Honourable Men

 

Honourable Men

In the Shakespeare play ‘Julius Cesar’ Brutus and his friends have murdered Cesar in the Senate and worry about how the mob will respond to their deed. They allow Cesar’s friend Marc Antony to address the mob in Rome on the explicit understanding that he doesn’t blame Brutus and his cronies. Marc Antony skilfully points out the wounds on Cesar’s body before praising Brutus and his co-conspirators as ‘honourable men’ but doing so with such dripping sarcasm that the mob becomes enraged. The final blow is the reading of Cesar’s will to the crowd who hear of his love for them and what he bequeaths the city. As the mob begin to riot, Marc Antony, happy that revenge might soon be his, mutters to himself…"Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt." As a work of rhetoric, Marc Antony’s speech is a great example of saying one thing and meaning the opposite. The ‘honourable men’ are clearly exposed to the mob as self-serving assassins.

Strange that the words of Shakespeare came to me today, perhaps it was due to the decision of those honourable men at the SFA to pass Dave King as a fit and proper person. Yes he was on the board of the old club which suffered an insolvency event and died leaving millions owed to creditors large and small but the SFA are honourable men. They may argue the legalities of such decisions but the moral issue is clear: If we are saying that a man convicted of crimes of dishonesty is a fit and proper person to run a Scottish football club, then who exactly is unfit? Mr King came to the attention of the South African Tax Authorities when he bought a painting for R1.7m at a time his declared income was R60,000. Yes he was convicted of 41 counts of breaching the South African tax code and ordered to spend 2 years in prison for each offence or pay over £40m in fines. Yes, the Judge called him a ‘glib and shameless liar’ but such things were viewed as no barrier to him running the new Rangers by the SFA and they are, of course, all honourable men. They will find legalese words to give a fig leaf of respectability to their decision which is, in the eyes of many outside the Rangers bubble, just another example of  the SFA bending over backwards to help the reborn establishment club back onto its feet after the shameful demise of the oldco.

Their chums in the media will trot out the ‘good for Scottish Football’ guff till the gullible swallow it like a nice piece of succulent lamb. But they too are all honourable men, aren’t they?  They will also trot out the inarticulate and those of jumbled mind on radio phone in shows and let the cynics of the media attack them as obsessed or paranoid. Alas they are too late because we all know how it works now. We all see the manipulation, the calling in of favours and yes the agendas. We’ve seen it in politics and we see it again as sections of the media attempt to resurrect the corpse of old Rangers and stick it back on the throne.

The SFA themselves stated on their website…

‘’Mr King provided substantial information in relation to the matters set out at Article 10.2 (h) and 10.2 (j) namely: He has been convicted within the last 10 years of (i) an offence liable to imprisonment of two years or over, (ii) corruption or (iii) fraud and;  He has been “a director of a club in membership of any National Association within the 5-year period preceding such club having undergone an insolvency event”.

Despite this they still feel he is a fit and proper person to run a football club. Of course we trust them, they are all honourable men, aren’t they?

 

 

 

 

The club for me

 

The club for me

His old man handed him the video tape on the career of the wonderful Pele, ‘Look at this guy, he’s the best player ever.’ Like all football mad youngsters young Henrik watched it over and over and saw one of the greats in action. He would say later that he expected to see a great goal scorer in action but saw immediately what Pele brought to the team as well as his finishing. It was a lesson he’d take into his own career. Thoughts of being a footballer were never far from his young mind but as his parents split up he had to deal with the fall-out from that as well as the low level racism he occasionally faced. He said of those years…

“I am not that dark but obviously I had my curly hair when I was young and you’d get people, who don’t understand, who will say something. I used to win the most fights as well, so it soon stopped. I can’t recollect feeling that different. I only had to look at my dad and I knew I wasn’t 100% Swedish, but when you are a kid you don’t have those worries. You just go on with it and that depends how the other kids are as well. There were times when people called you something. You always have the odd ones who will say something. You have bad people everywhere in the world and that includes Sweden.  The older I get the more I say it is stupid people that are racists or whatever, and mostly it is because they are afraid. I don’t understand someone who hates someone else when they don’t know the person, just because he’s black, yellow or whatever colour you want to mention. For me, that’s just not comprehensible.”

