If you know the history

 

If you know the history

I’m sure the throngs of mostly young Celtic Supporters who flooded the area around Glasgow Cross to celebrate Celtic’s championship last weekend were blissfully unaware of the history which surrounds that part of Glasgow. The traditional Mercat cross, the small octagonal building which some more athletic Celtic fans scaled on Saturday, was once at the heart of Glasgow’s medieval market area and was, in common with similar buildings in other towns, the symbolic centre of the city. The actual building, despite being described as a national treasure by some, is in fact a 1930 replica of a much older building demolished by the city fathers in 1659.

Close to the Mercat building, was the sight of the gallows where St John Ogilvie was martyred for his faith in March 1615. Ogilvie was an undercover Jesuit Priest who returned to Scotland to minister to the few Catholics left after the reformation. He refused to name the secret Catholics he visited despite being tortured and kept awake for days by being jabbed by daggers. During his trial, he refused to acknowledge the King’s supremacy on religious matters, saying would, ‘ no more acknowledge him than an old hat.’ His last words as they hanged him in public were, ‘If there are any hidden Catholics, let them pray for me but the prayers of heretics I will not have.’ As he swung out to meet his maker, he cast his rosary into the watching crowd. According to legend, the man who caught it became a devout Catholic.

To the south of the Mercat Cross is the Saltmarket area, which in the mid-19^th century this was known as District 14 and was one of the most deplorable slums in Europe. Into the ramshackle, overcrowded and insanitary dwellings of District 14, unscrupulous landlords crammed thousands of migrant Irish and many Scots cleared from the Highlands. One history book describes the area with the following words…..  ‘District 14 was a human cesspit, a concentration camp of filth and disease.’ Those drinking and cavorting in the spring sunshine last week would on the whole have been unaware of the misery of many of their forebears endured just a few hundred yards away.

Many of the building in the Trongate and Glasgow Cross area would have been familiar to Brother Walfrid, Celtic’s founding father. What would he have made of the thousands of Celtic fans singing their victory songs and cavorting around the Mercat building? Well, he was a man of his time and would doubtless have frowned upon the amount of drinking going on and some of the more uncouth behaviour. Many Victorian clergymen were keen that their people abstained from alcohol as drunkenness reflected badly on their community and could be a real scourge in some communities. Indeed, the problems caused by alcohol in the Irish community in Victorian Glasgow were such that the Police vehicles sent to deal with drunks were often called ‘Paddy wagons.’ There were big temperance movements in all the main churches in the 19^th century and often a wagon with a band on it would tour poorer areas drumming up interest in abstaining from drink. Thus, the term, ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ was first coined.

The good Brother might also be disappointed that so many have abandoned the faith which he and so many others took great solace in. To be a Catholic in Victorian Britain, was to be an outsider. Distrust of Catholicism was widespread in the UK and in more Calvinistic countries like Scotland, the old faith was considered tantamount to superstition and actively discriminated against. For the poor and often despised Irish flooding into Scotland’s industrial cities in the wake of the great hunger, the faith they held was an important part of their identity and a source of comfort to some in their hard lives.

Evangelical groups were very active seeking to proselytise the new arrivals in cities like Glasgow and would, ironically, offer soup after their services to poor Catholics. Celtic FC club was, in part set up to give the Catholic community the means to feed their own people and prevent them being converted away from their faith as many were during the dark days of An Gorta Mor in Ireland.

Brother Walfrid would be satisfied that his people had risen from the wretched conditions of 150 years ago to take their place in every level and strata of Scottish society. The progeny of those migrants in nineteenth century Glasgow used education to improve themselves and make better lives for their children and grandchildren. If they are still more likely to live in areas of deprivation than the general population, it is at least in greatly improved conditions than those Walfrid would have seen during his time in Glasgow.

The success of his club would have delighted him too. Its magnificent stadium stands like a beacon in the east end of the city. A reminder that a marginalised community overcame many obstacles to take its place in society. He’d be satisfied too that it continues its charitable work and has through its Foundation raised millions of pounds for worthy causes. He might also smile to see that many, many supporters of Celtic come from out-with the founding community. The very name ‘Celtic’ (Which he pronounced ‘Keltic’) was symbolic of the common heritage the Irish and Scots shared and his club was, he hoped, a bridge to help the Irish assimilate into Scottish society more successfully. That many of that Scottish community with no Irish heritage are avid supporters of his club would delight him. As would the fact that fans who come from Italian, Polish, Asian and many other backgrounds choose to call Celtic their club.

