A different song

A different song

Celtic’s dramatic late winner at Tynecastle went down very well with the support, offering a much needed boost to morale following Brendan Rodgers abrupt departure. Neil Lennon led the team to a crucial win after a fairly turgid 90 minutes in which the home side’s physical approach had Celtic struggling to find their fluency. To win at Kilmarnock and Tynecastle in the dying embers of both games is testimony to Celtic’s fitness and mental toughness and augurs well for the business end of the season.

The match of course followed the departure of Brendan Rodgers which took place with indecent haste and caught us all by surprise. There was no little anger at his abrupt departure after spending two and a half years telling us he was a lifelong fan who loved Celtic. That being said, the few less bright supporters who sang that cringe-worthy song about him need to have a good look at themselves. They have to know in this day and age that they’re likely to be filmed doing such things and you’d conclude from that that they don’t care if it ends up on social media or in the tabloids who seem to actively seek out such videos to get more clicks on their advert filled pages. That being said, the vast majority of fans who are angry at Rodgers wish him no ill. It’s time to move on; all managers leave in the end one way or another. It wasn’t his departure which upset many it was the timing and manner of it.

This week has also seen two inquests taking place in these islands. The first is the inquest into the Ballymurphy Massacre of August 1971 when members of the Parachute Regiment killed 10 civilians in Belfast. It seems at last the truth may be getting out as it did in the end about the events of Bloody Sunday. Nothing can assuage the anguish of those who lost loved ones but perhaps some truth and recognition of the huge injustice which took place might help them find closure. The other inquest taking place this week is that into the murder of 21 innocent people in the Birmingham Pub bombings of November 1974. There too families have never heard the full truth about what happened that night and justice is a distant hope. Ballymurphy and Birmingham both saw the innocent suffer and nothing is worth the misery inflicted on the families of those involved in these events.

Those of you old enough to remember the troubles will have those events and many, many more etched into your memory. My childhood and adolescence was marked by watching events unfold from afar and wondering how the ordinary folk living in the north of Ireland could live with such stress and such chaos going on around them.

I mention these inquests because again there is a fuss about some Celtic supporters singing Irish rebel songs at matches and they offer a stark backdrop to this. Each person must make his own mind up about what is appropriate at a football match in Scotland in 2019. Some are of the opinion that anything goes in a free society while others find it at best distasteful and at worse cringe-worthy and embarrassing. I know folk online who avoid this subject like the plague despite having strong opinions on it. They feel it’s not worth the hassle of bringing it up as they can be labelled a ‘soup taker’ or an ‘uncle Tom’ and generally find themselves subjected to abuse they can live without.

The football authorities and the Scottish Government are being pressured to act on what takes place in Scottish football grounds. The long standing issue of sectarian singing at Rangers matches appears to getting more flagrant and while many would correctly argue that rebel songs are not in themselves sectarian, the perception that they are is widespread as is the incredulity that football supporters in Scotland should be singing such songs in 2019. The arguments for singing such songs are usually about ‘expressing cultural identity’ and it’s countered by many who say express all you want, just not in a football stadium.  

Journalist, Tom English, himself an Irishman was challenged to spell out which songs are sectarian and replied, ’Roll of honour, sung endlessly by those clueless morons in the Green Brigade, celebrating men who targeted and killed Protestant civilians, including two babies.’ These are harsh words but that is the perception many have about singing IRA songs at Celtic matches. Journalists who criticised the behaviour of football fans and call for strict liability are accused of selective hearing and subjected to a tirade of ‘whataboutery’ which circles around meaninglessly instead of people actually stopping to think and engage with the issue. Of course supporters of several clubs have an issue to sort out regarding their songbook but the two Glasgow clubs dwarf the opposition in Scotland in terms of support and the issue is magnified with them.

I’m not telling anybody what they should do or what they should sing at a football match. That is up to each and every individual to decide for themselves. I am though laying out how it is perceived and damage it can do to a club like Celtic’s reputation. It hands those with no love of Celtic a big stick to beat the club with and the excuse they crave to lump Celtic supporters together with the worst elements at Ibrox. The old ‘two cheeks of the same arse’ argument does the rounds again and the lazy ‘Old Firm bigotry’ stories roll in the media again. That is so unfair to the vast majority of Celtic supporters who don’t have a bigoted bone in their body and want their club to be an inclusive and open organisation which lives up to its founding principles.

I’ll leave you with the words of, Briege Voyle, whose mother Joan Connolly was killed in the Ballymurphy massacre in 1971…

 ‘Everybody’s pain is the same. A soldier gets shot, his parent’s, his family’s pain is the same as mine. What makes people think that their pain is any worse than mine or any less than mine? We’re all suffering the same thing. So the truth needs to be told. That’s the only way you can draw a line under the past; tell the truth.’

People in the north of Ireland are slowly trying to draw a line under the past and trying to build a better future for all the people living there. The horrors of the past haunt so many and truth and healing are needed if that better future is to become a reality. I hope the families of the victims of Ballymurphy and Birmingham find some closure and perhaps some truth. 

In the end violence begets violence and the innocent suffer. Perhaps it’s time we sang a different song.