Minute of silence canceled after twelve seconds

Uproar at Celtic Glasgow. Before the Scottish Premiership league game against Kilmarnock FC, some football fans booed so loudly during the minute's silence for Remembrance Day that referee John Beaton stopped the memorial event after just twelve seconds.

Remembrance Day takes place in the United Kingdom on November 11th. On this day, the fallen soldiers and civilians of the two world wars and later conflicts are remembered. At 11 a.m., people across the country pause and remain silent for two minutes.

The tradition goes back to November 11, 1918, when the armistice agreements of the First World War came into force. Traditionally, football clubs also hold a minute's silence on the match day before Remembrance Day - like Celtic now before the duel against Kilmarnock.

It's not the first time Celtic fans have rebelled against the minute's silence on Remembrance Day. The club was once founded by Irish people - and the supporters also use their boos to refer to the role of the British Army in the Northern Ireland conflict.

The religious conflict between the predominantly Catholic nationalists (with whom most Celtic supporters sympathize) and the Protestant Unionists, who wanted to remain part of Great Britain, resulted in bloody riots, bombings and armed clashes between 1968 and 1998, in which around 3,500 people died.

In previous years, Celtic supporters had turned away from the pitch during the minute's silence, made rude gestures or thrown tennis balls onto the grass. Celtic's club-owned TV station "Celtic TV" turned off the sound of the broadcast during the disturbed minute's silence.

Another feature of the tense relationship between Celtic and Remembrance Day: the traditional red poppy was missing from the green and white home shirts. It commemorates the poppies on the battlefields of Flanders and is worn on clothing by many people in the UK around Remembrance Day. Not so for Celtic, who won the game 1-0 with a goal from Liam Scales and defended their lead in the table.