Scottish society has changed for the better in so many ways since Walfrid launched Celtic in the late Victorian era. Healthcare, housing, social security and education have all improved dramatically and life expectancy has increased greatly. In 1888, just over 10,000 people were recorded as having died in Glasgow. Of those around 50% were children under 5 years of age. Thankfully the conditions which made this tragedy happen have been swept away. One report into the contrast in the lives of Glasgow’s poor and more affluent people stated that…

‘Everyday experience, regardless of income, was shaped by ill-health. Life for the poor in overcrowded, industrial cities such as Glasgow was especially likely to be influenced by sickness and early death. Indeed, between the 1820s and 1830s the average age of death in Glasgow, already low at about 42 years for men and 45 for women, fell by about five years. It only recovered to early 19th century levels in the 1880s, when killer diseases such as typhus were finally brought under control. Poor nutrition led to chronic states of physical inefficiency among the working population. A School Board survey of 1906 revealed that a 14-year-old boy living in a poor area of Glasgow was, on average, 4 inches shorter than a similar-aged child from the city's West End. If you walked through the busy streets of this teeming city, the rich were easily differentiated from the poor because they were tall.’

Walfrid would be satisfied that so much has changed for the better since his time and would perhaps have a wry smile as he saw his club still so successful 134 years after it played its first match.

As the victory songs of Celtic supporters echoed off the walls of the Trongate, the words ‘and if you know the history’ were perhaps most poignant. The migrant Irish of 160 years ago were now Scots. Proud of their roots but at home in their native city. It has been quite a journey, but they made it.

 

 

The Glass Ceiling

 

The Glass Ceiling

One of the things you notice about all of the clubs who hold records for most domestic trophy wins in their history, is that they tend to come from smaller footballing nations. Thus, many of those in the so called ‘big five’ European football leagues would doubtless sneer at a club like Rangers boasting of 55 titles as some sort of European or world record. Real Madrid, for instance, has won over 20 European and world titles, as well as many domestic honours. Can we compare the two? I’d say not because we aren’t comparing like with like given the relative strength of competition in both leagues and at the top level in European football.

Scotland has played organised football since the inception of the Scottish Cup in 1873. The league followed in 1890 with Celtic among the founder members. Indeed, Celtic remain the only Scottish club to have played its entire history in the top division. In the early days of Scottish football, clubs such as Queens Park and Renton would challenge for honours but the adoption of professionalism meant that the clubs with bigger supports could pay more and began to out-perform the early giants of the game. Both Maley’s Celtic and Struth’s Rangers, accumulated a vast array of honours and only the post-World War Two football boom, which saw crowds of 65,000 at the Edinburgh derby or a 45,000 crowd into Pittodrie for a cup tie with Hearts, allowed the competition to be truly open.

Despite Celtic’s astonishing success in the period between 1965-75, there was a sense right into the 1980s that a number of clubs could win the league each season. Consider the fact that had Hearts not bottled it at Dens Park in 1986, they would have joined Celtic, Aberdeen, Dundee United and  Rangers as Champions in that decade. Indeed, Scotland would have had 5 different champions between 1982-87. However, a huge change was on the horizon and was to  begin the decline of provincial clubs believing they had a chance in the title race. It began with a relatively unknown footballer in Belgium called Jean-Marc Bosman.

Bosman challenged the right of football clubs to hold a player’s registration or demand a fee for them once their contracts were over. In every other profession in the EU, he argued, once you complete a contract you are free to move on to another employer with no fee being due. Anything blocking this was an obstruction of trade. The judges agreed with him and football was changed forever. Money then became the prime motivator for many players who were virtually owned by their clubs before the Bosman ruling. Could Aberdeen have held onto players like Miller or Strachan for the years they did, had the Bosman ruling been in effect? Could Dundee United, who often put teenage stars on exceptionally long contracts, have held on to Narey, Sturrock or Heggarty had an agent been there whispering in players ears of the money on offer elsewhere? The fact that the clubs had almost complete control of a player’s destiny, meant provincial clubs could hold onto talented players until they, the club, decided otherwise and thus build decent sides.

