I love football. I always have.

On Saturday I brought forward a speaking engagement in Renfrew, rushed home to Strichen to watch every kick of the ball of the Ireland Scotland game. I was spread out on the living room carpet when I wasn’t pacing up and down!

It was a great occasion rather than a great football match. The on-field effort was rough, tough and uncompromising. However, on the terraces the Irish and Scottish fans did themselves proud. There is an overwhelming optimistic feeling that Scotland now have a manager who can bring the best out of his players.

St Gordon Strachan is well on the way to securing my holiday plans for France next year! In contrast, five years ago Scottish club football was in a real mess and not because of what was taking place on the field.

The popular, talented and outspoken manager of Celtic Football Club was receiving bullets through the post and was even physically attacked during a match at Tynecastle.

Sectarian chants were commonplace and not just at Old Firm games.

Viewers were understandably annoyed to hear offensive songs mocking the Irish famine on the one hand or glorifying IRA terrorists on the other clearly audible in their living rooms. The reputation of our beautiful game was being dragged to an all-time low.

As First Minister I decided that enough was enough. I thought it was reasonable for the wider community to expect people to attend football matches and enjoy themselves without behaving in an offensive manner.

The old criminal code was not fit for this purpose. The catch-all penalty of “breach of the peace” was vulnerable to clever dick lawyers who successfully argued that sectarian chants could not cause a breach of the peace if everybody in earshot was singing along!

In other words, if offensive and sectarian behaviour was general then it wasn’t criminal. It was like arguing that if the whole world were robbing banks then it didn’t matter if you helped yourself to the loot!

This could not stand and thus was born the Offensive Behaviour and Football Matches Act. The Act wasn’t designed to be popular and at first it wasn’t. Organised groups of fans opposed it, apparently believing it was aimed at them but somehow not at their rivals. Banners were unfurled at grounds describing the then First Minister in a less than flattering manner!

In fact, it was aimed at everyone, that is everyone who couldn’t behave when enjoying themselves. Of course, 99% of fans always behaved. They were being let down by the other 1%, regardless of their club adherence.

Although some clubs spoke out in favour, others were running scared from what they thought their own fans would think. It is one of the key parts of current football irresponsibility that a few club owners believe that the rest of society need to pay through the nose for public order problems generated at their games.

Even some Scottish sheriffs weren’t happy with the legislation and used their freedom to say so in court, claiming that it would be unworkable. In fact, the Act was immediately successful in obtaining convictions and then improving behaviour.

The BBC didn’t much like it and gave over tons of airtime to a libertarian academic who seemed to think that sectarianism didn’t really exist, was hazy in his knowledge of Scotland and broadcast that everyone at football matches should be free to say what they liked regardless of offence, prejudice, race or religion.

The bulk of the print media were not much impressed either, giving bags of coverage to anyone who had anything bad to say about the Act. Even some commentators who normally enlighten the nation mused about the supposed threat to civil liberties, with no thought to the real freedom of being able to go to the football without being religiously abused.

A few politicians thought they could court popularity by cynically campaigning against it. They lost their seats at the recent election. It turns out now that they were all wrong.

As part of the introduction, I promised parliament to publish a full review after three years of operation. It wasn’t a sign of weakness to do that. It was a sign of confidence that it was time for a change and time would tell.

That review was published this week and lo and behold the critics were up a gumtree. No less than 80% of the public back the new law including the vast majority of footy fans. They know that things are changing for the better.

In 2014/15 there were 193 charges under the Act. This is a decrease of 6% on the 206 charges reported in 2013/14, and a reduction of 28% on the 267 charges reported in 2012/13.

The accused had an affiliation with Rangers in 58 (30%) charges,Aberdeen in 30 (16%) charges, Celtic 19 (10%) charges, and Hibernian in 16 (8%). At Tynecastle, where some of the worst incidents had occurred, things have improved dramatically. This suggests to me that placing a club into decent ownership can contribute to better behaviour by the fans.

In this light it is perhaps significant that the number and proportion of charges where an affiliation with Rangers was noted has remained similar. The proportion of accused who had an affiliation with Celtic has decreased substantially in the last year.

Of the 58 charges relating to “hateful” behaviour, 50 charges (26%) involved incidents of religious hatred, 4% involved racial hatred, and no charges involved sexual orientation. It is a relief therefore to find that even our badly behaved fans are not sexist or homophobic at the games!

However, the relationship between Old Firm matches and spikes in crimes of domestic violence is a huge issue which requires much further effort to tackle and to do so before these matches come back on to the football calendar.

Roman Catholicism was the main religion that was the subject of the charges that related to religion. Forty two of the charges (84%) included behaviour that was derogatory towards Roman Catholicism.

Around a quarter of the charges (24%) took place in Glasgow. This is no great surprise but it should be said that it is only half the percentage of 2012/13.

Interestingly, it was suggested by many that it would be impossible to enforce the communications part of the Act because it would be impossible to police the internet. Total nonsense. In fact, it has been one of the most successful aspects of the Act.

So here we are now and what do the critics say? A few have the decency to admit they were wrong. A few accept that things are indeed improving. Most concentrated on the idea that the

Government should explicitly move away from custodial sentences, ignoring the fact that in the last year there has only been one!

In fact, what there has been is a demonstration that if society lays down boundaries on what is acceptable and what is not, then behaviour can change for the better, and a good thing too.

No doubt there is still a massive amount to be done. No doubt there will be setbacks in the future. However, at least something has been done. It seems to be working and is popular with the people.

Now all our clubs have to do is to emulate Gordon Strachan and make sure that the play on the field matches the improvements on the terraces.

And to make sure that all of our club fans match the exemplary behaviour of our Tartan Army.