Games between Ibrox side Glasgow Rangers and Celtic left very little positive impression on the Premier League legend.
Writing in his autobiography A Life in Football and quoted by The Scotsman, Ian Wright has hit out at the level of hatred between Rangers and Celtic.
The Arsenal legend spent a brief spell up in Glasgow playing for Celtic during the 1999-00 campaign, under John Barnes’s stint as manager at Parkhead.
And the 52-year-old has reflected on the “vile atmosphere” during Old Firm clashes with Rangers, which he claims are simply “nasty” and not as “unbelievable” as supporters believe those fixtures to be.
“This wasn’t football, listening to songs being sung from the start to the finish of the game saying ‘**** the Pope and the IRA’, or you’re in your car and people start banging on the roof shouting ‘No retreat! No surrender!’ At first, I didn’t even know what they were talking about,” he wrote in his book, quoted by The Scotsman.
“There was a vile atmosphere, fuelled by hatred, especially at the Auld Firm derby [sic]. Fans love to talk about it like it’s this unbelievable thing! It’s not an unbelievable thing: it’s a nasty, tense, unsporting environment of super-intense religious bigotry that’s nothing to do with sport.”
Sixteen years on from when Wright left the club, there is still an unsavoury element to Old Firm games which does seem to go well beyond football.
During Celtic’s 5-1 win over Rangers earlier this month, two sex dolls, one with a Rangers scarf and one with an orange sash, were hung by a section of home supporters at Parkhead.
The game took place on September 10, which was also World Suicide Prevention Day which added to the distasteful gesture.
Many Celtic fans expressed their disappointment on Twitter afterwards that some of their own had resorted to such measures in what was the first Old Firm derby in the Premiership for four years.
Celtic fans celebrate
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