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GRINNING fans did Nazi salutes outside an SPL ground to mark the launch of a book glorifying football hooligans.

The notorious Motherwell Saturday Service - who call themselves the “SS” - organised the stunt on the steps at Fir Park.

Last night, club bosses were examining the sick images and discussing whether to launch an investigation.

The SS initially hired a room at Fir Park for the launch of the book Dressers.

But club bosses got wind of it and cancelled the bash.

The ragtag bunch still managed to hold the event at the independent Fir Park Social Club, opposite Motherwell FC’s ground.

Around 140 of the group posed for photos on the steps outside the Phil O’Donnell stand, with some doing “sieg heil” salutes.

Motherwell FC stressed that the event took part in the social club, which has no links to the football club.

A spokesman said: “We are trying to be Scotland’s premier family andcommunity club and we are trying to portray a message that this the club is all welcoming to everybody – families and children.

“We condemn football violence in the highest possible way.”

The club do not know if the people at the event were regular fans.

The spokesman added: “We don’t know any of these people. Because it’s outside the ground, it makes itdifficult for us to do anything.

“People can walk up and do anything.”

The spokesman added that the event was booked simply as a “book launch”.

He said: “The club found out what the book involved was and cancelled the booking and told them to seek alternative premises.

“That was in the middleof the week leading up to the event.”

The Motherwell SS were named in tribute to Hitler’s ruthless Schutzstaffel squad, who carried out some of the worst atrocities of World War II.

SS is also the initials of the name given for the book’s author, Stanley Smith.

Promotional blurb for the book brazenly tells how it “chronicles the rise of one of Scotland’s original football casual groups, pioneering the fashion that was to become central to the Saturday afternoon fracas in town centres and at football grounds all over Scotland”.

Fir Park Social Club did not respond to repeated requests to comment.