While watching footage of the banteriffic and not at all completely pathetic individual who harangued Rangers striker Kenny Miller in a supermarket this week, I was struck by a few things.

Firstly, the remarkable restraint shown by Miller, who must have been tempted to lamp the candid cameraman with his block of Cathedral City.

Secondly, the bravado of the wannabe Jeremy Beadle as he signed off with self-congratulatory giggling and the seal of approval “that’s gawn oan Facebook”, as if he had just made a cinematic masterpiece rather than just a rip-roaring spectacle of himself.

And finally, that if this particular gentleman had directed such abuse at Miller while at the game tomorrow, he could very well be up on a charge under the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act.

That may sound ridiculous for what, in effect, was fairly harmless if imbecilic stuff, but that is how the act works.

If you are at the football, going to the football or coming back from a game then you are subject to a much wider range of laws and restrictions on your behaviour if you were simply, say, harassing someone for your amusement while picking up the messages.

Indeed, you only have to be watching a game of football in the local boozer to fall foul of the law, as Leigh Griffiths found out to his cost after being charged under the act for singing an infamously unsavoury ditty about Rudi Skacel in a pub a few years back.

If it is an offence for someone in a football context to behave in such a manner, then surely it should also be an offence in any other setting?

It seems nonsensical that an act that was essentially motivated by a desire to punish bigoted or discriminatory behaviour should itself be discriminatory in its very nature.

I must admit, I used to hold quite a high-minded indifference to those who protested against the act.

In my naivety, I presumed that those who stuck to songs about football would be left well alone, while those who would rather sing about potato famines or some such nonsense would justifiably be brought to heel.

The story of a Hamilton supporter charged under the act last year for the heinous crime of including the F-word in a song about rivals Motherwell though woke me up to the fact that the act wasn’t being used in the manner intended.

Scottish football does, undeniably, have a problem with sectarianism. Tune in to tomorrow’s Old Firm semi-final, and you are sure to hear evidence of that. “Real box office” stuff right enough, Mr Doncaster.

But the problems with sectarianism in Scotland are wider spread in society than the ’90-minute bigots’ who choose to pollute football stadiums with this claptrap.

The Hamilton supporter in question, who typically of those charged under the act was a young man, was subjected to a night in the cells and a court appearance before being bailed under the explicit condition that he did not attend any SFA-regulated football matches until his trial many months later.

During that time, he missed perhaps the best run in his club’s history, including record wins over local rivals Motherwell and a first win at Celtic Park in 75 years. All the while, the prospect of a conviction hung over his head.

Evidence submitted by three police officers on duty at the match was inconsistent and failed to convince the sheriff that the supporter had committed any offence, and he was subsequently cleared.

But this story speaks of the routine heavy-handedness by which the authorities are treating football fans, and the dire consequences that could befall any supporter attending a game.

Who hasn’t lost the rag at one point or another while supporting their side and launched a tirade that would make the legendarily foul-mouthed Accies fan ‘Fergie’ blush? If he was alive today, he’d spend more time in court than Donald Findlay.

However well-intentioned the legislation may have been as it was rushed through in an attempt at combatting Scottish football’s oldest demon, it is so ham-fisted and open to interpretation - indeed abuse - that the only discernible results have been the deterioration of the already uneasy relationship between fans and police and unwarranted disruption to many young people’s lives.

A public consultation by James Kelly MSP on a proposal to repeal the act closes tomorrow. In a financially bleak period for our clubs when they need to encourage supporters to attend games, they should be praying that the pressure brought to bear by supporters’ groups like Fans Against Criminalisation ultimately pays off.

If it doesn’t, the popular slogan of campaigners against the bill may not prove simply to be a catchy saying, but a sobering prophecy – ‘heavy hands, empty stands’.