The Bosman ruling was a wake-up call to many Scottish clubs and led to typical  Scottish humour of the terraces. One fan remarked to me at the time of the Bosman decision with typical earthy humour, ‘players can just leave when their contract is up? Yer baws man!’ The phrase, ‘leaving on a Bosman’ entered the football lexicon and players started signing shorter contracts with an eye on a better deal or a lucrative move when it was over. To a degree there had always been a food chain in football with the better players ending up at bigger clubs but the Bosman ruling accelerated this and Scotland’s medium sized clubs were increasingly losing talent to leagues which paid more money. This was most brutally demonstrated when Aberdeen lost striker, Adam Rooney, to Salford City in 2018. He was reportedly paid £4000 per week to play in non-league English football. That a top Scottish club could lose a player to a club in the 5th tier in England is astonishing but money talks.

After the Bosman ruling was settled in the courts in 1995, taking with it the ‘three foreigners’ rule, a huge influx of foreign players began in the big leagues of Europe. The football agent became an important figure and by 1999, Chelsea became the first side in the UK to field a side made up entirely of foreigners. Scotland wasn’t immune to this influx and many foreign players joined our clubs. Some undoubtedly added to the quality of the league but many were journeymen who simply blocked places in the team and stifled the development of home-grown youngsters. It was judged cheaper by some clubs to bring in a foreign player than invest properly in youth systems.

Jean Marc Bosman himself said of the changes to football after the ruling which bears his name…

‘Now the 25 or so richest clubs transfer players for astronomical sums and smaller clubs cannot afford to buy at those prices. So, the 25 pull further and further away from the rest, deepening the gap between big and small. That was not the aim of the Bosman ruling.’

The very nature of football’s rapacious and unfettered capitalism saw this gulf developing everywhere as the good footballers followed the money. In Germany, Bayern Munich completed an unheard of ten in a row this season. In Italy, Juventus completed nine straight titles a couple of years back. In Spain Barcelona and Real Madrid have won all but 6 titles in the past 35 years. In England few would bet on anyone other than Manchester City or Liverpool for the title. While here in Scotland, no one outside the big two has won the league for 37 years. Is there an appetite to watch a game so stacked in favour of the big clubs both domestically and in Europe?

With the same clubs turning up in the latter stages of the Champions League year after year, some have lost interest. UEFA will doubtless pander to the demands of these ‘elite’ clubs fearing they’d go their own way if they didn’t, so the whole flow of the game is geared to suit them. Thus, we have the anomaly of Celtic and Rangers being too big (financially) for Scotland, yet too small to seriously contemplate having any chance of winning the Champions league. We tell ourselves that taking part is the important thing and accept the glass ceiling hemming us in just as Scottish clubs accept they’ll never dethrone the big two.

In the first half of my life, six different clubs won the Scottish Championship. In the second half it has been just two. I can’t see that changing in the near future unless there is a revolution in our game. Some suggest a wages cap and a cap on transfer fees might be one way to spread the talent more equitably, but it would fall in the courts just as the argument against free movement of players did in the Bosman case. Others suggest that the prize money and TV money accrued by Scottish football should be distributed equally rather than based on where you finish in the league. With Celtic and Rangers attracting up to ten times the attendance of some of their rivals, the gulf would remain.

So, the big two continue, locked in their loveless embrace like a married couple who dislike each other but have nowhere else to go. They are the chief selling point of Scottish football as their multi-layered rivalry is uniquely fierce. Their supporters consider finishing second to be a disastrous season and the clubs bestride the SPFL like two giants in a playground. What stops them becoming bored with this situation is getting the better of each other and their jousts with better quality opponents in Europe.

That is not to say I am anything less than delighted with Celtic’s championship win this season because I am, I just wish we could find a way to level the playing field and smash the glass ceiling both at home and in Europe. We’d all benefit from a more competitive league. Wouldn’t we?

