Hugh Keevins: The game is nothing without without well behaved fans

The game, as the late Jock Stein once observed with unerring accuracy, is nothing without fans. The sentiment he expressed is so important to Celtic they used it as an inscription on the statue of Stein which takes pride of place outside of Celtic Park’s main door.

That publicly expressed appreciation of fans and the atmosphere they create at matches didn’t prevent the then Celtic manager from one day famously vaulting a barrier at Stirling Albion and cuffing one of his own supporters’ ears for indulging in the kind of singing that Jock felt damaged the good name of the club who employed him.

Jock understood that criticism was acceptable if it was delivered by a quality source and that support for his team had to be of a certain quality at the same time.

Which is why the great man wouldn’t have been up in arms over any suggestion that police will employ every surveillance method at their disposal in order to help achieve good public order on the day when Celtic play Rangers next month.

The sides will come together at Hampden on April 17 for a Scottish Cup semi - final tie which will be the focus of attention for a UK-wide television audience.

The occasion has put Police Scotland on an anti-terrorist footing, using methods employed to check on private internet forums to ensure officers are in the right place at the right time to minimise violence on match day.

If you have nothing to hide in that regard then you’ll be dis-inclined to make any loud protests about football fans being treated like common criminals.

If you’re a normal, law abiding citizen you’ll presumably be grateful that the forces of law and order are doing everything in their power to make sure that you, and those closest to you, can actually go to the match with the comfort of knowing that everything is being done to guarantee your safety.

If you’re serruptitiously planning to make an extreme nuisance of yourself on the day of the game then you’ll think twice for fear of being detected, which is the whole idea of the police exercise.

If the day ever comes when we accept that violence is an integral part of the Old Firm derby without doing anything and everything to prevent it from happening then we’ll have let ourselves, and the game, down.

There are times when fans can get away with the innocent business of being two faced.

Mark Warburton had a magic hat when his side were two goals up early on in Friday night’s game at Falkirk, but he had swopped that for a dunce’s cap by the time the home team scored three goals in the last eighteen minutes of play to win.

The magician was apparently naïve and tactically suspect by the time we got to the callers on Superscoreboad the following day.

Celtic were stuttering their way towards dropping a crucial two points at Kilmarnock on Saturday afternoon, a potentially damaging draw within the context of the title race, before Tom Rogic conjured up a spectacular goal which changed the course of the game and the progress of the championship at the same time.

The same supporters who hailed that goal in the dying seconds of regulation time with an unfettered display of unadulterated joy would have been baying for blood at time-up had it not arrived.

Those who were there in Ayrshire will deny that could ever have been the case, but the reality of the situation is something different.

And you must have a certain degree of sympathy for Dundee United’s manager, Mixu Paatelainen, in the wake of his Sunday spat with Dundee fans during, and after, the Tayside derby at Tannadice.

The away fans behind Mixu’s dug-out taunt him mercilessly throughout the match. He asks for, but doesn’t get, some kind of action to be taken by stewards. And then the police come and have words with the manager when his side scores a late equalising goal and he gestures towards his tormentors.

Where’s the fairness?

If Mixu gets his collar felt by the SFA for anything he did on Sunday then it’s an act of utter hypocrisy.

But what happened in Falkirk, Ayrshire and on Tayside at the weekend is only a relatively harmless demonstration of how supporters can be moved from one expression of raw emotion to another in the space of seconds.

Premeditated violence and disruption of public order is another matter entirely. Police Scotland have cancelled all leave on April 17. Officers from outwith Glasgow could even be seconded to the city on the day of the match to help keep the peace.

Should those plans not be a source of embarrassment?

The game is nothing without civilised, law abiding fans who allow others to watch without fear of physical violence.