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Bill Leckie hits out at Rangers fans after Aberdeen ticket saga caught out
Bill Leckie has slammed “daft” Rangers fans who bought tickets in the Aberdeen end for the Viaplay Cup final at Hampden Park after they were placed on general sale.
The Scottish Sun journalist claimed fans would have deserved to have been battered, lifted, ejected, banned, or all of the above if they had infiltrated the Aberdeen end.
Leckie claimed that the fans have taken a rivalry between the clubs which is already deeply unpleasant, and inflamed the situation even more with this latest controversy.
Writing in his column for the Scottish Sun [19 November], Leckie shared: “Aberdeen have taken plenty stick for the ticketing blunder that saw Rangers fans infiltrate their ranks for next month’s Viaplay Cup final. Rightly so, too.
“They’ve openly admitted that putting a batch on general sale opened them up to trouble and was a daft idea. But they’re still not a tenth as daft as the Bluenoses who bought those tickets.
“I mean, what did they think was going to happen when they turned up at Hampden? That the Red Army would applaud their cheek and offer to buy them a Bovril?
“No, they’d have been battered, lifted, ejected, banned or possibly all of the above. And they’d have deserved whatever came their way for taking a rivalry that’s already deeply unpleasant and inflaming it even more.”
A ridiculous situation
The whole debacle with the ticket situation for the final is, quite frankly, ridiculous on all sides. From the Aberdeen board who thought it would be a good idea to make the tickets available to anybody, meaning real fans missed out, to the Rangers fans snapping the tickets up.
It has added an unnecessary and unpleasant level to what was already a tense and heated situation, not only in terms of sporting merit with major silverware on the line but also in the stands between fans with whom there is plenty of bad blood.
The fact that it was allowed to happen on either side of the coin is unbelievable, and the attempts to retract the error have arguably made it worse, with some genuine Aberdeen fans who had secured a ticket now being left without.
Those 17,500 available tickets have added another layer to the passion and flame behind this game, and it will likely be a tense atmosphere among fans before we even kick off, with plenty on the line.
In other Rangers news, one journalist has raged at the outcome of this controversy.