Celtic and Rangers showpiece was turned into a shi****w because of Scottish football’s fatal fascination with anti-social behaviour - Hugh Keevins

If you had wished for a domestic game to best promote Brand Scotland, it would have looked a lot like last weekend’s Old Firm derby. Five goals shared in an end-to-end thriller.

A contender for goal of the season from Rangers captain James Tavernier. And the inevitable controversy created by the decision to disallow a goal from Alfredo Morelos. A shining example of two teams’ superiority and ability to entertain in a league awash with mediocrity elsewhere. But I didn’t even know the SFA had someone called a “security and integrity manager” until it was revealed he, or maybe it’s she, was helping police with their inquiries into the threats made against the match referee Kevin Clancy and his family.

The SFA employee’s name, incidentally, went undisclosed – presumably to keep that person out of harm’s way. A showpiece had been turned into a shi****w, if you’ll pardon the expression, because of Scottish football’s fatal fascination with anti-social behaviour. It wasn’t the scale of the offences committed against Clancy that was depressing, though God knows what the hundreds of “potentially criminal in nature” messages must have read like. It was the scale of the offenders’ list that concerned me.

Hundreds of what SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell described as “threatening and abusive” messages directed at an official and his totally innocent family. Hundreds.

This wasn’t some random punter seeing the world through tinted specs in the colour of his favourite team and howling at the moon. Or your local neighbourhood conspiracy theorist convinced everybody’s out to get his club and with boxes of evidence to prove it.

Hundreds of people contributed towards what Maxwell said amounted to the referee’s “safety being compromised”.