 

Give him the tools

 

Give him the tools

In September of last year Celtic lost at Livingston to a goal in the 25^th minute of the game by Andrew Shinnie. Celtic languished in sixth place in the title race after losing three of their opening six games. It was clear that Ange Postecoglou knew what he wanted from his team and wouldn’t be diverted from playing his non-stop, quick passing style of play. They had 79% possession and 16 shots on goal on that day at the Tony Macaroni Arena and couldn’t find the net. Some said they were lightweight and lacking real punch up front. Others suggested Postecoglou’s style of play wasn’t suited to the rough and tumble of the Scottish game. Most Celtic supporters could see what he was trying to do though and were prepared to back him while he constructed a team. There were encouraging signs of progress in those early weeks of the season. I wrote myself at the time…

‘I’m excited by the start Postecoglou has made at Celtic and the improvements we have seen in the few months he has been here. He deserves time, patience and two or three transfer windows to transform Celtic into the side we all want them to be. Rome wasn’t built in day and good football teams are nurtured and built over several seasons and not a few months. Give Ange the tools he needs and I remain convinced he’ll do the job well.’

Ange’s way of dealing with the media also endeared him to the fans. He saw through their negativity and easily sidestepped the snares they set for him. He shook his head at preposterous suggestions the league was over in September by saying to the reporter involved, ‘You like to call it early here. Nothing is decided this early in the season.’ He has since proved that to be the case. Celtic will no doubt have told him about how the media in this country works and not to put to much stock into what the so called ‘pundits’ say. The word ‘pundit’ comes from the Sanskrit word ‘pandit’ which in India means a wise man or teacher. Once he listens to the likes of Kris Boyd, he’ll understand that they’re not all wise.

Watching the improvement in the side since that loss at Livingston has been very encouraging. Celtic have now gone 30 league games without defeat and if Ange has made errors along the way, he acknowledges them and learns from them. He possibly does regret not using Kyogo through the middle in the match they lost 1-0 at Ibrox. Once Kyogo switched in the second half, Celtic could easily have snatched a draw. Odsonne Edouard looked disinterested that day as he awaited his move to England but the money his sale brought in, along with that received for Kris Ajer, was spent wisely by Postecoglou. His recruitment has been very successful when contrasted to that of recent seasons, which was at best patchy.

Postecoglou famously said after a loss in Europe, ‘there is no plan B, if plan A isn’t working, then we need to do plan A better!’ As the season progressed, it was obvious that his team was doing things better. They secured victories at Pittodrie, Easter Road, Tynecastle and Ibrox as they overcame a deficit which was seven points at one time to climb to the top of the league. Their 3-0 thrashing of Rangers at Celtic Park in February was perhaps the epitome of what Ange is trying to do. In the first half of that game, Celtic played the sort of fast, attacking football that simply swept their opponents away. It was display full of pace and movement and one which let Rangers know that their predicated stroll to the title wouldn’t be happening.

Yesterday’s 4-1 win all but completes a remarkable turn around this season and the plaudits for Celtic’s 52^nd championship win should be laid at the feet of Ange Postecoglou. This is a man who stepped off a plane last summer with little more than his suitcases and a head full of ideas about how the game should be played. He had no backroom staff of his own but this vastly experienced coach quickly assessed what needed to be done to revive Celtic after last season’s shambolic goings on. After making the worst start in a league campaign since 1998, Postecoglou organised and galvanised his side and made rapid progress with the much needed rebuild.

He has said that this is merely phase one of the reconstruction of Celtic. If that is the case then Celtic fans can rightly feel excited about what the future holds. The team will find itself in the Champions League in the autumn for the first time in a few years and much as it looks a daunting prospect for his new side, he’ll doubtless approach it with his usual confidence. This young team is inexperienced at that level and will need learn fast in the big boys’ playground but most fans will be happy if the club makes a good fist of it.

Celtic is on the up, Scottish football is on the up and there are some exciting times ahead. With Ange at the helm, we can be confident as we approach the future.  His mantra will be the same in the season ahead as it was this year…

“Just get it into your heads: we never stop. We never stop. We’ll stop at half-time and we’ll stop at the end of the game when we celebrate. But during the game, we don’t stop”

That’s the sort of boss I want in the dugout and the training pitch. Give this man the tools and he’ll do the job.