DOUGLAS Ross has explained his thinking when he first saw a huge banner calling him a “c***” unveiled at a Scottish Cup game last year.
Ross, the outgoing leader of the Scottish Tories and a football linesman, was appearing at an event at the Edinburgh Fringe when he said he had at first been “hopeful” that the banner would not be reported in the media.
However, he said that despite his efforts not to “look at it too much”, the incident had become infamous and that his friend’s son called him “the Celtic banner boy” just last weekend.
It was at a Celtic vs St Mirren Scottish Cup tie in early 2023 when the opening goal of the game went to a VAR check. The decision was given to grant Celtic a goal – as linesman Ross had indicated – but fans in that team’s stand unveiled a massive banner reading: “VAR DECISION: DOUGLAS ROSS IS A C***".
Speaking to journalist Graham Spiers at an event at the Edinburgh Fringe, Ross said of the banner: “My immediate reaction was because of that word that rhymes with hunt, it wouldn't really get reported. I was hopeful because they'd used that swear-word, no one would be able to report it.
“It turns out they could, but just put in the asterisks.”
Ross went on: “It's funny. It came up at the weekend again. We had this great weekend away with guys I went to college with.
“The guy that was hosting us, his son had some of his pals round, and they didn't realise I was ‘the Celtic banner boy’. That's how they referred to me. So when they knew I was ‘that’ Douglas Ross, we had a bit of a discussion about it.”
Recalling when the banner was revealed, Ross said: “It was Celtic, St Mirren. It was in a Scottish Cup game. It was a late kickoff, and I remember I just awarded a goal to Celtic. It was the first goal of the match.
“It was a tight onside/offside decision. I kept my flag down. VAR confirmed straight away, goal’s good.
“So my first point was: ‘why are they putting that up when I've made a decision correct in favour of Celtic?’ If I got it wrong, I could understand that.
“And then I thought, secondly, I don't want to look at it too much because I don't want a picture taken of me staring at this.
“But still, they managed to do it. Then I just thought, ‘well, it's done now’.
“I thought that looks pretty big, but maybe I've just got such great eyesight as a linesman that that it's bigger than it actually is. But it turned out, no, it was pretty big.”
Ross said that other officials on the refereeing team had been “very supportive”, but said his focus had been on understanding that “you've just got to ignore everything else and focus on making sure you don't make any mistakes”.
The outgoing Scottish Tory leader’s appearance at the Fringe came with his party in chaos amid a race to replace him, which is set to conclude in around five weeks.
Ross has been strongly criticised by his own colleagues after reports that he had been on secret manoeuvres to try and retain a seat at Westminster for more than a year, despite telling his MSP group that he would quit the London parliament to focus on Holyrood.
He allegedly named Russell Findlay as his chosen successor, which has led to four of the six candidates in the contest to call for it to be paused and former Scottish Tory boss Jackson Carlaw to demand Ross immediately steps down as group leader.
Speaking at the Fringe, Ross insisted he had only been looking to check candidate Kathleen Robertson’s commitment to standing due to party members’ requests, and said that Findlay was one of many names he had floated as a potential replacement.
