Scotland's Gordian Knot

There are any number of contenders for ''Scotland's greatest shame'' - the life expectancy in Glasgow's East End, the obesity epidemic, the astonishing heart disease rates, and the rampant knife carrying gang culture are all contenders.


Indeed, only a few weeks ago, Paul McBride QC said - rather bizarrely - that the SFA were the ''official laughing stock of world football'. Maybe, for once, something as incidental as the Scottish Football Association was our greatest shame.

Now that man, alongside Neil Lennon (the Celtic manager) and Trish Godman (a Celtic supporting politician) is receiving nail bombs through the post because of those comments.

Scotland's shame, once again, is the vicious sectarianism that surrounds its two largest football clubs.



Condemnation of these acts seems obvious and obligatory but at the same time rather sad and absurd. It should go without saying that sending anybody a nailbomb in the post is obscene and criminal. To do so over something so joyous - but ultimately pointless - as football seems utterly bizarre and wrong-headed for the overwhelming majority of football fans. 


(NB: For further reading: I agree with much of what David Goldblatt writes here. I wrote only a few weeks ago about Glasgow's Woes.)

A very potted history...


But first, a caveat:

Despite having grown up in a Scottish (yet non-Old Firm) household and having lived here for eleven years now, I often feel uneasy talking about the complex and myriad matters that spin out of the Old Firm. To truly understand the motivations, drivers and blockers for the individuals involved requires to be immersed in the culture in a way that people like me just have not been. Any comment on the matter will be analysed, checked and assumed as bias towards one side or the other. It is likely that those analysing your words will have a better knowledge of matters even if such knowledge is usually deployed in a rampantly one-sided manner!


The picture in Scotland is gloomy. Further, even without this unhelpful development, it is incredibly complex. For a long-term before these bombs were put in the Royal Mail, politics, religion and violence have intertwined with football on the West Coast of Scotland.

Celtic, for example, were founded by Brother Walfrid, and the point of the club - to begin with - was a means of raising money for his charity. The club would move to become a focal point for the large Irish immigrant community in and around Glasgow. This is neither a good or a bad thing, in and of itself, many clubs around Scotland and the world can tell similar stories.

Celtic's nickname, the ''Bhoys'' is a Gaelicised spelling of Boys. In the 1920s, many football clubs in Glasgow were named ''Boys'' and this is a clear and obvious reference to the sectarian youth gangs of the time - the Timalloys (a Catholic, Irish gang) and the Billy Boys (Protestant, Loyalist gang). This dates from the early 1920s.

So we see that from their very foundation Celtic have had links to religion and, equally, from the 1920s there seem to be clear links between gang culture, sectarianism and both Old Firm clubs.

The behaviour


Let's not have the debate about which side is worse - I always feel it is rather sad when fans say ''but they the are worst''. OK even if that is true what do you want? A medal for being slightly better behaved than the worst?

For years, both sets of fans have taken part in fairly obscene and offensive chanting - this is not necessarily any better or worse than the filth sung at Anfield or Old Trafford but, pointedly, it is clearly tied to wider social issues in a way that the ''Munich'' and ''Hillsborough'' songs are not.


Although, outside of Glasgow, British crowds are pretty much free of religious influence (Spurs use of the word Yid is not overly or overtly religious) it would be naive to claim that Glasgow is unique in meshing political extremism, social tribalism, violence and football. Goldblatt rightly gives the examples of Beitar Jerusalem, Lazio, Red Star Belgrade, and Dinamo Zagreb as clubs with shady links. To greater or lesser extents, others may use the examples of FC Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao as being quasi-political entities for the causes of Catalonian and Basque nationalism. 


In Glasgow we see the coming together of deep-rooted problems: long-standing sectarian and religious intolerance which is far more widespread and visceral than most think (clue: it isn't just football fans and Orange marchers that are bigots in Scotland and the problem is massively more complex than that); poverty; generational unemployment; knife crime and gang culture; endemic drink and drug problems; the loss of industry, subsequent lack of work and impact on the psyche of the city; the shoddy state of state education and many more besides. Many people when confronted with such issues turn to their tribe and, in Glasgow, there are two tribes that go to war - seven times this season.


In divided communities, it is understandable why individuals use football as a vehicle. Often, as a force for good, a team represents a local community and can be a symbol of, and projection of, that community on the pitch. Crowds, and the wider support, are a bonding element for communities - Celtic Park is a place where the Catholic community of Glasgow can come together, sing together and be as one. As I point out above, Celtic has long been an important part of a certain section of Glasgow society. Some of this is no doubt good for the community but on occasion can very quickly turn ugly and problematic.

Many view Rangers as not being tied to a community in such an obvious a way. I'm not convinced that is the case although it may be that the wider community does not use the club in quite the same. Sociologists would no doubt put this down to Celtic fans viewing themselves as an oppressed minority and therefore are prouder of wearing the badge. Either way Rangers can be a force for community good. Equally, they can often chant disgusting things. It may be that, as with most things in life, we will have to acknowledge that these entities are in a process of long-term change.

Glasgow is better for having a place where crowds can come together, create their own identities and create institutions that matter to them and their communities. Glasgow is worse for some of the ways those within those institutions choose to behave. I have written about this matter before in depth (here).

If we accept that football clubs can be used to help bond communities and can be socially good entities, we must also accept that those communities may do things that we dislike and of which we disapprove. Sectarianism is a big deal in Scotland - a far bigger deal than most Scots acknowledge or care to admit - and therefore it is understandable that those involved in such conflict are likely to be attracted to entities that attracts large crowds, personify communities and clash regularly with ''the other side''.

It is at this point - like a child with an open bottle of bleach - a politician starts thinking ''I wonder what will happen if I get involved?''.

• We will hear calls for the removal of politics from football by politicians who, at election time, will tell us that clubs can be a force for good.
  
• We will hear calls for the removal of politics from football by politicians who, at the click of a camera, will do keep-ups with the Old Firm managers.
  
• We will hear calls for the removal of politics from football by politicians who, by and large, do not understand the issues at stake and who, when needs be, will arrange summits about the Old Firm to make themselves look better in the national press.

Politicians want politics in football when it suits them and want politics out of football the rest of the time. Let's not listen to them uncritically.

Conversely, there is a school of thought to say that says: Let them sing, let them be offensive. They always have been offensive. From that, if someone breaks the law, we can identify them and charge them. That might be difficult but it isn't impossible. There is a school of thought that football doesn't need any more sanitisation. To an extent, I am sympathetic with this school of thought but I think, in Glasgow, we've gone past the point of acceptability.


Turkey had a similar problem with offensive chanting which the Turkish Football Association tried to solve the issue by bringing in a four-stage penalty process:

• Offence 1: Warning
• Offence 2: Fine
• Offence 3: Play in front of empty stands
• Offence 4: Dock three points

Sound sensible? I've proposed similar before and I'd guess many readers are sympathetic.

Firstly, I can't see the SFA doing this. Secondly, it just didn't work. As fines mounted and more games were played out in silence, clubs threatened to pull out of the league and cited (as they would in Glasgow!) inconsistency of application. This is inevitable. As we've seen Rangers and Celtic can afford better QCs than the SFA.

In many ways these nailbombs are a horrific and unhelpful development which may set back the cause of anti-sectarianism years. Even if they had not been sent, Scotland should be focusing on this gordian knot. There are no easy policy solutions, sadly.

RCM