Is It Time Gentlemen Please?

I was a working journalist at Hampden on the day, thirty-four years ago, that brought an act of Parliament into being.

The Criminal Justice(Scotland) Act took alcohol out of Scotland's football grounds and now the groundswell of opinion is that it's time for this piece of government legislation to be repealed.

Forgive me if I don't join in with that campaign in a wholehearted kind of way.

Hampden was, in the immediate aftermath of Celtic's extra-time win over Rangers in the 1980 Scottish Cup final, an extremely ugly place to be.

Police batons were ordered to be drawn on rioting fans for the first time in Glasgow since protesters were similarly treated during demonstrations at the time of the General Strike in 1926.

A daily newspaper photographer, Eric Craig, had his skull fractured by one of the stray bottles propelled into the air as rival groups of fans fought on the pitch while mounted police tried to prise them apart.

When order was eventually restored and the awfulness of that day was debated in the House of Commons, it was decided alcohol consumption was one of the root causes of a serious disturbance and booze was banned as a consequence.

The move to bring drink back into our grounds was started by Barry Hearn's address to the first ever SFA Convention at the National Stadium last Wednesday. Now it's been siezed upon as a way of confronting the problem of dwindling attendances at games, even if the response from politicians and Police Scotland has been lukewarm going on openly hostile.

Hearn is as outstanding a communicator as he is a promoter of sporting events and the pleasure is always mine whenever we meet, but there are points which Barry made that deserve greater scrutiny.

He argues that if he can have booze readily available when he puts on a darts match in the Hydro, and it was Hearn who estimated that customers on those nights consume an average of eleven pints each, then why can't football fans enjoy the same access to a tipple?

If you've ever been to one of those occasions, or a Matchroom Sport promoted boxing event, you'll know that being in that environment when drink is readily available to an already pumped up audience is not for the faint hearted.

"Times have changed" is the expression consistently used by those who want the booze ban abolished and the towels to come off the pumps at the bar.

But have people changed at the same time?

Could we absolutely guarantee that the combination of alcohol and football wouldn't have a negative effect on this generation of fans and lead to more unedifying spectacles?

And are we certain that it's the lack of a modest refreshment inside our football grounds that's partly responsible for the downturn in attendances?

Celtic won their seventh league match in a row when they overcame Motherwell at Fir Park on Saturday. But the crowd, including a sizeable and extremely vocal travelling support it would have to be said, still came to less than eight thousand people.

Is that because drink wasn't available or are we going to have to look more deeply into the reasons for public apathy where our game is concerned?

Celtic could hardly do more to present a positive front, being top of the league and on course to have a crack at wining the treble, but where did the Motherwell fans go?

That's why it must have been galling for the Rangers supporters to read about a Barbados-based billionaire wanting to buy his way into Scottish football.

A Lanarkshire-born man with wealth off the scale, a genuine one this time and not the guy who turned out to be much less than was written about Craig Whyte, apparently wants to buy his way into Motherwell.

Les Hutchison doesn't want into Ibrox. He'd rather have access to all areas at Fir Park while Rangers crowd against Cowdenbeath at the weekend hit a thirty year low.

Disillusionment created by seemingly endless strife inside the corridors of power at Ibrox, plus the discord created by having a team on the park that can't be trusted to bodyswerve humiliation when it stares them in the face, has started to make Rangers an unattractive proposition for their own people.

And they've got streets full of public houses within walking distance of their ground, so it can't be the lack of strong drink that's weakened Rangers' supporter base.

Maybe now all of those associated with the club should raise a glass to Mike Ashley. He's emerged as the only show in town where Rangers are concerned.

The billionaire owner of Newcastle United is Rangers best bet of turning round the club, on and off the park.

Disgruntled Rangers supporter groups can threaten boycotts of Ashley's sports shops and publicly denounce the man for not having the club's best interests at heart, but that's not to say they're accurate.

He can provide money, of which there is none at Ibrox, and Ashley's English club can also give Ally McCoist the loan of players who can improve what he's currently got at his disposal.

That's why it would be handy to know what level of influence Ashley will be allowed to exert at Rangers in the immediate future.

One of Hearn's unarguable statements was that it was time for people in authority to get off their backsides and do something about strengthening Scottish football.

Why is it taking so long, therefore, to find out what happened when the SFA asked Ashley what his intentions were with regard to Rangers?

Did he reply? Did he tell them to get stuffed? I think we should know, and the sooner the better.

In the meantime, let's hope Les Hutchison genuinely does want to bankroll a better tomorrow for Motherwell because the club's future could be uncertain if the public unveiling of a supposedly reclusive personality is what actually scares him off.

Money would be a start for all of our toiling clubs, and not necessarily the takings from the bar on match days.

Our glass will be half full, or half empty, depending on a sober appraisal of where we're going wrong.