The Harsh Reality

 

The Harsh Reality

Those of you who attended the final league match of the season last May when Celtic defeated Hearts to claim the title will understand the euphoria on display when Celtic scored the clinching goal in the dying seconds of the game. The field invasion by a couple of hundred, mostly excited young people, after that goal was the subject of heated discussion for weeks afterwards. Despite a plethora of tv cameras capturing the images from every angle and mobile phone footage giving us even more views of what occurred we had to endure fanciful stories of players being assaulted and outrageous behaviour going on. Some pundits who made blatantly false accusations had the grace to retract their original stories. Pat Nevin claimed he had seen ‘two or three’ Celtic fans attack Hearts captain Shankland, describing the scenes as ‘sickening and unacceptable’. When no evidence of this was forthcoming despite wall-to-wall tv coverage, he was forced into an embarrassing apology.

The phenomenon of motivated perception has been described in psychology for decades. The world as we conceive it in our awareness is not always exactly an accurate depiction of what it truly is. Our perception is often  and selective and biased- how many times have screamed for a penalty at a match and realised when you saw the tv pictures later that it in no way a spot kick?  Harper Lee in her seminal book ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ described motivated perception perfectly when she has her protagonist, Atticus Finch say, ‘people generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.’ That is very true among football fans who are so emotionally invested in their team. Some of what you read online about games is so biased as to be little more than worthless propaganda.

Let me take you back 121 years to a fiercely contested Celtic v Rangers cup tie which took place at Celtic Park in March 1905. A big crowd saw Celtic dominate the opening exchanges and the Hoops were unfortunate not to be ahead at the break. Things changed when Donnie McLeod of Celtic was injured and that meant, in those pre-substitute days, that Celtic were down to 10 men. Rangers predictably took advantage of this and took a deserved 2-0 lead. The Parkhead faithful in the crowd had grown restless at refereeing inconsistences and in the later stages of the game sent Jimmy Quinn off for allegedly kicking Rangers defender Alec Craig. Craig himself stated that there had been no kicking and that as he held onto Quinn’s leg after a tackle, the forward merely tried to pull it free.  The referee, Mr Tom Robertson interpreted this as a kick and Quinn was sent off. This incident sparked a pitch invasion by mostly young Celtic fans and the match was abandoned with 8 minutes left. Celtic quite rightly conceded the tie.

Jimmy Quinn was banned for a month for this incident despite Craig writing to the SFA and telling them that Quinn did not kick him. Unsurprisingly, the SFA stuck to their beliefs that the referee was correct and Quinn’s ban stood. His appeal, again supported by the Rangers player he was said to have kicked was dismissed on a vote of 13-10 by the committee members. It left a real feeling of injustice.

Celtic of course, missed a player of his calibre but fought on without him to finish the league on equal points with Rangers. The rules then stipulated that a play off match should take place at a neutral venue and Jimmy Quinn was back for the deciding game at Hampden. Such was the unrest about officiating and the SFA’s treatment of Quinn, an English referee was brought in ensure that no one would cry foul regardless of the outcome of the winner takes all game at Hampden.

So it was that on May 6^th 1905 Celtic met Rangers at Hampden in a match to decide who would be champions of Scotland. All three goals were scored in the second half as Celtic won 2-1. Their title would be the first of six in a row that Maley’s great team achieved. A record that would stand until eclipsed by Jock Stein’s great side of the sixties and seventies.

Although the Celtic goals that beat Rangers came from the hugely talented Jimmy McMenemy and Davie Hamilton. It was Jimmy Quinn’s 19 goals in 21 league games which had kept Celtic in the hunt when Rangers appeared to be strolling their way to the title. The shy young man whom Wille Maley practically begged to join Celtic was a real lion on the field of play. He may have been known in the Celtic dressing-room as ’Jamie the Silent’ due to his quiet, withdrawn nature, but once he crossed that white line, he fought for the shirt with everything he had. He remains one of the finest goal scorers in Celtic’s history with 217 goals in 311 appearances.

It remains remarkable that 121 years after Jimmy Quinn’s alleged offence in that cup tie with Rangers, that modern fans, despite being aided by blanket tv coverage of matches, still argue vehemently about decisions made on the field. Some still fail to see that motivated perception and confirmation bias can lead them to actually deny the evidence of their own eyes. The gap between expectation and reality is where disappointment lies and that was never better illustrated than the reaction of pundits and fans to Hearts blowing the title last season. Despite a horrendous away record on the run in, some still claim a hand ball call for Celtic at Fir Park, given by a Rangers leaning referee, somehow robbed them of glory.

They wanted it so badly, most of the country wanted them to succeed too. They didn’t so much fall at the last fence as collapse at the finish line. The crushing disappointment they felt was caused in part by an imperfect but dogged Celtic side who refused to give up. In their hearts though, they’ll know it was caused more by their own failings at the business end of the season. It was in their hands and they let it slip away. Former Celtic midfielder, Roy Keane put it well when he said, ‘top level sport is brutal and cruel. The primary goal is winning titles rather than recording assists. That’s the harsh reality and it’s why fans love the game.’