Rangers pitch invader who attacked Celtic staff member in Ibrox disorder is locked up
A man who ran onto the pitch at Ibrox in March and attacked a member of Celtic’s staff will spend the weeks before his sentencing in custody. Marc Spence, 48, admitted at Glasgow Sheriff Court that he assaulted the club’s first-team masseur and committed a breach of the peace during the chaos that followed Celtic’s Scottish Cup quarter-final victory. Sheriff Owen Mullan deferred sentence until next month so that background reports can be prepared, but he decided that the offence had crossed the custodial threshold and remanded Spence in the meantime. It is another chapter in a story that began on 8 March 2026 and is still being written in the courts more than seven months later.
The facts of the day are by now familiar. Rangers and Celtic played out a goalless draw over 120 minutes in a tense Scottish Cup quarter-final, and Celtic won the penalty shootout 4-2. Celtic had been given a full allocation in the Broomloan Stand, around 7,500 tickets, for the first time since 2018, and the match carried the sort of charge that comes with any Old Firm occasion. When the final penalty went in, Celtic supporters poured onto the pitch to celebrate. Within moments, hundreds of Rangers fans were running the other way to confront them, flares were thrown, and police and stewards struggled to form a line between the two groups. The Scottish Football Association condemned the scenes immediately, and the police warned that arrests would follow.
According to the evidence read out in court by prosecutor Abbas Ali, Spence entered the field from the south stand. Police officers saw him run onto the grass, and the prosecution described him as running in an aggressive manner towards Celtic supporters who had come onto the pitch. A Celtic member of staff noticed him and became concerned that Spence was heading in the direction of the Celtic team and backroom staff. He stood in his path. The court heard that the two men collided and that the staff member was then grabbed by the neck and pulled to the ground. It was a brief incident, but it took place in front of tens of thousands of people and was captured on camera from several angles.
Two police officers intervened quickly. They took hold of Spence and led him away from the pitch, and he was handcuffed as he was escorted off. The court was told that, while he was being taken away, Spence made a remark to the effect that he had been trying to get past the man, who had stood in his way, and that he had simply taken him out. The comment, which was repeated in court, did little to support any suggestion that the contact was accidental. CCTV footage of the incident was also shown to the sheriff, and it showed Spence surrounded by Celtic players as well as the officers who arrested him. Together with his guilty plea, that evidence left little room for argument about what had happened.
The victim is not a footballer, a manager or a public figure. He is a member of Celtic’s backroom team, named in reports as first-team masseur Allan Baird, whose job is to help players recover from the physical demands of the season. On the afternoon in question, he was doing what he does at the end of every match, which is to remain close to the players and staff in case they needed anything. He did not start a fight, and nothing in the evidence presented suggests that he did anything other than try to protect the people around him. That is a point worth stressing, because pitch invasions can blur the line between participants and bystanders, and it is easy for the details to get lost in the noise.
Spence’s background has also drawn attention. He is a former youth football coach from Lanark in South Lanarkshire, and the idea that someone who worked with young players could behave in such a way was one of the aspects of the case that prompted comment. His solicitor, Michael Stewart, told the court that Spence is in full-time employment as a warehouse operative with Bacardi and that he is a first offender with no other matters outstanding. Those are the kinds of facts that defence lawyers routinely put forward, and they are relevant to sentencing, because courts take account of an offender’s character and previous history. They do not alter what happened on the pitch, but they help to build a fuller picture of the person standing in the dock.
The decision to remand him is the most striking element of the hearing. In Scottish courts, a sheriff who defers sentence for background reports has the option to release the accused on bail or to keep him in custody until he returns. Sheriff Mullan chose the second route, telling Spence that the custodial threshold had been met. That phrase refers to the legal test that a court must apply before imposing a prison sentence, and it signals that the offence was regarded as serious enough to justify the loss of liberty. It does not mean that a custodial sentence is certain, because the background reports, the defence submissions and the sheriff’s own judgement will all be taken into account, but it is a clear indication of the direction of travel.
It is important to be careful about the language used to describe all this. Some headlines have said that Spence has been locked up or jailed, and in a loose sense that is accurate, because he is in custody and cannot leave. In a legal sense, however, he has not yet been sentenced. Remand is a holding measure rather than a punishment, and the length of any eventual sentence will be decided at the next hearing. The distinction matters because the final outcome could be anything from a custodial term to a community payback order combined with a football banning order, and it would be wrong to assume that one is already fixed. The law is slow and deliberate, and it deserves to be described accurately.
Spence is one of several supporters who have faced the courts over the events of that day. In August, two other Rangers fans, Mackenzie Graham and John Smith, received community-based sentences and five-year football banning orders for offences connected to the disorder. Earlier this month, a 60-year-old man named Wilson Martin admitted breach of the peace after running towards Celtic supporters and challenging them to a fight. Taken together, these cases show that the investigation has been thorough and that people who took part are still being identified and prosecuted. They also show the range of outcomes that the courts can impose, reflecting the different levels of seriousness of each individual’s behaviour.