Those formative years helped Larsson become a tougher competitor on the field and for a man of modest stature he competed with great success in the physically demanding world of professional football. His early career in Sweden and Holland showed promise but even he would admit that his arrival at Celtic in 1997 was the turning point in his career. His contract with Feyenoord had a £650,000 buy-out clause which Wim Jansen took advantage of to secure perhaps the biggest bargain in Celtic’s recent history. His inauspicious start at Easter Road and then the following week at home to Dunfermline saw Celtic shed six points in a vital season which saw Rangers seeking to win 10 in a row but a turning point of sorts was reached at Perth when Celtic at last began to click and Larsson found the net for his first SPL goal.  Larsson’s appreciation of the supporters desire to ‘Stop the Ten’ soon hit home as he took on board more of Celtic’s history. He said…

"On my first day at Celtic, Clarky took me out into the hallway and pointed at one of the pictures of when they won the European Cup. He said: 'That's me wee man.' I was there for such a long time that you get to know the history, what it means to people.’’

Thankfully Larsson and his team mates did win the title in 1998 to end Rangers domination of Scottish football. In the 17 years since then Celtic has established itself as the preeminent force in the Scottish game and that looks set to continue for a while yet.

Those of us lucky enough to watch Henrik Larsson play for Celtic saw the genuine article. Here was a goal scorer of great ability but also, like his hero Pele, a team player who fought hard in every area of the pitch. His 242 goals in 315 appearances remains the third highest total in Celtic’s history with only Jimmy McGrory and Bobby Lennox ahead of him. Those who say goals are easier to come by in the Scottish game cannot dismiss his 35 goals in Europe which remains a record for a player at a British club.  But there was so much more to Henrik Larsson than putting the ball in the net. His ability to harass defenders, to work for the team was exemplary. For Celtic fans it was important too that he came to an understanding of what the club was all about and he certainly did that. There were times when the lure of the English Premiership and its riches were sent to tempt him but he said no and told the fans that he’d honour his contract at Celtic Park.

Watching video footage of him hanging in the air to meet a cross or dinking the ball over an advancing keeper is to relive great times. We knew when we were watching him that we were seeing one of the greats. It is now 11 years since he said his emotional farewell to the fans who adored him and his own reaction to that parting said it all. He said…

‘This is the club for me. This is where I made myself as a player, this is where everybody got to know me and this is the club that I will be eternally grateful to for giving me that opportunity when maybe other clubs didn’t believe in me. This is where I got back into the Swedish national team and went on to play in European Championships and World Cups for Sweden. I couldn’t have done that without Celtic.”

As the years go on and we look back at those years watching Larsson play there are so many moments to cherish. His two goals in Seville on that bitter sweet night in 2003, his wonderful chip over Stefan Klos in the 6-2 game or his dinked goal at Blackburn Rovers on a night Celtic shut a few arrogant mouths.  For me his trademark tongue out, arms stretched goal celebration will live in the memory. The joy on his face when he scored was plain to see and I’m sure he saw it mirrored in the faces of thousands of Celtic supporters. I’ve been privileged to see some fine players in the Hoops but Henrik Larsson is among the finest. A great player who left us with some great memories. When he was asked if he was starting his career over again which of the clubs he had played for would he like to play for, he replied…

"Celtic, it’s where I made my name and played for seven years.’

Thank you for everything Henrik. They were great times which will live with all who witnessed them forever.

 

 

Remember

 

Remember

Last night’s fairly exciting end of season tussle between St Johnstone and Celtic saw the travelling supporters in fine voice. Indeed the first 20 minutes of the game was played out to a ceaseless cacophony of songs from the wonderful away support which backs Celtic so well on their travels. At one point stadium reverberated to a rather poignant song which I’m sure you all know well. It contains the line…

‘For you stole Trevelyan’s corn

So the young might see the morn

Now a Prison ship lies waiting in the bay...’

