British TV program scraps script after footballers' complaints

"There is intense rivalry in Scotland between the two major football (soccer) teams: Rangers and Celtics. Protestants support the one and Catholics the other.

"Television bosses in Britain have been forced to change an episode of a staple daytime soap opera after dozens of complaints over a jibe directed at Scottish football side Rangers. Britain's biggest commercial broadcaster ITV said the script for a forthcoming episode of Coronation Street, a Manchester-based program and the country's longest-running television soap, was altered after several fans of the Glasgow club voiced displeasure at the joke.

Character Tony Gordon, played by Scottish actor Gray O'Brien, said on the show that he "could no more be interested in Rosie Webster than I could support Glasgow Rangers''. According to an ITV spokesman, the dialogue seemed "to have caused some upset''.

As such, one of the character's lines in an upcoming episode - that he was allergic to "warm beer, the English national anthem and Glasgow Rangers'' - has now been dropped.

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