Former Rangers star Mark Hateley calls for action to prevent the bad old days being here to stay

As a player, Mark Hateley experienced some of the worst Scottish football hooliganism of the last few decades.

He saw a golf ball, with nails hammered through it, thrown at his Rangers team-mate, Ally McCoist, by an Aberdeen follower at Ibrox in 1993.

In the reverse fixture at Pittodrie a year later, he was kicked as he stopped to sign autographs outside the ground.

Having seen how hard the game had to work to get on top of the problems back then, Hateley has found the current upsurge in fan disorder deeply worrying.

“There has to be legislation,” he said.

“At the moment, I think people are doing what they are doing because they know what the punishment will be.

“For a long time, hooliganism seemed to have gone out of the game.

“We got all-seater stadia and the feeling seemed to be: ‘Right, we need to behave now’.

“But it has got out of hand again.

“The Buckfast bottle thrown at Scott Sinclair at Easter Road, for example, could have been really, really serious.

“The guy who came on to have a go at James Tavernier at the same ground a few weeks later got a custodial sentence and, for me, that is the fair way to go.

“There has to be a deterrent.

“You need people thinking: ‘If I do that, I am in the jail’.

“It is not rocket science. If you did the same thing in Glasgow city centre of an evening, you would get the jail straight away.

“The mentality has changed, so laws have to be put in place to counter the behaviour.”

In his current capacity as Rangers business development manager, 57-year-old Hateley spends much of his time preaching an equality and anti-prejudice message in the community.

He is passionate about delivering a message capable of changing the culture for good.

“It is all about education,” Hateley said.

“Educate the young people, and invariably they go away and educate their parents, who have been educated by their parents.

“I do see the sectarian stuff. I still hear the singing – but I don’t hear the add-ons as much as I used to do.

“You still get it from a minority, but it is small minority. So there is progress.

“Our charity foundation is in the community all the time. There are no barriers to anybody.

“We do what we do, and work hard with the local community. It is literally non-stop. We do whatever we can to make the club a better club.”

Hateley warns, however, fans of all clubs have to do their bit as well.

“A lot of it is self-policing. People have to be responsible for their actions,” Hateley continued.

“You can’t just turn into a different person when you are out with the lads or in a group.

“I am sure some of these people are completely different when they are out with their families.

“If you see your pal turn into a different creature at a football match you have to be able to rein them in.”