Vaclav Cerny Watergate farce distracts from missile shame

So, Václav Černý got a bit carried away after Rangers scored a last-minute winner at the home of their bitter city rivals, and sprayed some water at the Celtic fans seated behind the dugouts.

It was childish, daft, misguided, all of that. But a criminal offence? Come on now. Have we really become so po-faced?

I understand the argument that while his actions may have been harmless in a literal sense, he could have figuratively been spraying kerosene onto a blaze that was already threatening to get out of control, and that some ugly scenes could have been sparked by his actions. Fine.

But does that not say more about the mindset of some fans than it does about what Černý actually did?

Ever since I can remember attending football matches, I have witnessed this phenomenon, where fans feel free to dish out all sorts of vile abuse towards players but are then morally outraged when one dares to have a nibble back.

I remember watching Dundee United winger Andy McLaren, for instance, taking all sorts of stick one afternoon at Fir Park over his alcohol addiction, before those self-same fans called for the police to intervene when United stuck one in the pokey and he held his arms aloft in front of the home support.

(Image: Craig Foy - SNS Group) The difference in this case of course was that Černý wasn’t just giving a bit of verbals back, but hearing people describing his actions as ‘assault’ is rather extracting a different sort of water altogether.

If you are outraged by what Černý did, let me ask you this. Would you still be so upset if it was someone in a green and white jersey who had done it at Ibrox? Forgive me, but I have my doubts.

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Whataboutery is of course rampant when it comes to the never-ending Old Firm tit-for-tat, but points raised about the conduct of Leigh Griffiths in this fixture in years gone past are valid enough.

His tying of a Celtic scarf to the post at Ibrox and mimicking wiping his nose on a Rangers corner flag were stupid acts, and provocative too, and could have sparked unsavoury scenes. How did you feel about that?

My guess is that if you are a Rangers supporter you were probably outraged, while if you are a Celtic supporter, you probably thought it was all a great laugh. While the rest of us probably thought they were the actions of a dafty, and got on with our lives.

Just as Griffiths was by his own manager, Brendan Rodgers, back then (to no avail, sadly) Černý will no doubt have been taken aside this week by Barry Ferguson and told in no uncertain terms that his conduct was unacceptable. For the avoidance of doubt, despite some earlier flippancy on my part, it was of course out of line and unbecoming of a Rangers player.

Hopefully the penny will drop with Černý, and it wouldn’t hurt to douse the row if he held his hands up to his error of judgment and publicly apologised to any fan who was sprayed with the water.

But if common sense is to prevail, then barring perhaps some internal punishment such as a fine, that should be that.

What this whole hullabaloo is rather obscuring is the far more serious point about the throwing of missiles on Sunday towards the Rangers players as they celebrated their winning goal in front of their own fans in the corner.

(Image: SNS Group) Not water, but objects that could actually do serious damage if they made contact with someone.

This has been a worrying trend in this fixture over the past few years, and actually, across football in general. We've seen lighters, vapes, coins, bottle-openers and even a pie thrown at Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland, who caught it rather impressively all the same and took a bite.

At Ibrox a couple of years back, the second half restart had to be delayed because some numbnut had thrown and smashed a glass bottle in Joe Hart’s goalmouth.

The Celtic physio was also hit on the head by a bottle, needing four stitches and being left with a permanent scar, while the perpetrator received a jail term and a five-year football banning order for what the judge called his ‘reprehensible conduct’.

It was good then to see Rangers condemn such behaviour so strongly in a statement released yesterday, after the club were hit by a UEFA sanction for the throwing of objects in their recent match against Fenerbahce.

This week, we have seen objects raining down on Rangers players from the Celtic end, and instead of focusing our outrage on this minority of eejits, we are instead spending our days engaged in a tedious debate about a moment of comparatively harmless stupidity – regrettable as it may have been - from a player.

As the man at the centre of the real Watergate scandal once famously proclaimed (sort of), Černý is not a crook. Although, admittedly, the Rangers winger can assert that with a little more credibility.

What really would be criminal though is if those throwing objects weren't identified and dealt with in the strongest possible terms, and if this recent spate of missile throwing was allowed to continue unchecked.

AND ANOTHER THING…

I don’t think John Carver’s comments on Lennon Miller this week could be described – as I have seen from a few commentators – as ‘typically Scottish’, given the fact that the Scotland assistant isn’t actually, er, Scottish.

Nevertheless, it was a little disappointing to see Carver – who is a good man, incidentally - try to clip the wings of the gifted 18-year-old, who had apparently caused a bit of a stir in the national team camp with his claim last week that he could be the best player in the squad in the near future.

By calling that a mistake, it leaves Carver open to accusations of having a ‘dinosaur’ mentality, and of holding a burgeoning talent back. The Motherwell kid is a hugely gifted player, and nobody who has ever met him could describe him as remotely cocky. On the contrary, he seems quiet, modest, and if anything, a little shy.

On the pitch though, he is self-assured, and I hope that this public dressing down – well-intentioned or not - doesn’t dent the confidence of one of the nation’s brightest prospects.

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