Police reaction in the immediate aftermath was strong. Nine people were arrested on the day, and officers said that significantly more arrests were likely once the footage had been reviewed. Several members of the public and police officers were injured, and a female officer was filmed being kicked to the ground from behind by a man who was sprinting towards the Broomloan Stand. There were also reports of fans using items from the stadium as weapons, of a supporter aiming a kick at Celtic defender Julian Araujo and of another pushing him. Police also investigated an earlier incident in which a number of Celtic supporters without tickets broke into the ground, causing a delay of about 24 minutes for fans who did have them. The disorder was widespread and came from both sets of supporters.
That wider context shapes the way the authorities have responded. The police said that the increased away allocation had contributed to the problems, and a senior officer said that the arrangement was not sustainable or safe, while adding that she did not believe a complete ban was necessarily the right answer. The question of how many visiting fans should be allowed at Old Firm matches is a difficult one, because it involves balancing safety, tradition and the rights of supporters to follow their team. For years, the two clubs exchanged large allocations without major difficulty, but the ending of that practice in 2018 changed the atmosphere. The debate that followed the March disorder is likely to influence decisions about future fixtures for some tim
For the clubs themselves, the aftermath has been uncomfortable. Both Rangers and Celtic issued statements condemning the violence, and both have said they will cooperate with the police and the authorities. Rangers’ head coach at the time, Danny Rohl, said he had missed much of what happened because he had already gone into the tunnel. The Scottish FA carried out its own review and criticised the conduct of supporters who entered the field. For both clubs, the images that were broadcast around the world were a reputational blow, and for a sport that prides itself on passion and community, they were an unwelcome reminder of how quickly things can go wrong.
Football banning orders are likely to feature in the next stage of the proceedings. In the cases that have already been decided, offenders were given five-year orders, which bar them from attending matches at stadiums across the United Kingdom and require them to report to police at certain times. These orders are an important tool because they remove the individual from the environment in which the offence took place and protect other supporters. The sheriff will be able to consider whether such an order is appropriate for Spence, and given the pattern of earlier cases, it would not be a surprise if the question were raised. For a lifelong supporter, a ban of that length is a serious penalty in its own right.
It is easy, in the aftermath of a case like this, to treat Spence as a villain and move on, but the reality is more complicated. He is a man in his late forties with a steady job and no previous convictions, someone who by most accounts had been an upstanding member of his community. Yet on one afternoon, in the grip of a crowd and an emotional occasion, he did something that has cost him his freedom, his reputation and possibly his job. That does not make the offence any less serious, and it does not excuse the harm done to the victim, but it is a useful reminder of how quickly ordinary people can be drawn into disorder when emotions run high.
That is why the issue of crowd management matters so much. Pitch invasions are almost never planned, but they are rarely random either. They tend to follow a pattern, with a build-up of tension, a trigger event such as a winning goal or a final whistle, and a failure of the barriers that are meant to keep supporters off the field. Stewards and police can do a great deal to prevent them, but they need adequate numbers, clear instructions and good communication. In March, those systems were overwhelmed, partly by the scale of the invasion and partly by the fact that two sets of rival supporters were suddenly in the same space. Learning from that experience is essential if similar scenes are to be avoided.
There is also a broader cultural question about the way supporters think about the pitch. For many fans, the edge of the field is a sacred boundary, and crossing it is seen as a step too far. For others, particularly after a dramatic victory, it feels like a natural extension of the celebration. The difference between joy and aggression can be thin, and once a few people cross the line, others often follow. Changing that culture requires a combination of enforcement, education and leadership from the clubs. The message that violence is never acceptable, and that those who commit it will face real consequences, needs to be repeated consistently.
The courts have an important part to play in delivering that message. By treating assaults at football seriously, and by imposing penalties that reflect the harm caused, sheriffs can help to deter others from following the same path. The decision to remand Spence suggests that Sheriff Mullan regards the offence as a significant one, particularly because it involved an attack on a member of staff who had not taken part in any confrontation. The final sentence will be watched closely, not only by the individuals concerned but by supporters, clubs and the authorities, as an indication of how the system views this kind of behaviour.
For the victim, the case may offer a measure of justice, even if it cannot undo the experience of being attacked at work. Allan Baird and the other Celtic staff members who were at Ibrox that day have had to live with the memory of a match that ended in fear and confusion rather than celebration. The criminal process, with its slow progress and its many stages, can be frustrating for those who are directly affected, but it also provides a route to accountability. Seeing an offender admit guilt and face the consequences is an important part of that, and it may bring some closure.
In the end, the story of Marc Spence is a sobering one. A single moment of aggression, caught on camera and witnessed by thousands, has led to a guilty plea, a remand in custody and a sentence still to come. It is a reminder that football, for all its capacity to unite people, can also bring out the worst in some, and that the consequences of that can be severe. Whatever the final outcome, the case will stand as a warning to anyone who might consider running onto the pitch in the heat of the moment. The law is watching, the cameras are watching, and the price of a few seconds of disorder can be far higher than anyone expects
