When Neil Lennon took over the
mess left behind by Tony Mowbray’s unsuccessful stint as Celtic manager in 2010
he inadvertently sowed some bad seeds. In his first proper season Celtic were
paired up with Rangers in a fifth round Scottish Cup tie. Before the game stories
were coming out that Lennon was becoming a victim to the prejudice that plagued
his playing career in Glasgow. A letter bomb was sent to him, bullets also.
Later in the season, in front of football supporters worldwide he was attacked
on his touchline whilst watching his side play Hearts at Tynecastle.
The heated encounter against
Rangers led to chaotic scenes on the pitch. Similar to an Old Firm match in1987 when a number of players were sent off, and Englishman Graham Roberts
controversially encouraged the Ibrox crowd with their sectarian chanting, the
game at Celtic Park saw two Rangers men sent from the pitch. Off the pitch, on
the touchline a scuffle broke out between Lennon and Ally McCoist, Ranger’s
then assistant manager. The police reported that after the match there were incidents
involving the two sets of support outside the ground and in the city centre of
Glasgow. The infamy of this match went far beyond the Scottish press:
politicians on both side of the border were now embroiled and emboldened to
campaign against the bigotry stemming from both clubs. Its nadir was an episode
of BBC 2’s Newsnight programme: Jeremy Paxman was to ask a searching question
that didn’t really have the justice of a short interview to reach its answer.
He asked: “why do these two sets of supporters hate each other so much?”
Celtic and Rangers are
undoubtedly two very passionate and proud football clubs. They command respect
and hatred in equal passions. Their worldwide appeal has been borne out of
successes on the pitch. They have graced the European scene with competitive
and skilful performances. Celtic of course was the first British team to win
the European Cup in 1967. Rangers have had success with the Cup Winners Cup in
1972. Both teams have also got to the finals in Europe but without success, but
for a country the size of Scotland, this can be not seen as failure by any
account possible.
These registered achievements
would not, it could be argued, have been possible were it not for the
implacable rivalry and sense of one-upmanship concerned between east and west
Glasgow. This is where we should start if it comes to answering Jeremy Paxman’s
question.
The two sides are the sporting
outlet for the overarching chaos of the society of Glasgow as a city. The
bedrock of Glasgow’s main identity has revolved around the pillars of religion,
politics, economy and pride. Celtic was created out of all of these factors.
Brother Walfrid was an Irish Marist who saw that the Catholic Irish immigrants
in Glasgow’s east end needed a totem for their endeavours. Rangers, who were,
ironically, formed on the pitches of Flesher’s Haugh (less than a mile from
Celtic Park) held out its hand to the Protestant faith of Glasgow and indeed
Scotland. It was sixteen years before they took part in the first “Old Firm”
fixture, which would be the very beginning of a simmering rivalry based on the
clashes Glaswegian society had to offer.
The formation of both sides
coincided with a time in Glasgow’s history when it was the febrile industrial
trade centre renown in Britain’s empire. At one time the commodities dominating
Glasgow’s trade infrastructure was churning out ships on the Clyde, trains at
Springburn, steel foundries in the east and west end, and the textile trade set
throughout the city. With so much skilled labour floating about a population of
over one million there was a milieu of men and women who asked for nothing
simpler during their weekend leisure
time but to practice religious reverence to their Catholic or Protestant faiths
on a Sunday, and sporting reverence to their Celtic or Rangers faiths on a
Saturday.
With such familiarity contempt
bred. Celtic supporters, whose bedrock is the political exiles from Southern
Ireland and Catholic Northern Ireland, were detested because of their immigrant
status. Since the sixteenth century Scotland has practiced Protestantism. Rangers
were the object reason to bash Celtic over the head because of this historical
and religious fact. It took a series of wars to rid Scotland of the Catholics
who got in the way of the Protestant Reformation, so it seems very obvious why
the religion plays a crucial factor in the violence and hatred that underpins
the two teams.
