Hello hello, how do you do, we are the boys in Royal Blue

I do like this story from the BBC of celtic complaining of vile chants, how delightfully delicious. If there were no vile chanting between celtic and Rangers what would be the fun of going to a game, same as with hibs and Hearts, I mean, it is not as though the football is any good - it's Scotland for god sakes. But what really surprises is that celtic supporters were complaining, did someone explain to them the words of the chants, I can't believe they were able to make them out themselves.

But anyway I am generally disinclined to support any breaking of the symbolic links between teams and their supporters. In Australia we had teams which represented both religion and nationality, but this has since been outlawed and no team can have the colours, emblems or names of a particular nation or group. But breaking these links with community just makes the game less interesting, if the team is not representing you, but just a location or a name, where is the passion. The players too if they are not linked in some way become subsiduary, they come and go, get bought and sold and who cares.
The ending of mass football hooliganism I suppose therefore didn't come about through police action or social change, it was just that the teams became not worth fighting over.