For the supporters of Celtic FC this song carries a folk a memory which echoes in the very DNA of the club. The event known as ‘An Gorta Mor’ (The Great Hunger) led not only to the deaths of over a million people but saw the dispersal of many more to all corners of the English speaking world.  Of course the great cities of the industrial revolution in the UK saw the benefits of imported Irish muscle in the factories, Docks and Mills. In their hundreds of thousands they came seeking a better life and an escape from deprivations we can scarce imagine, to London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and of course Glasgow. In time they put down roots and contributed greatly to their host societies but they never forgot what drove them from Ireland in the first place.

Those of you who know the work of Irish historian Tim Pat Coogan will realise that he is a man of intellect and unafraid to take on the establishment. His background is that of a nationalist, his father fighting in the war of independence but as a historian and academic he knows that anything he writes should be backed up by evidence if it is to be taken seriously.  His books on the Troubles, the Easter Rising and other sensitive aspects of Irish history have caused great debate and one of his latest offerings is no less controversial.

‘The Famine Plot’ argues that the British Government was guilty of engineering the food shortage in Ireland to kill off surplus population in what was one of the first examples of ethnic cleansing in western Europe. Of course, the British could not be blamed for the failure in the potato crop which came as a result of the arrival of the ‘blight’ (Phytophthora infestans)  in Ireland which rotted the potatoes in the ground. However Coogan’s narrative informs us that the blight struck all over Europe and in countries like Scotland there was no mass starvation because Landowners and the Government acted swiftly and decisively to avert this. Why then did they not act likewise in Ireland? This remains the crucial question in determining why Ireland alone was to suffer a million fatalities and the displacement of whole communities.  Coogan states that anti-Irish racism and a still virulent anti-Catholic prejudice were part of the answer to why the Government did little of substance to prevent a very difficult situation turning into a disaster of biblical proportions. He quotes extensively from official documents, newspaper reports and eyewitnesses accounts to construct a damning picture of a Government which did little to prevent a million of its citizens perishing. All of this in the richest Empire on earth at the time.

In one chapter Coogan relates that when the Coastguard General, a man with some shred of decency, ordered his men to hand out food to starving paupers he was rebuked by Charles Trevelyan who said with breath-taking inhumanity…

‘This famine has been sent by God to teach the Irish a lesson. The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of famine but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.’

This idea of blaming the Irish for the Famine held sway with many in the British establishment. The fact is that Irish writers like John Mitchel warned the Government at the time what was occurring and was met with cold indifference. Mitchel wrote…

"The people watched as their "food melting in rottenness off the face of the earth, all the while watching heavy-laden ships, freighted with the yellow corn their own hands have sown and reaped, spreading all sail for England. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine."

Coogan’s book looks at the various forces at work which led to the disaster in Ireland in the mid nineteenth century. Yes the Laissez-faire economic philosophy of the day which demanded that the market will ‘sort it out’ played a part as did the natural inclination in those pre-welfare days to blame the poor for their plight. Where Coogan is masterful and concise is in his exploration of the morality of the educated ruling elite, who were for the most part church attending Christians, doing little while millions were in mortal danger. He clearly exposes the hypocrisy and prejudice which played a role in the Irish being considered expendable. Trevelyan himself said that the famine was…‘a mechanism for reducing surplus population.’ It takes a real lack of empathy to see the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people in such terms.

Coogan is certain in his assertion that the actions of the British government in Ireland during the1845-52 period were little short of genocidal. This is powerful book with a powerful narrative which pulls no punches. To read it is to delve into one of the darker chapters of human history. One cannot help but be affected by the horrors it speaks of and the actions of those who could have helped but chose to look the other way.

That is why singing ‘The fields of Athenry’ at Celtic games is perfectly legitimate. Many of the supporters are of Irish descent and even those who are not understand the scale of the disaster which befell Ireland during An Gorta Mor and its role in the birth of Celtic. I recall driving from Shannon airport to my Grandfather’s home town in County Clare and noticing the abandoned cottages, long fallen into ruin, which dot the landscape. They stand in mute remembrance of countless lost souls and countless communities destroyed by famine and man’s inhumanity to man. Whole villages were emptied by hunger and those who survived had every right to tell their children to remember.

