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.