The mood music

 

The mood music

German international Andreas Thom joined Celtic in the summer of 1995. It was a time of hope for Celtic as they returned home to Celtic Park which was rising like a phoenix above the east end Sky line. The team was improving after being in the doldrums for a few years and Tommy Burns had them playing some fine attacking football. Thom was barely at Celtic Park three months before he was standing numbly with some of his team mates at the funeral of a young Celtic fan murdered on his way home from a match with Partick Thistle. I recall seeing his image in a newspaper of the time and thinking that he must be wondering what the hell is going on.

Violence at and around football isn’t a new phenomenon even in countries like Germany but what was new to Thom was sickening bigotry which hangs around the fringes of the Glasgow football scene like a bad smell. There are those who argue that violent people would find an outlet for their actions even if football had never been invented. That may be true but there remains a poison at the core of the Celtic-Rangers rivalry which offers a ready context and a vocabulary of hate for the less bright in our society.

Hatred can of course be a learned response which is passed on from father to son. The old Jesuit aphorism, ‘Give me child for the first 7 years and I’ll give you the man,’ reminds us how susceptible children are to the opinions and attitudes of the important adults in their life. Abuse takes many forms and teaching a child to hate others is surely one of the most pernicious. Hatred can also be a deep psychological response to feeling powerless or trapped in our lives. It festers in poverty and ignorance although it is by no means exclusive to those contexts.

Most of us who enjoy watching Celtic or Rangers are clearly not deranged bigots and it was heartening to see at the time of Mark Scott’s death in 1995 that many of a blue persuasion were equally appalled at the senseless brutality of the act and the underpinning hatred which drove it. When we dehumanise people and make them Taigs, Fenians, Huns, Wogs, Yids or any other catch all term for a target group in our society, we mark them out as different from us and that is a dangerous thing to do.

The decent majority have a role to play in not setting the mood music where the haters can thrive. Journalist Graham Spiers wrote of the Rangers support at a match with Celtic a few years ago…

"The incessant bigoted chanting by Rangers fans at Hampden was shocking. Unarguably the most socially-backward fans in British football. The really damaging thing for RFC is, it’s not the mythical ‘small minority’. There appear to be 1000s upon 1000s singing these songs."

There will of course be a wide spectrum of opinion among those taking part in the bigoted chanting that day, ranging from those caught up in the atmosphere and excitement of the match to those with deeply ingrained prejudices. It won’t stop until the sensible folk stop singing these songs and challenge those who do to think about what they are saying. By joining in, they help create the welcoming environment where the more unhinged find a home for their hatred. Expressions of anti-Catholic or anti-Irish bigotry have no place in any modern country and it remains a stain on Scotland that we have allowed this to go on for so long.

This article though isn’t a diatribe against Rangers or their supporters as all clubs have their share of fools and knaves among their supporters. It may be that the issue is worse at Ibrox but we must all look to ourselves and ensure we don’t add to the mood music of hate. Celtic supporters have always sung Irish nationalist songs at matches and it is a right many would defend today. It is though also important to see ourselves as others see us and ask what is appropriate at a football match in Scotland? Celtic fans will recall Rob McLean on the BBC’s Sportscene show raising the issue of Celtic fans singing the ‘Boys of the old Brigade’ at a match at Hampden some years back and labelling it as ‘sectarian.’ There was understandable outrage from some Celtic followers as the song is clearly not sectarian but few asked about the appropriateness of singing the song at a Scottish football match at all.

Social media is the forum for much positive debate on Scottish football but the anonymity it affords allows some to pour forth their bile and prejudice with seeming impunity. Sometimes decent folk consider adding more moderating comments to some discussions but are dissuaded by the thought of the zealots coming down on them. It can be hard to be a dissenting voice in an echo chamber of like-minded people but as Sophie Scholl, a young girl executed by the Nazis for opposing the war said…

‘Stand up for what is right even if you are the only one standing.’

Scottish football is trying to make inroads into hate speak at matches through various initiatives and this is to be lauded. The SFA as overseers of our game have made historic mistakes, such as not challenging Rangers’ sectarian signing policy for a lifetime when it was common knowledge. This gave tacit approval to a policy which haunts Rangers to this day in terms of how they are perceived. The hate expressed in songs and words at football though point to a deeper, societal issue which perhaps finds a handy focal point in the stands. Football on its own won’t solve these issues but as a country we really need to confront them more vigorously as we seem to drift along accepting that the way it has always been will be the way it will stay..

