KEVIN GALLACHER
Pitch invasion gave me the fear – you don’t know who fans are
As a former player, the scenes at Celtic Park last weekend gave me the fear.
I was involved in final-day drama when Blackburn Rovers won the title in 1994-95.
Manchester United were right on our heels and it was tense. We had to go to Liverpool, and they were at West Ham.
We had all seen Eric Cantona hammered for his notorious kung-fu kick on a fan at Crystal Palace at the end of January.
United suspended him for the rest of the season, the FA subsequently banned him for eight months, he was fined £30,000 and France took the armband from him.
Even so, I am not sure my teammates would have kept their hands by their sides had we lost and fans came on the pitch and goaded us.
To be honest, I reckon about half of them would have reacted.
You just ignore teens, but if it was grown men who should have known better, that could have been a different story.
As a professional footballer, you know when there is a pitch invasion you must take responsibility to get yourself off the park as quickly as possible.
You are assured that the stewards and police will be there to help you do so and, in fairness, I did see plenty of stewards trying to assist Hearts players at Celtic Park.
But it is also true that it can be mayhem out there.
Last weekend it was only natural that Hearts players wanted to go to their fans to thank them for being there to support them, for doing so all season.
From where they were in the ground, off to one side, it was hard to get down the tunnel.
If people approach you as you are trying to get back, swearing at you and sticking fingers up in your face, then what are you supposed to do?
It is an exceedingly difficult one because you have no idea who the person is in front of you.
What you do know is they are someone who has ignored all the warnings that going on the pitch can get you excluded from going to football matches for life!
I say that because they are everywhere at stadiums these days; you cannot miss them.
That tells you there is a recklessness there because there might be times when leniency is applied, but there will be plenty of others when it is not.
At Celtic Park you had a home crowd all taking delight in reminding Hearts they had failed at the final hurdle.
But, with us in ’95, it was the opposite – Liverpool fans applauded us for winning the title because they had not wanted Manchester United to do it.
Their feelings towards it made the atmosphere surreal with both sides of the crowd shouting for us.
In fact, many even stayed behind for our half-lap of honour.
As I say it was weird. I know we had all been nervous about how the
day was going to play out. We had a few injuries and we were certainly worried about the result.
In the build-up people looking from the outside all seemed to assume that it would be a walkover for us – that Liverpool would want to see Kenny Dalglish, one of their favourite sons, succeed as manager of Rovers.
Especially in a title chase with United, their historic rivals.
Of course, though, top professionals are going to take any notice of such sentimentalism.
They know they have a job to do, and they go out and do it to the best of their ability.
They beat us 2-1 with Jamie Redknapp scoring a free-kick right
at the death. To be fair, it was good enough to win any game.
We were in the dugout and there we got tipped that Manchester United’s game had finished ahead of ours and was a draw – which meant we were champions!
We were dancing in the dugout and the next thing you know Chris Sutton was dancing with Alan Shearer and Colin Hendry.
They knew what we knew, which was that our result did not matter because, with United dropping two points to West Ham, it was all over and we had done it!
The contrast between our experience and what Hearts experienced last weekend could not be more marked.
Then, in another of the twists and turns we have all become accustomed to this season, England has been robbed of the last-day drama they had been waiting for.
Manchester City’s failure to beat Bournemouth sends Arsenal into today’s away game at Crystal Palace as champions.
Credit to them for getting over the line because, after all the near-things in recent years, that is absolutely what they needed to do.
It was especially impressive after their double defeats to City, first in the League Cup final and in the league. City won the FA Cup as well, but their foot slipped off the accelerator in the chase to complete the Treble. To be honest, I was not
too surprised they came up short at Bournemouth, who have been excellent.
What I could not believe last week, though, was the decision to throw Southampton out of the play-offs.
You used to get scouts going to games, now we have analysts coming to spy on training sessions.
I have no doubt that we used to get them watching us at Blackburn. I say that because we trained on a public park and would get fans coming along to see us.
Times change and we are now at a stage where we have a judgment costing a club over £200 million.
As with events at Celtic Park, we have not heard the last of it.