A football club chairman last night quit over “dangerous” social media posts making fun of violence against women.
Stirling Albion’s Stuart Brown suggested he’d like a Coronation Street character to “throttle” a female relative. He replied to a chat board user complaining about a female colleague by saying: “Boot the bint… You’ll feel so much better”.
On the Pie And Bovril football forum, he also referred to women as “fat munters” and described Corrie character Gail Platt as a “turtle-faced bitch”. In a series of historic messages, Brown suggested a chat board user get married on Boxing Day so that on anniversaries “it’s easy to remember to give her a smack in the mouth for messing up your life”.
The vile comments emerged as League Two strugglers Albion hope to launch a women’s team. Zero Tolerance, which campaigns to end violence against women, described Brown’s comments as “misogynistic” and “dangerous”.
Co-director Laura Tomson said: “The comments made by Stirling Albion’s chair are harmful and such casual comments encouraging violence against women are deeply concerning. We’re concerned about the culture women and girls would experience at this club.
“Stirling Albion needs to examine their culture, starting by questioning whether they want a chair who holds misogynistic and dangerous opinions.”
A board member of the Stirling Albion Supporters’ Trust, which owns the club, had written to Brown and urged him to quit. He wrote: “I welcome the club’s efforts trying to attract more females as spectators, volunteers and in a playing capacity.
“Yet these efforts will be significantly undermined when such comments by the public figurehead of Stirling Albion (which are still visible on Pie & Bovril) are seen more widely.”
Brown announced he was stepping down on Twitter within hours of being contacted by the Record.
He said in a statement: “I hereby tender my resignation as chairman and director of Stirling Albion Football Club. The club’s majority shareholder, Stirling Albion Supporters’ Trust, has brought to my attention a small number of historical social media posts I made between 2010-15 that included language that I accept was inappropriate and unbecoming of someone holding office as a director of a professional football club.”
He added: “I unreservedly apologise to everyone associated with Stirling Albion, the SFA and the SPFL and most of all my family who have endured many years of me, entirely inappropriately, putting the club before them. I wish nothing but good fortune to Stirling Albion moving forward.”
Brown joined Stirling Albion’s board in 2010 and has been chairman since 2014. He has attended crucial SFA and SPFL meetings at which major decisions were taken.
In that time, he has added messages to the Pie And Bovril (PnB) forum under the pseudonym The Phoenix. One PnB poster said he’d been given beer for his birthday – but complained about a female employee being late bringing his lunch.
Brown replied: “Drink the lager and boot the bint… You’ll feel so much better.”
He also claimed he always knocked back romantic interest from “fat munters”. In 2013, in a lurid discussion about Coronation Street stars, he stated: “Sunita’s top of my list…I draw the line (or preferably a veil over) Gail The Turtle.”
While commenting on Corrie in 2015, Brown posted about Gail: “I would like to see Callum … throttle the life out of the turtle-faced bitch.”
Albion had planned to launch a women’s team last week at a festival “celebrating girls and women’s football” but the event was postponed. It laid on a Girls Football Week in July and held a Ladies’ Day in April.
Grant Morrice, Stirling Albion’s community engagement director, said: “This is an internal club matter.”
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