NEIL LENNON has branded the unrelenting hate campaign against sacked Rangers boss Russell Martin as HORRENDOUS and UNACCEPTABLE.
Celtic legend Lennon – a Treble winner as player and manager – was once a team-mate of Martin’s at Wycombe Wanderers.
And the now Dunfermline Athletic boss revealed he spoke to him at the Rangers training ground in the summer to warn him of the intense pressures he faced – a world apart from when he was briefly a Light Blues defender.
As results deteriorated, Martin was hounded for weeks – with supporters, inside and outside grounds, repeatedly firing vile abuse and screaming for him to ‘Get to ***’.
Social media flak was both vicious and sinister.
And after what would prove to be his final game in charge, the 1-1 draw at Falkirk, the ex-Scotland star needed a police escort to leave the stadium separately from the team bus, with a furious mob waiting for him to show.
ALL BETS ARE OFF
Betting SUSPENDED on Steven Gerrard becoming next Rangers manager
FIRM DEALS
Free bets and new customer offers for upcoming Rangers and Celtic fixtures
Lennon, 54, speaks with as much qualification as anyone when it comes to discussing intolerable levels of venom towards managers.
Over a decade ago he was targeted with both a BULLET and a BOMB in the mail – each intercepted – while he was assaulted trackside at Tynecastle and also on a street in the West End of Glasgow, close to his home.
There were repeated death threats too.
And of what Martin had to endure at Falkirk Stadium, an appalled Lennon – talking on SunSport’s One-on-One show on YouTube, said: “Horrendous, and I’m looking at the club… are the club doing more to safeguard him?
“You see him walking across the pitch, like, you know he’s secure.
“I’ve been there myself… he won’t be thinking about his own personal safety, he’ll be thinking about what he could have done better.
“It will be ‘this is probably gone now, what could have gone better in the game?’
“In the emotion of it all, he’s probably not thinking about himself at the time.
“But he’ll probably have time now, to have a think about what went wrong for him, and what he could have done better.
“But, he’s a human being.
“At the end of the day, and without sounding patronising, I really don’t like it.
“It’s not a good look for the Scottish game.
“We can win, we can fail, it’s part of sport. It’s a competitive environment – no one has a divine right to win everything.
“I know Rangers fans are maybe feeling it a bit, they’ve suffered a lot over the last four or five years due to what they would perceive as mismanaging by the club or just bad management.
“But it’s a culmination of things.
“It shouldn’t all be down to one person – and certainly he shouldn’t be treated in that way.
“It’s horrible.
“I don’t see any contract to get verbally abused by people, but seemingly people say it’s part of the job. Well, it shouldn’t be part of the job.
“Yes, you can voice your criticisms.
“But the vitriolic personal abuse constantly weaved at people, for you trying to do your job as best you can, it’s unacceptable.
“It’s over the line.
“On a human level, I really felt for Russell.”
Martin was in the same Wycombe side as Lennon brought the curtain down on his playing career in March 2008 with a win at Morecambe.
And of their meeting in Milngavie during pre-season, the Northern Irishman said: “We brought a team down to play a behind closed doors game at Murray Park.
“He was just sort of, really settling into it, probably didn’t know what he was coming into.
“So I tried to give him a few tit-bits on that.
“He’s a good guy.
“I’ve been here for 25 years, I’ve seen other managers lose the league by 17, 18, 19, 20 points, not win a trophy – but NEVER hounded out, never a baying mob chasing them or humiliating them in the public arena.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
POT HAPPY
Moment little boy is served very unusual birthday cake – and bursts out crying
HOLIDAY HEAT
Scotland to bask in ‘Indian summer’ as schools finish up for October Week
“What happened to Russell is real, and it’s physical, and it’s abusive.
“It’s just not right.”
Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page