 

 ''Oh God that bread should be so dear and human flesh so cheap''

 

 

 

They know not what they do

 

They know not what they do

Like so many letters from America one of the first comments from the exiled Scot concerned his favourite football team…

“A little Scotsman told me Hearts were in the final of the Scottish Cup and they were knocking hell out the Hibs, whereat I felt very much depressed”.

Nothing unusual in those words you might think, apart from the fact that the person writing them was James Connolly. Throughout his life Connolly was a great supporter of Hibernian FC and is said to have attended the meeting in 1875 when Hibs were founded. The little boy born at 107 Cowgate would have been only 6 or 7 years old then and suffering the sort of poverty and discrimination the rest of his kin experienced in the ‘Little Ireland’ district of Edinburgh. It is said he would help carry Hibs kit to home games and get in to watch the team for free. One player recalls telling him to get back from the pitch lest he be trampled by the rough, stampeding players of Victorian Scotland. Like many before him he joined the army to escape the dire poverty which had claimed his mother at an early age. He joined up at 14 and spent around 7 years in uniform, stationed mostly in Ireland. He recorded that it was the experience of watching how the Irish people were cowed by the military and oppressed by the landlords which informed his growing political enlightenment.

Connolly then embarked on his quest to awaken the working classes to their exploitation and through a variety of trade union and socialist activities he worked tirelessly for the common man. From the outset he saw and lambasted the disastrous effects of fostered sectarian division on the working classes. As a union organiser in Belfast he saw the petty privileges of one community over another as being ‘Tuppence against tuppence h’apenny’ and hoped to see a united working class fighting for the good of all. His travels took him to the USA, home to Scotland and back to Dublin at the time of the great ‘Lock out’ when employers sought to break the workers by denying them the wages to feed their families. Connolly saw the Federation of Employers hire groups of thugs to ‘rough up’ more than a few striking workers and formed the ‘Irish Citizens Army’ to counter this. It was this band of politically aware men and women who would march with him on that bloody Easter of 1916.

Big Tam and I were speaking of James Connolly this week on the 99^th anniversary of his execution and he thought for a moment before informing me in his serious voice, ‘If James Connolly was alive today I think he’d be a Celtic supporter.’ His comments were based on the fact that Hibernian FC have grown so far from their Irish roots and founding principles that they would be unrecognisable to Connolly. Is this a fair assumption? Certainly some of the more politically minded among the Celtic support have used terms such as the ‘Hibernification of Celtic’ to describe any attempts to dilute Celtic’s Irishness. This is based on the fact that Hibs, founded in 1875 by Canon Hannan of St Patrick’s church in Edinburgh, have clearly become assimilated into Scottish society to the degree where supporters of the club are just as likely to come to it for geographical rather than ethnic reasons. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing as the smaller Irish founding community (when compared to Celtic in the west) may have been insufficient to make Hibs a big club in Scottish terms on their own.

There have also been dark mutterings from Celtic fans about the actions of Harry Swan when he became Hibs Chairman in the 1930s. Swan, an admitted Free Mason, oversaw many changes at Hibs such as the ending of free entry to Priests and the demolition of a wall bearing Hibernian’s famous Harp crest, an emblem that was soon to leave the club’s badge too. Swan was also involved in the ‘Flag Flutter’ of the early 1950s when Celtic were ordered to remove the tricolour from their stadium or face expulsion from the league. However, it seems clear that George Graham, then SFA Secretary was the driving force behind the anti- Celtic clique at that time. When Celtic refused to budge on the flag issue the rest of the league regained its senses and backed down. Desmond White, Chairman of Celtic in the 1970s said of Graham with an uncharacteristic lack of charity…

‘’He’ll roast in hell for what he tried to do to Celtic.’’

