This is obviously a sensitive topic, but both Mr Kearney and Mr Salmond are talking shit, for reasons which I will explain shortly.

For those unaware of the particular context of the "Old Firm" game during which this incident took place, this is a useful summary. Rangers and Celtic are traditionally associated with Glasgow's Protestant and Catholic communities respectively and, as Scotland's two most successful football clubs, the rivalry between them is intense, to put it mildly, and while in this secular age the religious tensions in the city are not what they were, there is undoubtedly a strong sectarian undercurrent in the clashes which don't require much provocation to bring to the surface.

Rangers fans have recently been in trouble for singing "The Billy Boys", a song which can be heard at many football grounds in Scotland and England, but which in its Ibrox rendition contains the line "Up to our knees in Fenian blood" which is generally taken as an anti-Catholic reference. For their part, the away supporters who follow Celtic on their travels do a charming line in pro-IRA ditties.

This incident took place in the second half of last season's third Old Firm derby at Rangers' Ibrox Park (with four league meetings and two domestic cup competitions, the two clubs can meet as often as six times a year). Celtic led 1-0 at the break, a result which, coupled with their very healthy lead in the league, would basically put their rivals out of the running for another year. As such, it was a disgruntled Rangers crowd that "welcomed" Celtic onto the pitch for the second half, and a visiting team in celebratory mood.

This context helps explain what happened next. Artur Boruc, the Celtic goalkeeper, trotted towards his goal in front of the massed ranks of Rangers fans, who gave him hearty abuse as fans do. Boruc smiled, walked into his goal facing the fans, looked up at the crowd and slowly and deliberately crossed himself while still grinning at them. He then followed this up with a "wanker" gesture to the supporters. Only then did he turn and concern himself with the imminent business at hand of winning a football match. (Update: I should state for the sake of balance that I am informed by my Celtic-supporting friends that he performs 'a similar' ritual before each game at Celtic Park too, though I rather doubt that the obscene hand gesture forms part of the routine on those occasions.)

I'm able to describe the incident because, unlike Peter Kearney of the Catholic Church, and Alex Salmond of the SNP, I was present at the match and saw it - at fairly close hand. While I can be accused of bias, therefore - there are very few neutrals at a Rangers - Celtic game, and I wasn't one - I am not speaking from the position of ignorance inhabited by those two gentlemen, Mr Salmond in particular. I am trying to describe the incident, and my reaction to it, as honestly as I can.

Listening to Alex Salmond, and reading the initial reports on the BBC and elsewhere, you would think that Boruc had been cautioned for a private expression of faith. This is not the case. Had he blessed himself as he came on the pitch, as footballers round the world do, or had done so in his goal as the second half kicked off, as also occasionally happens, I would totally and unconditionally have defended his right to do so. Any police involvement would of course have been monstrous. But that is not what happened. (Update: The BBC report has since been updated to make reference to the "other gestures" which Boruc made, and Jack McConnell has suggested rather acidly that politicians should think before they open their mouths, the breathtaking hypocrisy of which we will set aside for the time being.)

If you're reading this and shaking your head in disbelief, or disgust, that someone cannot make the sign of the cross without its being interpreted as a provocation, I don't wholly disagree. There is still a great deal of intolerance in Scottish society as a whole, and there's no doubt that the ecumenicalism of some Rangers fans leaves a great deal to be desired. On the other hand, the manager of Rangers, and at least half the first team, are Roman Catholics, but this makes not the slightest difference to their standing among the fans. And as BBC Scotland has pointed out this lunchtime, the former Rangers captain Lorenzo Amoruso, an Italian Catholic, habitually crossed himself before matches without adverse comment (in Amo's case it was his shoddy passing, slapdash marking, and habit of putting free kicks into the Clyde, that riled the fans).

There is plenty of precedent for footballers to get in trouble for inflammatory gestures at Old Firm games. In 1987, four players were hauled up in court on breach of the peace charges, including the England no2 goalkeeper Chris Woods, and Rangers and England international defender Graham Roberts, who had stood in that same goal and conducted the Ibrox choir in the rendition of the Orange anthem "The Sash My Father Wore" during a tempestuous Old Firm game. A decade later, another famous Englishman, Paul Gascoigne, incurred the beaks' wrath by miming the playing of a flute, a reference to the loyalist flute band tradition. (In the almighty row that broke out after that incident, Gazza was disciplined internally by Rangers and no further action was taken, but the hostile reaction, including a couple of verbal death threats, ensured the message got through even to this most cerebrally challenged of footballers that he had crossed an important line.)

Is conducting the crowd in song at a football match, or playing an imaginary musical instrument, a criminal offence? Should it even be worthy of comment? In the general run of things, of course not. Supporters give opposition players a great deal of abuse, but cry foul whenever there is the slightest reaction. This is clearly a double standard. But there is a duty on players, wherever they ply their trade, to be responsible when on the field: and in the white-hot atmosphere of a Rangers-Celtic game, this is doubly true. Context is all.

Many will feel that getting the police involved in this incident is giving the green light to bigots to try and stop players from honestly expressing their faith, and that would indeed be a terribly negative consequence. But this game needs, as I've argued, to be seen as the sporting manifestation of a wider issue; the Old Firm game is an astonishingly high-intensity clash, and its effects can be felt in terms of sporadic disorder throughout the West of Scotland for many hours after a game; anecdotal evidence suggests that violence and stabbings experience a "spike" on Old Firm weekends.

Boruc's actions need to be seen in this context. A police caution was, in my opinion, an excessive reaction to what is, or should be, a harmless gesture; neither Strathclyde's finest, nor the fans who reported the incident, emerge from this sorry affair in a very positive light. But let us be clear about this; the BBC report is inaccurate, the comments of Alex Salmond ignorant in the extreme, and those who've described this as a footballer being "cautioned for being Christian" are, in my view, missing the bigger picture, as I've tried to argue. The player was not simply "exercising his human rights"; he was trying to provoke the crowd, and must take his share of responsibility. In Glasgow, such provocation can have terrible consequences. It is not, unfortunately, just a football match.

// posted by Mr Eugenides on 26.8.06