HATE BRIGADE: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators vent their wrath against Israel outside the Hamilton ground
by Marc Cowen

A stunned Israeli team manager Eli Rozen told me: "We came here to play football. We have to put up with these problems from the Palestinians in Israel, but why should we have to put up with it here in Scotland?"

ISRAELI'S young footballers faced a barrage of abuse on Wednesday in some of the most shameful scenes ever seen at a British football ground. They were greeted by a hail of boos and jeers as they walked onto the pitch at Hamilton for the Under-21 international against Scotland. The stunned Israelis stood proudly to attention as Hatikvah was played. But pro-Palestinian protesters screamed abuse at them throughout the national anthem. As the match got under way, spectators were shocked by the level of noise and the ferocity of the demonstrators' chants. "Terrorists" and "scum", screamed the mob. And when an Israeli player was brought down, there was a huge cheer.

The demonstrators had been warned against raising the Palestinian flag. But they still brought enough coloured balloons to form a makeshift one. The disgraceful scenes were seen throughout Israel as the match was being televised there. Before the "friendly", which Scotland won 2-1, many pro-Palestinian speakers screamed outrage into megaphones. They included the SNP's Lloyd Quinin, who claimed the Scottish Football Association had "disgraced Scottish football" by agreeing to stage the match. The MSP called George Bush an idiot for believing that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon was a man of peace and condemned Tony Blair for supporting the American government.

"We are dealing with criminals," he ranted. Quinin accused the Israeli players of being "ethnic cleansers" and "genocide merchants" and screamed that Israelis should "not be allowed to play football, chess or even draughts in this country again". Other speakers claimed that 21 of the 22 footballers in the Israeli party had served in the army and should be tried for war crimes. Still more raged that the players were nothing but militia men, "murdering Palestinian kids while they tried to play football".

Before the match, 200 protesters had shocked the Israelis outside the Ballast stadium with chants of "Free Palestine" and "Victory to the intifada". A stunned Israeli team manager Eli Rozen told me: "We came here to play football. We have to put up with these problems from the Palestinians in Israel, but why should we have to put up with it here in Scotland?"

Original in Glaswegian, no longer available online