It is fair to say that Hibs have diluted their Irishness but for a Club established 140 years ago that is hardly surprising.  It is likely Celtic would have gone further down that road too if it wasn’t for the rivalry with a politically and some would argue, religiously, diametric opposition over at Ibrox. The so called ‘Old Firm’ effect has made any dilution of Celtic’s Irishness akin to treachery. Such has been the intensity of the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers over the last century that it has developed its own momentum. There is an unwillingness on the part of many Celtic fans to let go of what they perceive as their own and their club’s Irishness. This finds expression in the huge preponderance of Irish flags at Celtic games, the political sentiments expressed by many and the songs the supporters sing. In that sense James Connolly would undoubtedly find Celtic Park an interesting and welcoming place. However, the complexities of identity and growing number of Celtic fans from non-Irish backgrounds mellows this somewhat. Celtic has grown way beyond their founding community and most progressive Celtic fans see that as a good thing. There is no betrayal of the past in welcoming all who want to follow Celtic into the support. Indeed the inclusive ethos of the modern Celtic is a vindication of that founding generation who lived with much prejudice.

The past is a proud and honoured chapter in the club’s history but it must be our home and not our prison.

So what of James Connolly, who would he support today? I’m sure the man who held fast to his beliefs all the way to his execution in Kilmainham jail in May 1916 would also have stuck steadfastly to his fondness for Hibs. They were his team and which of us would turn our back on the team we love? As Eric Cantona once said, 'You can change your wife, your politics or your religion but never your favourite football team.' That is not to say Connolly should not be admired by all as a courageous and principled man for he was surely that. Father Aloysius, the Priest at Kilmainham, told Connollly's daughter Nora of his final moments with the following words...
 

‘I said to him, "Will you pray for the men who are about to shoot you" and he said: "I will say a prayer for all brave men who do their duty." His prayer was "Forgive them for they know not what they do" and then they shot him.’
 

 

James Connolly 1868-1916

Socialist and Hibs Fan

Rest in Peace

 

What can you do?

 

What can you do?

There is a story about that great champion of non-violence, Gandhi,  which goes as follows: During the partition of Indian and in the midst of horrific inter communal violence a Hindu came to him and said, “I am going to hell.” Gandhi asked him, “Why?” He said he had killed a Muslim boy. Gandhi in his wisdom replied, “I know a way out of hell. Find a child with no parents and raise it. Only make sure it is a Muslim child and raise it as a Muslim.” Gandhi wasn’t excusing the man of his crime but he was asking him to pay part of his debt by raising a child as a Muslim and in this way learn about the Muslim faith and perhaps come to see that it isn’t so alien after all.

Thankfully few of us live in such tumultuous times and have never been asked to make such choices. Of course in our lives we have our own rivalries be they based in politics or sport and how we deal with the inevitable successes and failure these throw up tells us much about ourselves. When the SNP won a majority at the Scottish Parliament in 2011, few could have blames Alex Salmond if he appeared a little triumphant. Instead he held out an olive branch to his rivals by saying, ‘We may have the majority of seats but we have no monopoly of wisdom.’ Not everyone is as magnanimous as Mr Salmond and for some the old saying, ‘It is not enough that I succeed, someone else must fail,’ comes to mind. This is especially true in the tribal world of Scottish football. Let me give you an example…

Only once in my life did I accept the opportunity to go to a Celtic match at Ibrox and sit among the home fans. It wasn’t that I wanted to do this rather it was merely the fact that tickets were as rare as hen’s teeth and the pull of seeing the Celts in action there was too strong. On that occasion I was offered a couple of tickets by a chap who knew I was a Celtic fan and was kind enough to offer some advice. ‘Sit on yer hands if Celtic score and try to stand up and put on a fake grin if Rangers score.’ My brother and I headed over to Ibrox on a Celtic Supporters bus and it was strange walking through our green clad comrades who were milling around the away end and heading along Edmiston Drive towards the Copeland Road end. In such situations you have that strange feeling that the word ‘Tim’ is branded onto your forehead but we walked the walk and joined the line at the appropriate turnstile.