It is now 26 years since Mark Scott’s tragic death and events in Glasgow last week when another Celtic fan lost his life remind us that the dragon of bigotry has not yet been slain. It isn’t someone else’s problem; we all need to own it and we all need to challenge it. We all need to look at ourselves before pointing the finger at others. As a society, we need to ensure that we don’t perpetuate the circumstances in which bigotry thrives.

Change is always possible though and the journey to a better place, long as it may be, always begins with the first step.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Union of Dumb Amateurs

 

The Union of Dumb Amateurs

I was born in the old Duke Street hospital more years ago than I care to remember. Today, the remnants of the former hospital sit boarded up, empty and somewhat forlorn beside a Lidl store. Built in 1904 in the days before the NHS as a Poor Law hospital, it sits today like relic of times gone past and only its grade B listing has stopped the bulldozers sweeping it away as they have with so much of Glasgow’s history. Each time I walk around the east end of Glasgow, I can’t help but think of incidents and people from days long gone. It’s filled with memories and the ghosts of the past hang heavy in the air.

On a quiet Sunday morning, I took a long lockdown walk through the east end and had one of those odd experiences you only get in the ‘dear green place.’ I strolled down Abercromby Street picturing in my mind the old black tenement building I lived in as a boy. I thought of a football match in the back court amid the debris of a decaying city when I slid in for a tackle only to slash my leg on some broken glass which was lying around. I still bear the scar from that day so long ago. Opposite my tenement home was St Mary’s church and the old school behind it with the boys’ playground on the roof. I recalled during one playtime football match accidently kicking the ball over the rooftop railings where it plummeted into the girls’ playground below. That was game over and I wasn’t too popular that day.

I reached the junction of Abercromby Street and the London Road, thinking I would walk around Glasgow Green when something caught my attention. I could hear what sounded like someone making a speech and people roaring approval. So instead of heading to the Green, I turned left and headed towards Bridgeton Cross. The speech continued but the Sunday morning streets were deserted. The puzzle was solved when I realised that someone had their first-floor flat window open and was blasting out what sounded like Ian Paisley at his roaring best. The old firebrand Minister, who had something of a conversion late in life to the peace process, was roaring out, ‘Never, never, never!’  It seemed like I had stepped back in history 50 years or more. A man in a Rangers top was at the window and clearly still merry from celebrating his side’s deserved championship win. He was shouting out some tired old sectarian slogans to no one in particular as a rather bemused old chap walking his dog completely ignored him. A police van was parked across the road, although the officers seemed more concerned with what they were getting out of Greggs than the bizarre display going on 50 yards away.

As I passed, Dr Paisley stopped ranting, the virtually empty street was treated to a song with the line ‘we are the men of the UDA.’ Of course, that part of town has some history of people being involved in supporting the loyalist cause during the troubles. Indeed, some less cerebral types actually planted bombs in ‘Irish’ bars in Glasgow causing some severe injuries. The Police of the time infiltrated them easily enough and some lengthy sentences were handed out. One senior officer of the time referred to the Glasgow UDA as the ‘Union of Dumb Amateurs.’ In one piece of black comedy, they hid explosives in an oven in a loyalist club. During a dance, someone put on the oven to heat up some pies and literally blew up the club.

Those dark old days are long gone, hopefully forever, but for some, a sense of community and identity is still sought in old paradigms of Loyalist and republican, old antagonisms of orange and green but the vast majority of Scots have never had much interest in such things and of those who did, most have left it in the past. It was odd seeing that chap at his window, addled with drink and going through his empty rituals like an outdated performer in an empty theatre. It would be easy for those of us who don’t share his outlook on life to simply dismiss him as an outmoded crank or deranged bigot but that is to fail to get to the root of issue.

Prejudice thrives in ignorance and poverty and dealing with those things as a society is the first step to alleviating it. Research suggests that the bond between people who hate the same thing is often stronger than when they like the same thing. There is bonding among groups who are opposed to others and the scapegoat they target is often a projection of their own fears and insecurities. One article on group dynamics in society said…

‘Humans desire structure and certainty in their social lives. To establish that, people naturally divide into in-groups (social circles where everyone feel like they belong with one another) and out-groups (people who exist outside of social circles and are typically not welcomed into them). When people declare their dislike for others, it helps people understand the boundaries between social circles. This is a powerful motivator for people to form bonds because it satisfies their need to feel connected to others.’

