When Traditions Become Old And Firm

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.