financial obligation that has had immediate consequences for our liquidity. Compounding this challenge, since May we have been unable to sell season tickets, generate commercial income, or secure a shirt sponsor while awaiting formal confirmation of our league participation for the upcoming campaign.
Despite these clear disadvantages, we remain undeterred.
This move marks a turning point. A rebirth for Hamilton Academical Football Club. Our time away will be used strategically: to rebuild the club’s financial strength, establish proper governance, and put in place a modern, accountable Board of Directors that will uphold the highest standards of compliance, professionalism, and ambition.
We are committed to becoming a club of integrity, purpose, and innovation. Not just for our fans, but for the wider sporting community. In this spirit, we extend an open hand to potential partners, allies, and fellow clubs who share our vision for sustainable, community-driven football.
We understand the emotional impact this temporary move may have. We apologise to our loyal supporters for the inconvenience, but we promise this: we will fight for our future, and when we return to Hamilton, it will be with a club that is revitalised and stronger in every sense.
This is not the end of our story, it is the beginning of a bold new chapter.
With gratitude and determination,
Board of Directors
Hamilton Academical Football Club
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