The man at the window was perhaps not so much ranting to offend those in the group he dislikes but rather to signal to others who think like him that he belongs in their group. A more cohesive and perhaps fairer society could develop from dealing with poverty and ignorance and helping people feel part of a greater whole. Too many are left behind and left to wallow in ignorance and look for someone to blame. It may be counter intuitive, especially if you are on the receiving end of the abuse such folk dish out, but they really are to be pitied rather than hated. It can be hugely difficult to escape the conditioning we endure as children. Hatred is often learned at our daddy’s knee and those attitudes, once embedded, are hard to shift.

I continued my walk, leaving the man at the window shouting, ‘we are the people,’ at a world that wasn’t listening. It seemed such a waste of a life to spend your days trapped in the prison of ignorance without realising the doors are unlocked. Some people isolate themselves from contact with the group they claim to hate and that failure to see them as people like themselves can lead to a cycle of stereotyping which perpetuates their prejudice.

A few years ago, as part of the peace process in the north of Ireland, former IRA men met former British soldiers to reconcile their views of the past. One former soldier said of the encounter…

“There was an element of fear there and, I have to be honest, a bit of mistrust,” he said. “I had never met a republican before except when I was on operational duties with the army, which is quite shocking really. I was taken aback by their hospitality and, for want of a better word, their normality, and they weren’t aggressive to me. They had a good point to make which was easily understood once I sat and listened: why they were involved in the armed conflict.  Initially, I didn’t tell them very much. I was guarded. But it didn’t take long to come around. Their story is not really much different from our story as soldiers. I think the key to the reconciliation process is listening.”

One former IRA man who took part in the encounter said…

“It’s important to listen to their stories, to get an understanding of what they were actually going through and also the effect that the conflict has had upon them. People who were involved in the conflict have a responsibility to attempt to rebuild society, to ensure that our children’s future is not our past”.

Here in Scotland, I hope the new generation sees past the out-dated squabbles of yesterday and builds a better country where everyone has a stake. Where we are all ‘the people’ regardless of faith, ethnicity, politics or any other construct made up in our minds. As Maya Angelou once said….

‘Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world but it has not solved one yet.’

 

 

 

 

The Milk Boy

 

The Milk Boy

A few years back I was invited to a book launch by Stephen Murray who was the author of the excellent ‘Ten Men won the League,’ a book which recounted the incredible events of season 1978-79. Just when all seemed lost for Celtic that year, the snow came and halted the league season for almost two months. Celtic returned from a trip to Portugal and seemed to have rediscovered their mojo and went on a run which saw them streak up the league table until finally it all rested on a game with Rangers at Celtic Park on a bright May evening. Much has been written about that astonishingly dramatic game in which Celtic fought back from a goal down and a man down to score four goals in the final 25 minutes of the match to record a fine 4-2 victory and win the league.

At that book launch I had the pleasure of meeting a few players who played that season. Full back Joe Filippi was there as was Peter Latchford but for me the highlight of the evening was to spend some minutes talking to the one and only Danny McGrain. He remains a humble, soft spoken man who retains great affection for Celtic. It is no exaggeration to say that he was a world class footballer in his time and added to this had a great attitude on and off the field. He had to deal with some serious injuries as a player. His skull fracture at Brockville in May 1972 after a sickening clash of heads with Falkirk striker Doug Somner saw McGrain, clearly concussed, yet in typical fashion he played on until half time before the extent of his injury was known and he was rushed to Falkirk Royal Infirmary.

The following season, with Jim Craig moving on, he made the right back berth his own and blossomed into a fantastic overlapping full back. He rightly gained international honours and was in time part of the Scotland squad which headed to West Germany for the 1974 World Cup Finals. The Scots were the only undefeated team in the tournament but lost out in the group stages after stirring displays against Brazil, Yugoslavia and Zaire. McGrain it seemed could do no wrong but then he was diagnosed with diabetes. Danny was drinking pints of water after one game on a particularly hot day and team medics soon spotted what was amiss. Later in his life he skipped a meal and it almost proved very costly indeed. He wasn’t answering his phone and his wife called the Police knowing that his condition could lead to a loss of consciousness if the circumstances were against him.