With this issue there is no
closer source I can consult other than my father. My father was brought up in
the mostly Catholic Gorbals district of Glasgow in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. His
story is indicative of the many lives affected by the Old Firm. Although he
never preached the overtly hostile elements of the religious context (parts of
his family married into Protestant unions) he nonetheless saw first hand the
rivalry and to what extent it unfolded. He often tells me the reason he left
Scotland for England. After one Old Firm game he was on the bus heading back
home. On the bus a number of Celtic supporters jumped off when they saw a group
of lads in Rangers shirts. They beat up the Rangers fans viciously: my dad
didn’t want anything to do with Glasgow and its battles any more.
I was not there but I can
understand fully this story. I have seen, growing up as a supporter of Celtic
the bizarre levels that the bitterness can reach. On one occasion I was in
London crossing a road. It was on Oxford Street, I was with my parents and I was
wearing a Celtic shirt (which at the time was very brave as Celtic was
appalling on the field at that time). A gloating man nearly twice my age
screamed at me about how Rangers had won yet another title and Celtic hadn’t.
I and my father, however, have
never shown interest in the Catholic faith: my dad was an alter boy but very
bravely he dispensed of his religion in the 1950s. I have never been affected
by it to the point of it poisoning my soul. We have become outsiders looking
in. I love Celtic because of different reasons which involve mainly of them
winning and not ruining my life on a Saturday afternoon. And they also remind
me of the pride I have in my dad and his colourful life.
The ugliest factor of the
division of both sets of supporters is the political and economic prejudices.
Within organised religion there is not the drop down factor of what goes onto
the family dinner table. Work is the factor which decides this. Since the
mixture of Catholicism and Protestantism rushed to the fore of Glasgow society
the whip hand has become ever more aggressive, depending solely on who holds
the whip. The labour classes in Glasgow have predominantly erred towards the
Catholics and the work ethical obsessed, managerial classes have erred towards
the Protestants. Glasgow today can be easily carved up in its urban make up to
hold this point to account. The east and south east sections of Glasgow are
relics of the city’s “slum problem” whereas the west and south western areas
are put into a more luxurious context. It’s a straightforward case of the
affluent and non-affluent, and the aesthetics of its architecture is an
indication of this.
In the early twentieth century
the religious divide spearheaded the Education (Scotland) Act, which more or
less brought about schools for the Catholic children of Glasgow. Tribally this
was a crucial spur towards the ever deepening rivalry of the two football
teams. Indeed it would be foolish not to imagine a typical day in the yards of
both Catholic and Protestant schools: in the former, boys wanted to be the
Celtic star of the day, the latter the Rangers star. With poverty, in all walks
of live, a hardening in the sense of political activism occurs. For Celtic supporters
the disillusionment at the treatment of Irish citizens at the hands of the
English government played at the forefront of their psyche. The terror campaign
from the era of both the Black and Tans and the Republican movement has always
played a literal backdrop to Celtic and Rangers games, even to this day. Celtic
enveloped themselves with hero figures of the Irish Republican Army’s struggle
against British Sovereignty tyranny. Likewise, Rangers supporters maintain the
traditions of the Orange Order and Unionism. For Celtic it’s Bobby Sands; for
Rangers it’s the Queen. Never the twain shall meet.
Within the loaded question that
Paxman asked last year was a certain degree of irony. Paxman, who is Jewish,
will be familiar with the peculiar bitterness that exists in the political
situation of Zionist Israel. There is within this small, concentrated
population a fiery rivalry that is based on the lines of religion, politics,
economy and civic pride. One side sees itself superior to the other in terms of
politics and economy, to the point where the other side exists in a state of near
penury, victim hood and an anger of mistreatment. The history of this conflict of opinions goes
back to the supposed creation of Man and whose religion comes out on top. Glasgow
could be Jerusalem but without the fireworks of death and retribution.
But where would we be without the
Old Firm in football? Without blowing the Old Firm out of its complete
perspective there wouldn’t be the passion that elevated the action on the pitch
to pure theatre. The atmosphere of a Celtic and Rangers game is thunderous to
the point that it is in the same ranks of the derby matches in Manchester,
Liverpool, North London, and the El Classico. Football brings out our basest of
elements, whether those elements are good or bad is inevitable: these matches
unify them and to a large degree control them in a sealed environment.
