DF Concerts’ supremo Geoff Ellis has caused a furore by stating that ‘Neds’ will not be welcome at this year’s T in the Park festival.

In an interview with Scottish music website The Pop Cop, Ellis said he had no plans to enforce a Rockness-style dress code at the festival, but added: “Neds are not welcome, just to clarify that.” Rockness has a ‘no sportswear’ policy, the uniform of so-called ‘neds’, but his comments have sparked many comments which point out that tracksuit-wearers make up a fair proportion of T in the Park’s clientele.

Ellis tried to clarify that he was taking ‘ned’ to mean ‘troublemaker’ rather than the term which is sometimes applied derogaratively to a whole social class: “It’s not about what you wear, it’s about who you are. Listen, you can be a ned in a suit,” he said, adding: “If you take a ned to mean somebody who is out to cause trouble, those are people we don’t want to come to T in the Park anyway. We’ve no plans to put a dress code into T in the Park, that would be quite draconian. But neds are not welcome, just to clarify that.”