The Police car slowed to a crawl as the young officer scanned the nearby cars for the one they were looking for. ‘Nothing’ he said to his colleague as they turned and headed for the Linthouse area which borders the huge Southern General hospital complex. Again, the same pattern was repeated; check the parked cars in the area for a colour and model match, then move on to the licence plate. Just as they were thinking of moving on, they spotted a likely car. ‘Colour matches… checking the plate.’ The driver slowed to a halt. There was soon no doubt that this was the car they were looking for. As they stepped from the vehicle, they could plainly see a familiar figure slumped over the steering wheel. ‘That’s him, quick get the door opened.’ The door was thankfully unlocked but even if it had been locked, they would not have hesitated to break in. This was an emergency. One of the officers quickly assessed the situation and used the sort of common sense long experience had endowed him with, ‘He’s hypoglycaemic, but still with us.’ He produced a soft, sugary sweet from his pocket and eased it into the man’s mouth. As life-saving procedures go it was undramatic and inexpensive but to a diabetic whose brain has been drained of sugar it was manna from heaven. It saved his life.

The man in the car was of course Celtic legend Danny McGrain. He had failed to show up at home after attending a meeting and his wife had the wisdom to quickly call the Police when her calls to his mobile went unanswered. Skipping a meal had meant Danny’s body was seriously low on sugar and in such circumstances the brain’s reaction is to close the non-vital bodily systems down and conserve what little sugar there was in his system. He had lost consciousness shortly after having the presence of mind to park by the side of the road and it then became a race against the clock to find him. Thankfully the Police did find Danny’s car and knew what to do to revive him.

Those of us lucky enough to see Danny McGrain play during his Celtic career saw a player who combined natural talent with determination. It was noted by a fellow player that he possessed a ‘cruel tackle’ which gave no quarter. He was never a dirty player though as he possessed too much talent to need to stoop to that but he was as tough as they come in the physical world of Scottish football. In memory’s view he is the young swashbuckling full back storming up the right wing, the mature bearded captain linking the play on that memorable day at Love Street in 1986 and the player you looked to when things reached the tipping point in tight games.

The young boy who was up a 4am for five years delivering milk in Drumchapel had a dream of making a living playing the game he loved. His first inkling that Celtic were watching his progress came in 1967 when the Hoops were sweeping all before them at home an in Europe. He recalled in an interview that things didn’t quite go to plan when Celtic’s Sean Fallon came to watch him…

“Tommy Reilly brought Sean (Fallon) to Ibrox when I played for Scotland under-18s against England,” he said. “We got hammered and it was a horrible winter’s day. The ground was heavy and the English guys were just giants running about in the mud. I remember being carried off at the end with cramp in both my legs. I played left-midfield then, left-half, and Ibrox is a big park for any 16-year-old so I was running around chasing people and chasing the ball. There were a lot of scouts there and I was getting carried off, and I thought, ‘I’ve blown my chances of playing for Celtic.’ But Sean Fallon phoned my mum and said, ‘Can I come up and see Danny about signing for us?’ And he came up to my house in Drumchapel in 1967, it was before the European Cup final although I don’t remember watching the game and thinking, ‘That guy was in my house!”

Danny was pursued by Celtic though and joined a fine group of youngsters at Celtic Park which included Macari, Dalglish, Wilson, Hay, Connelly and many more who would do great things in the game. As the Lisbon Lions broke up and retired or moved on, these youngsters continued their domestic dominance. Celtic of the period were not among the best payers in the game and eventually many of his best team mates headed south to the riches of the English game. Danny stuck it out at Celtic Park and is rightly seen as a club legend. He led Celtic through good times and bad with dignity and pride.

There is a poignant photograph of a grandfatherly McGrain with an up-and-coming Kieran Tierney. He doubtless passed on his wisdom on the game to the young player at Lennoxtown and in such meetings and perhaps saw something of himself in the young full back. I’m sure the Celtic mad Tierney listened well to the older man and knowing his history hoped he’d aspire to be in McGrain’s class as a player.

Every generation which follows Celtic has been blessed to watch some fine players. Some are called ‘greats’ a select few ‘Legends.’ Danny McGrain is both.