IT’S not been a good week for those of us who consider Scotland a progressive, integrated and mostly tolerant nation.

Thuggish acts happen on occasion inside and outside football grounds. In this country, Neil Lennon, a Northern Irish Catholic and former Celtic player and manager, has been attacked verbally more than any other figure in the history of our game. A weekly occurrence he says.

In 2011 at Tynecastle, the ground where on Wednesday night he was struck by a coin, a man by the name of John Wilson leapt from the main stand and attacked the-then Celtic manager. In 2008, Lennon was knocked unconscious by self-confessed Rangers supporters Jeffrey Carrigan and David Whitelaw, both in their forties, in Glasgow’s Ashton Lane while walking home on his own.

Lennon called it right yesterday. Too many in Scotland see him as the uppity Taig with too much money, fame, success and a strong personality which is too much for bigots who shame us all.

I genuinely believe those who claim – and it can feel like a boast from some – the one million or so living in Scotland from Catholic/Irish heritage get it worse now than it was 20, 30 and 40 years are wrong.

However, that is for another day. Lennon had to be given his say. And in a calculated, calm and articulate fashion he told us all a few home truths.

Lennon said: “To throw a coin might be spur of the moment and maybe even regretted but to paint that graffiti (Hang Neil Lennon)was premeditated. It’s Scotland’s problem,not mine. I don’t go writing things on walls.

“The point I make is that I had a career in England up until I was 29. I then had two years as Bolton manager, and had none of this. I didn’t even have a suspension as a manager in England.

“You get to a certain point in your life, I’m 47 now….I don’t know if the incident was sectarianism motivated or not on Wednesday, or just pure badness from a rival supporter.

“The graffiti to me reeks of sectarianism. Hang - I hear that song at some grounds sometimes referred to me. It’s something the Ku Klux Klan did to black people in the 1960s and it might tell you a bit about the mentality of people who sing those songs or write that graffiti on the wall.

“In terms of my safety I have no qualms over that. (But) you would think after 18 years it would stop but it hasn’t.

“I don’t always moan or complain about it but when you’re asking me questions, there is a t time now to get the elephant out of the room and really call it what it is.

“There is a common denominator here.”

There are Scottish people obsessed with Irish politics. This Irishman is not.

Lennon has always steered clear from discussing in depth the Troubles, his religion or background. But this matters little to those who, let’s face it, wish him to be of a certain persuasion.

He said: “My thoughts are my own but people second guess them and most of the time get it totally wrong.

“Again this is the way you are portrayed, because I am an Irish Catholic who played for Celtic, I’m this and that and the other. It’s their problem, not mine.

“What I am is a competitor; how dare you go into your stadium and win, how dare you stand up to the abuse I am giving you, who do you think you are, stand down, know your place.

“The only person responsible for all of this is the guy who threw the coin. Not me. I could do a lot of things to people, and sometimes I want to, in fact I think at times I’m quite restrained. Not in some people’s eyes because they are blinkered, they are intolerant.”

Lennon is no angel and has never claimed to be. Aggressive players such as him will always get stick. As do managers who act out on the touchline. But nobody has ever had to deal with so much filth, which this week has been depressingly justified by many.

Lennon has many friends in football. In person, he is funny, warm, kind with his time and good company. This is why his old rival and now friend Ally McCoist was on radio yesterday backing a man he once almost had the world’s most pathetic fight with in 2011.

The Hibs boss said: “We are close. We have had ding dongs in the past, which were blown out of proportion at the time. We are two competitors who were going at it. I have had run-ins with other managers in the past too.

“Ally knows me better than most. I’m glad he said that.”

The former Celtic captain won five league titles and played in the 2003 UEFA Cup final before going on to win every domestic trophy as manager, making him one of the Parkhead club’s most decorated players.

And yet the racism has always been there. From the moment he stepped on Scottish soil. It’s pathetic.

Lennon said: “It ceases to shock you. It has been on-going now for too long.

“There is the ‘Hang Neil Lennon’ written on a wall – what’s that all about? Is it meant to be funny? It infuriates me, it really infuriates me.

“I’m a football manager. I’m not a politician. I’m not a criminal. I don’t break the law. I don’t go around looking for trouble. I live my life quietly away from football. I love what I so. I’ve tried to make the game better here, with varying degrees of success.

“But I have been successful and some people don’t like that. I get that. But it shouldn’t make them violent or aggressive. I’m actually proud of what I’ve done here.”

As he should be.