The first thing which struck me as a stranger in a strange land was the venom being expressed by a vociferous minority around me. One grey haired chap who sported a UDA badge on his scarf informed me that he was, ‘Looking forward to battering a few Papes before the day is out.’ As the line moved closer to the turnstile the old bigoted war songs filled the air as the Police looked on and said nothing. My seat was four rows from the front of the Copeland Road stand and chatted to an old chap who looked about 80 at half time. ‘I can’t go all of these hate songs,’ I said to him trying to sound like a Rangers fan. He nodded, ‘That’s the way it’s always been, what can you do?’ As I watched Celtic stutter to defeat that day long ago the vitriol pouring from the what seemed like most of the people around me could best be described as poisonous. I recall Danny McGrain overlapping and being met with a barrage of abuse much of which was disgusting and unprintable. With Celtic losing my brother and I left the stadium with still around 10 minutes left to play. It had been a sobering experience to see up close a culture which was to be honest pretty obnoxious to me. Words my old man said once came back to me… ‘The difference between us and them is that we don’t like them but they hate us.’ He may have been a little unkind to the more reasonable Rangers supporter but there was more than a grain of truth in his words as there seemed little sign of those reasonable fans in the Copeland Road stand that day.

Of course books have been written on group dynamics and the subtle pressure to conform to the norms of the culture around us. Perhaps there is some mitigation for those supporters brought up in a certain way to think in a certain way but there comes a time in life when we must think for ourselves. Human beings are social animals and the power of the culture can be internalised and accepted before we’re old enough to ask critical questions about it. That is why one of the great betrayals in life can come from those who teach a child to hate. No child is born that way, someone taught them those values.

That experience at Ibrox was many years ago but it stuck with me as it demonstrated what can happen when a certain culture develops and goes unchallenged even by those who abhor it. Clearly not all Rangers supporters are slavering bigots but there was in those times a mono-culture which allowed the sort of poison I experienced to go largely unchecked and even to thrive. No one challenged it then, not the Rangers support, not the media (with one or two honourable exceptions) and to their shame not the footballing authorities. At Celtic there has always been a debate among fans about what is acceptable and hard words are often exchanged about issues such as the singing of political songs, the content of banners or the behaviour of certain sub-groups among the support. This was notable in the 1980s when some supporters let the club down badly by throwing bananas at Rangers player Mark Walters at Celtic Park. Fanzine’s such as Not the View called them out as ‘racist arseholes’ and that tiny minority were made quite aware what Celtic stood for and what is and isn’t acceptable. That to me is one of the chief differences between the Celtic and Rangers supports. I seldom see real discursive debate on Rangers websites about the bigotry which a substantial percentage of their support indulged in for many years. There seems instead to be a culture of throwing mud at Celtic and attempting to drag their supporters down as if this somehow justifies their opinions and behaviour.

There is little doubt that Rangers FC as a club did make attempts in recent years to educate the less cerebral among their support but to some it seemed to have more to do with UEFA taking an interest rather than a moral decision to dispense with the sins of the past. Playing a mixed team was a step forward although it certainly threw up some incongruous moments. During the post Cup Final party when Donald Findlay the club’s then vice chairman was filmed singing about being ‘Up to his knees in Fenian blood’ it did not go unnoticed that Catholic player Neil McCann was standing behind him. Far from being harmless ‘folk songs’ such behaviour gives tacit, if unintended, approval to the less intelligent who’s bigotry festers in such an atmosphere. Intelligent men like Findlay should perhaps ponder on the fact that on that same day, a Celtic fan was murdered and another shot with a crossbow bolt.

The perspective of time suggests to me that things are improving in Scotland and the sort of bigotry which was once quite common is now less noticeable.  The exaggerated passions of football still offer a context for some to vent their spleen but things have changed and the law is more likely to intervene now. However, real change is never achieved by use of the law alone. There needs to a focus on education and the development of a fan culture which doesn’t accept the negative influence of hatred. Fierce rivalries are part of the game but blind bigotry doesn’t have to be and needs to be held up as the vulgar and destructive force it is.

