I think the report Finfintytint is talking about is this Lanarkshire Live one which includes:
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "Officers were called to reports of a disturbance in the Fir Park Street area of Motherwell around 5pm on Saturday, 16 April, 2022.
"Officers attended and there were no reports of any injuries. Following enquiries no criminality was established."
The Club Chief Exec was very clear that they had CCTV footage of what he referred to as being “absolutely disgraceful” - what, notably, didn’t go into the article, was that he was initially responding to a fan who suggested a particular group might be responsible. The man whose account of being caught up in it they lifted from Twitter came out of this conversation - and he seemed to agree it was likely the culprits were as suggested - ie hooligans who follow another [men’s] team.
In fairness, Motherwell’s men’s team also has issues with fan behaviour - eg chucking sweets all over the Celtic Captain in 2017 (a “nippy sweetie” is basically a shrew of the non-mousealike sort/a scold, with the same gendered connotations those terms have - so there’s a nice homophobic edge there though Brown is very clear about his “ally” status & is married with 3 sons ) - though AFAIK they don’t quite scale the heights (or should it be plumb the depths?) of the worst Celtic & Rangers fans. The idea of football hooligans deliberately targeting a crowd of women & children is really sickening - of course, whoever it was may have been using the opportunity to target men they knew were attending. A crowd of 700 is nothing in terms of a match day crowd; and the men in it would be easy to spot & (relatively) easy to reach.
Certainly you have to wonder what they were actually trying to do - if you’ve got 20 guys with hammers & nobody gets injured, what was the goal? Were they looking for someone who turned out not to be there? Was it a dummy run for something, using a non-threatening crowd? Were they just trying to cause alarm & distress? Did they bottle it when it came to the reality of smashing a hammer into the “eggshell” skull of a woman or a child (or worse, a baby)?
Surely it’s a public order offence though!? Impressive how quickly Police Scotland could declare no criminality was established - despite the CCTV evidence & multiple witnesses - when WrongThink & Ribbons are totally & definitely a very serious crime & need pursuing for as protracted a period as possible. Perhaps they were told the hammers identified as glitter love sparkle confetti magic in the “Progress” Pride Flag colours & it was a racist transphobic hate crime to object to them.*
- Meant as an example of people exploiting Police Scotland’s stance on trans issues NOT to suggest the individuals involved were trans or TRAs. Both those groups should be concerned about people exploiting provisions made for trans people & the way that Police Scotland & the Scottish Prison Service are now so exploitable by those so-minded.