CORONATION Street bosses changed an episode of the popular show after complaints from football fans, it emerged yesterday.
Rangers fans complained after character Tony Gordon – played by Scottish actor Gray O'Brien – made a jibe about the Glasgow football club.
An ITV spokeswoman confirmed that following "dozens" of complaints, they had changed the script for a forthc
oming episode.
O'Brien's character Tony Gordon is reported to have said: "I could no more be interested in Rosie Webster than I could support Glasgow Rangers."
The ITV spokeswoman said that the line seemed "to have caused some upset".
And one of the character's lines in a future episode – reported to be a remark that he was allergic to "warm beer, the English national anthem and Glasgow Rangers" – has now been dropped.
The ITV spokeswoman said: "Both comments were in keeping with the character of Tony Gordon.
"But we have to bear in mind that it does seem to have caused some upset so the decision was made to take the line out.
"It doesn't compromise the drama of the episode and if it did then the line definitely wouldn't have been taken out."
She added: "We also felt in the absence of a character balancing things up on the other side of the Old Firm it was a line not worth repeating."
O'Brien has previously starred in the Scottish soap opera River City and the medical drama Casualty. He said: "I certainly wasn't going out of my way to antagonise any Rangers supporters."
The full article contains 257 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