That old Rangers fan I talked to all of those years ago had said to me, ‘That’s the way it’s always been, what can you do?’ I think many people have realised since then that there were things you could do. Some despaired and gave up on football altogether. Others tried to change the culture surrounding their club because they genuinely wanted things to improve. Change is always possible but it relies on individuals brave enough to challenge the ingrained group mentality.

As Gandhi said, ‘Sometimes you must be the change you want to see in the world.’

 

When the whistle sounds

 

When the whistle sounds

If I’m being honest, as a player, Fernando Ricksen was one of those adversaries who got right on my nerves. He wasn’t annoying in that badge kissing, please love me, I hate the Tims-honest, way Nacho Novo was annoying, but he grated the gears nonetheless. He played on the edge of the rules, clattering into tackles and taking it upon himself to ‘straighten out’ players like Aberdeen’s Darren Young with a Kung-Fu kick Bruce Lee would have been proud of. His elbow on Derek Roirdan of Hibs cost him a ban and £10,000 fine such was its seriousness. His running feud with Alan Thompson had everything from on-field fights to fireworks being set off in the garden in the street they shared. A certain wildness of character led to disciplinary issues throughout his career and his misdemeanours ranged from an on-field fist fight with his own Captain whilst at Zenit St Petersburg to being thrown out the Dutch squad for kicking in a Hotel door when drunk. Paul Le Guen, during his disastrous six months in charge of Rangers, fined him and sent him home from a trip to South Africa after a mid-flight drink fuelled incident with an airline Stewardess. Le Guen stated that Ricksen’s behaviour had been…"inappropriate and unacceptable for the way in which I have asked my players to conduct themselves.’’

Yet in spite of Ricksen’s wilder excesses he always struck me as a man who was somewhat vulnerable. My first sighting of him was during the memorable 6-2 demolition Rangers suffered at Celtic Park in the summer of 2000. Bobby Petta ran him ragged and such was Ricksen’s wild eyed confusion, his Manager substituted him after just 23 minutes. It was one of those times when a player seemed to be totally overawed by the occasion and noise of an Old Firm clash. He looked lost that day and totally out of his depth, it’s to his credit that he recovered and had a good career at Rangers which culminated in him being named joint 2004-05 Player of the year, an award he shared with John Hartson. He could play as his caps for the Dutch national team suggest. No one represents that nation at football unless they have a fair degree of talent.

Fernando is, like all of us, a flawed human being and perhaps as he grew older and moved on from football and all its exaggerated emotions he would have reflected on his wilder moments with some perspective. He made his peace with Alan Thompson after 5 years of feuding and bad blood. Thompson said some years ago…

"Fernando and I are not getting any younger. We might as well put what has gone on before behind us and get on with things now."

For the average Celtic fan, Ricksen was not a figure they had much affection for as a player but there was at least a grudging respect that he never gave less than 100% and fought hard for his club. However, as the years passed and he entered retirement from the game, there was great sympathy at the news he was suffering from that most debilitating disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known in the UK as Motor Neuron Disease (MND). We had all become aware of this awful illness when it struck Celtic legend Jimmy Johnstone a decade earlier and the realisation that another ostensibly fit and active person had been struck by it was hard to comprehend. Fernando is currently facing the illness with the same determination he faced opponents on the field of play. It is remarkable to see him fighting so hard against what is surely one of the cruelest conditions known to medical science. His courage is undoubted and his commitment to raising funds and helping others commendable.

I watched footage of his testimonial game at Ibrox recently and only the hardest of hearts could fail to have sympathy for a man going through so much. That game raised £320,000 for charities including MND Scotland and that was a very fitting gesture from Fernando and his former colleagues who flew in to support him. Footballing rivalries are as nothing when we watch a fellow human being suffering and yet still courageously fighting on. The vast majority of Celtic supporters will I’m sure join me in wishing Fernando all the best in the time he has left.

