During last night’s heated NBA playoffs, a 26-year-old man tried to assault Celtic manager Doc Rivers, who — wait, I’m not reading this right. European papers never provide context, they just assume I know who everybody is. No, Glasgow’s Celtic F.C. manager Neil Lennon was assaulted by a fan during a Scottish football match on Wednesday night, landing a glancing blow before being taken down by security.
The best part is that the guy was attacking on behalf of a team called “Heart.” The full name of the team is “Heart of Midlothian,” which sounds like something Dracula would task you to find. Check out a video recap of the incident below.
Lennon has had to live with round-the-clock security after past death threats (including one really serious one from Mark David Chapman) and f**king BOMBS being sent to his house, so you can imagine how shaken the incident has left him. The attacker, John Wilson of Edinburgh, has been charged with the two very awesome European charges of “breach of the peace aggravated by religious prejudice” and “assault aggravated by religious prejudice.” That’s different from the similar-sounding “aggravated assault by religious prejudice,” which I’m pretty sure is crucifixion.
So, that being said, I’m glad nobody got crucified.
[via Daily Mail]
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Yet another disgraceful incident in the chequered history of Scottish football. The SFA, SPL, Scottish Parliament and police need to make a real effort to stamp this bigotry out rather than having another discussion that ultimately achieves nothing. The daily mail is a terrible source though, check out some of their most highly rated comments for bigotry of a different kind.
It’s important to note that this may stem from the fact that Lennon is from Northern Ireland, which is where the cries of bigotry are coming from.
Pardon, a Catholic from Northern Ireland to get all the details out there.
Yep. As a wee helper for non-bigots rangers are the Protestant team and Celtic are the Catholic team. Celtic fans tend to wave the Irish flag and Rangers fans tend to wave the union flag or the red hand of ulster. It’s a real barrel of laughs.
You think that was bad, you should have seen the fans fighting before the match! Those are usually better than the actual football matches.
Are they sure it was sectarian violence? Unlike Celtic and Rangers fans, Hearts and Hibs supporters are real football fans, so, it could have actually been football related. . . *Hearts apologist*
I pretty sure Hearts are the Protestant team and the Hibees are the Catholics in Edinburgh. Who knows what was going through his head, probably not a lot.