Hearts win marred by racist chants

By: Ian Rose | September 4th, 2007

Struggling Hearts, described by many in the Scottish media as a “crisis team”, got an invaluable win yesterday, their first of the campaign, 2-0 away at Motherwell. But, as is too often the case in football, and far too often the case in Scottish football, the goals weren’t making the headlines. Motherwell is being investigated for racist chants which were sung in the direction of Hearts star midfielder Laryea Kingston. Kingston, a Ghana international, scored one goal and assisted the other in probably his strongest performance since signing on a permanent basis with Hearts. This sort of situation is always serious, but is even more dire in view of Motherwell’s poor record of such incidents in the past year. During this spring’s Scottish Cup run, St. Johnstone striker Jason Scotland was met with similar taunts during his visit to Fir Park, an incident that Motherwell owner John Boyle said “tarnished the name of our club.” Unfortunately, today, Motherwell’s name is further tarnished, as is the name of Scottish football. More important than either of those, though, is the fact that one of the international stars of the SPL, exactly the sort of player the league should be trying to attract, has been deeply insulted. There is no place for this sort of thing anywhere, and the fans responsible should be banned not only from Fir Park but from European football. They can spout their racist nonsense at their television, or their radio. The problem is that it remains so hard to identify individual fans. I would ask that if any Motherwell fans have any information regarding the seat location or description of the people involved, please get in touch with your club and pass that information along. Let’s do what we can to get these hateful bastards out of our SPL parks.