An Old Firm game is looming and it’s almost certain to become a regular fixture again next season. It is to be hoped the forthcoming match will be memorable for the skill of the players and the passion of the crowd, as many games over past decades have been, but not for the disorder and bad behaviour that marked some more recent games.

The Offensive Behaviour at Football Act has been criticised by both liberal and libertarian academics and castigated by politicians from both the Left and the Right. However, polling shows it is hugely popular with the public at large. But, as the Old Firm match approaches, it might be worth a reminder why that law was brought in.

It wasn’t invoked to deal simply with banter between “fitba'” fans but because of confrontations on the park and random disorder away from the ground: the hateful “Famine song” and even bullets sent in the post and death threats made. It wasn’t just Sir Stephen House, the-then Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police but many ordinary people the length and breadth of the land who wanted full time called. It wasn’t the clubs' fault as they suffered from the behaviour of a small minority. Many carried out their ignorant actions well away from the stadia and had no relationship with them at all. However, it had reached such a crescendo that action was needed.

Football-related disorder is, of course, not restricted to the Old Firm. Shameful acts have been perpetrated both recently and in the past by supporters of other clubs.

They’ve been rightly condemned by those clubs, as the Old Firm clubs have done to their credit too. However, with their size and supporter base, Celtic and Rangers are always going to be under more scrutiny and face more challenges. But if football couldn’t or wouldn’t address the issue and, given its impact on wider society, it was necessary for the authorities, not just football ones, to act.

What is described euphemistically by some as “fitba' banter” is downright offensive to most people. Words and phrases from an age rightly well behind us are shouted and bandied about. Shamefully, some still deem this simply fun or passion. Our society has moved on from a time when insidious racism was tolerated, when words and phrases now entirely unacceptable were routinely used, even in popular television programmes. Derogatory and offensive remarks about Asian corner shops and African immigrants are correctly seen at present as repulsive. Why should such actions and similarly insidious language be acceptable with regard to religion?

Moreover, a small minority also see football, whether at the ground or elsewhere, as an opportunity to chant their sectarian bile, sings songs of hate or show their support for Northern Irish terrorist organisations. Few, if any, ever venture into a church, let alone practise their faith. However, supposed religious fervour provides a pretext for their tribal actions. In their defence they state that it’s their tradition, culture or heritage. Most right-minded folk just see it as offensive and want it to stop. Then there’s the classic Scottish “whitabootery?” in which one side says that the actions of the other are offensive but its are not. Again, most right-minded folk would simply say: a plague on both your houses.

Arguments have been made against the Act. Let’s consider them but then look at the facts. Some have said it’s unnecessary and the old legislation was sufficient. That wasn’t the case. Both the police and prosecutors had pointed out that judicial decisions had meant that breach of the peace could not apply if, to put it bluntly, no one’s peace was being breached. Hence, when a crowd was singing an offensive song and few others were about to object then there couldn’t be a conviction. A legislative change was needed to address this. The absence of good people to be offended doesn’t make something inoffensive if it patently is offensive.

Of course, the law has had some challenges and that is to be expected with any new piece of legislation. However, the appeal court has clarified various aspects that had been raised. The law is clearer as a consequence. Behaviour at games has improved since it was enshrined. Some may say this was simply self-generated by the fans themselves. Aye, that’ll be right.

The knowledge that they’ll be caught and prosecuted under the legislation has been a salutary lesson for some and has changed behaviour accordingly; for the better, even if there’s still a long way to go.

Some have criticised the law because of the relatively low numbers prosecuted. Others have suggested that almost a generation of young working class young people are being criminalised by it. Both cannot be right. What it indicates is that the law is being used proportionately and appropriately; moreover, that it’s working as behaviour is improving and fewer are being prosecuted. Those who perpetrate offensive behaviour, whether at the ground or away from it, are being targeted and brought to account. Those who are being prosecuted are hardly the heirs to the Clydeside Apprentices strike, let alone the Tolpuddle martyrs. Some behaviour has been utterly appalling. Others, perhaps, as Monty Python might have put it, were “very naughty boys”. It’s right to let the courts deal with the former and for the minister to be looking at diversion and education for the latter. But both types of behaviour should cease and be addressed, as they're not acceptable or funny.

It’s neither the singing of delightful Irish airs nor an attack on culture or tradition that’s being targeted. It’s often an obsession by some with more recent Northern Irish terrorism. Far from the celebration of the Somme or the Easter Rising a century ago, it’s the veneration of those who have killed and slaughtered more recently. Most right-minded folk in Scotland have been appalled at actions perpetrated whether by the UVF or the Provisional IRA or any similar organisation. Yet that’s what’s often chanted or sung; or, certainly, the context for such behaviour: death and carnage in attacks on bars or in town centres and the death of innocent civilians, as well as of police and military personnel in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Just yesterday a prison officer in Belfast died after a bomb that had been placed under his vehicle was detonated. All of this is condemned by right-minded people in Northern Ireland; why, then, should right-minded folk in Scotland have to endure the veneration of atrocities?

The overwhelming majority of Old Firm fans want to cheer their team, not celebrate paramilitary organisations. So let’s hope that the game is memorable for its football, not other events, whether at the ground or elsewhere. Let’s cheer the teams and players not bandy insidious words or phrases. Let’s celebrate Jimmy Johnstone or Colin Stein, Henrik Larsson or Brain Laudrup, or the modern heroes on the pitch; not terrorist gangs. Let’s continue to make offensive behaviour unacceptable and not have to endure “fitba' banter”.