THERE has been a really worrying rise in the number of incidents where objects are being thrown at managers or players from the stands and it has to stop, it is as simple as that.

It is not just one club or at one ground, we are seeing it more and more and it is completely unacceptable. It has to stop.

Scott Sinclair was almost hit by a bottle at Easter Road on Saturday night and we have had a number of coins thrown, and hitting, people recently.

I don’t know how you stop it. The Police must carry out searches and have cameras in the grounds so hopefully the perpetrators are caught and punished and handed a lifetime ban from Scottish football.

Would the threat of a points deduction or a stadium closure stop it? Perhaps. But then someone can get a ticket for the other end and potentially get a rival club punished.

Whatever the punishment or the deterrent is, there is no doubt that we need to clamp down on these kind of incidents because someone is going to get badly injured.

You can only condemn these people in the strongest possible terms and hopefully it is something that we don’t see again in football.

For the safety of our players and the good of our game, we can’t have supporters behaving in that manner. What does that say about our game and our society?

The image of Willie Collum having to remove the bottle from the park is embarrassing for our game.

We have to do whatever it takes to find these people, get them out of Scottish football and ensure it is a safe place for people to play and watch the game they love.