Martindale questions 'doughballs with snowballs' in Rangers support

Livingston manager David Martindale has criticised the Rangers fans who threw snowballs at his goalkeeper, delaying the start of the second half of their Premiership match.

Rangers won the game 3-1, with new manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst enjoying a winning start in the league but visiting fans throwing snowball on to the artificial pitch caused a delay at half-time as staff had to clear the artificial pitch.

The work meant that the game, televised by Sky Sports, was held up for around ten minutes and Martindale believes the “stupid” behaviour reflected badly on the clubs and on Scottish football.

“We shouldn’t be standing here talking about the doughballs with the snowballs,” the Livi boss said.

“I just don’t understand it. You could maybe see it if your team is getting beat and there is a bit of frustration there, but when your team is winning 2-1, to hold up the second half, I don’t understand that at all.

“I just think it’s a little bit of a blight on Scottish football. It’s on national telly and people are watching that so, come on, screw the nut a wee bit. I know the majority of Rangers fans were not throwing snowballs but it doesn’t look good for anyone.

“It doesn’t look good for Rangers, it doesn’t look good for Livingston and it doesn’t look good for Scottish football. That’s my take on it anyway.

“Rangers should be going away from here talking about the 3-1 win in Gio’s first game, their first three points under the new manager. But instead we are talking about the Rangers fans throwing snowballs at the Livingston players at the start of the second half.

“It’s just stupid and I don’t understand it.”

Goals from Scott Arfield and Joe Aribo had given Rangers the lead at the Tony Macaroni Arena but Bruce Anderson pulled a goal back. Allan McGregor was forced into a wonder save to keep Rangers ahead just before the break.

After the delayed restart, Rangers remained largely in control and put the result beyond doubt when substitute Fashion Sakala headed in his team’s third.

“You want to be talking about the football so fair play to Rangers,” Martindale added.

“Overall they deserved the three points but for the majority of it they knew they were in a game.

“At 2-0 they probably thought they were going to cruise the game but we got back into it.

“Allan McGregor pulled off a fantastic save, Alan Forrest probably should have done a little bit better but had that gone in it would have been a different second half.”