Two Aberdeen men who made offensive comments and sang sectarian songs at a city-centre nightclub have paid the price.
Neil Brown, 23, and Matthew Thomson, 20, appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court for sentencing yesterday after previously admitting breaking the peace at The Tunnels on January 18.
Dozens of Celtic supporters were in the Carnegie Brae club at the time for a charity event in memory of football legend Tommy Burns, who died of cancer last year.
The offence also took place just 14 hours before Aberdeen played Celtic in a league match at Pittodrie.
Yesterday, fiscal depute Jim Craigen told the court that Brown and Thomson, with others, tried to gain entry to The Tunnels but argued with staff about the entrance fee.
They were heard making taunts about the death of former Celtic player and manager Mr Burns and used “abusive terms” in reference to Catholics.
Mr Craigen added the group, who were caught on CCTV in the foyer of the venue, also began singing The Famine is Over, Why Don’t You Go Home? – an anti-Catholic song.
Defence agent Iain McGregor said Brown, of 9 Nigg Way, Aberdeen, had consumed a “significant quantity of alcohol” during the day and had decided to go to The Tunnels to see his brother’s band play.
He said: “Brown tells me that he went to The Tunnels with absolutely no idea that a charity event was taking place.” It was a “spontaneous” decision by Brown to go the venue and had nothing to do with the next day’s football match, or the charity event, he said.
Defence agent Neil McRobert, acting for Thomson, of 49 Maberly Street, Aberdeen, echoed Mr McGregor’s submissions and confirmed his client had also been drinking for much of the day.
Sheriff Kieran McLernan described the pair’s behaviour as “disrespectful and reprehensible” but said he could not impose football banning orders because there was no evidence the incident had been motivated by the football match.
He said: “This behaviour is highly offensive. It attracts significant public disapproval in a multicultural society such as Aberdeen.
“You made disparaging and belittling references about a condition which devastates families perhaps more than any other medical condition.”
He added that making negative comments about a “well-respected and much-liked man, whose demise was a sad loss to the whole football community in Scotland”, was also unacceptable.
First offender Brown was fined £800, while Thomson, who committed the offence while on bail, was fined £1,000.