When the whistle sounds and the battle is over, we realise that football and all its glories and disasters, is but a mirror of life. We meet great characters, occasionally see flashes of brilliance and admire the courage of those who fight on against great odds. The stadiums are our theatres, our colosseum where gladiators wearing our colours battle for honours. But when the game is over we should also remember that the heroes and villains are men who go home to wives and families who cherish them as ours cherish us. The common humanity which binds us all is far greater than creed, politics or the colour of shirt our team wears.  That is why our hearts go out to Fernando Ricksen at this time. He is going through trials I cannot begin to comprehend and doing so with remarkable courage.

Our thoughts are with you Fernando. God bless and Hail Hail.

Guilty of telling the truth

 

Guilty of telling the truth

Social media is a wonderful invention and I have been privileged to interact with a whole variety of excellent people in a manner that would have been impossible a mere 15 years ago. From Arran to Argentina, from the Shetlands to Shawlands I’ve shared some laughter and moans with many great people. It does the heart good in these challenging times to realise that most people are decent, charitable and actually care about what goes on in our society. Of course social media also allows a very small minority a platform to spout their nonsense but the ‘block’ facility soon sorts that and overall it has been an education and a lot of fun interacting with the wider Celtic family and many who don’t share my love of the Hoops but are nonetheless decent folk. Social media also provides a platform for discussing the main topics of the day from major political developments and world events to the ongoing discussions within Scottish football. Opinions can be strongly contested and the odd fall out may occur but the immediacy of the conversations demonstrates what people actually think about things.

This week I unadvisedly got involved in a conversation with a chap who follows the new club down Govan way on Twitter. As is their way they seek to deflect from the poison poured out by the worst element of their support over the past 100 years at Ibrox by throwing mud at others. That rather interesting modern re-interpretation of the word ‘Hun’ was raised by him as definitive proof that Celtic fans are sectarian. Of course I shot his paper thin argument to pieces by simply posting videos of Hearts, Aberdeen, Hibs and Motherwell fans chanting ‘Go home ya Huns’ to Rangers supporters and asked him to explain this. This was met by the usual silence as there is simply no way around the fact that most clubs in Scotland have supporters who refer to Rangers and their supporters as ‘the Huns.’ It is based on the wilder behaviour of elements of their supporters down the years and has no other connotation despite the feeble and unconvincing attempts to change the accepted meaning of a word in order to drag Celtic supporters into the same metaphorical gutter the worst of ‘Rapeepo’ inhabit. Another less cerebral follower of Sevco then interjected by stating that… ’Celtic fans only support the SNP cause they want to make Scotland a Republic, just like the IRA in Ireland.’ His assumption that I was an SNP voter and Republican seemed to be based on nothing more than the fact I was a Celtic fan and the ‘Yes’ logo on my Twitter avatar. His linking of Celtic and the IRA is another clue as to his world view. Needless to say we disagreed on just about everything and when the predictable abuse started the ‘block’ button was duly clicked. In truth we can learn something from everyone who crosses our path in life. That chap’s opinions were as valid as mine and we share the same country if not the same outlook. His parting shot involved the predictable ‘Fenian’ and ‘Paedo’ jibes but such words have lost their meaning when they are used to point score in debates or at football. It is lamentable that real victims of abuse may well be among groups which chant about such things at a football match and their erstwhile fellow fans are too thick to realise that.

Last night we saw another young man who has found that the very language we use in Scotland can be viewed as problematic. As John Guidetti warmed up in front of the Jock Stein stand he was greeted with sustained applause and from thousands of voices there rang out the very song which the SFA in their wisdom decided was worth a censure. As you know doubt know its lyrics are…

‘There’s only one John Guidetti

He puts the ball in the net(y)

He’s a super Swede

 and the Huns are deid

Walking in a Guidetti wonderland.’

In serenading Guidetti with this song the fans were letting him know that he did nothing wrong and that the powers that be should get a life and look to sort out the real problems in Scottish football instead of acting like the thought police in some Orwellian police state. A few years back we saw Artur Boruc being roundly abused for blessing himself before kick-off and that said more about the petty minded and medieval mind-set of some in our society than it did about the big Pole. In one piece of video taken from the Copeland Road stand at Ibrox, Boruc is seen going through his usual pre-match prayer and blessing himself amid a cacophony of abuse, One voice is clearly head shouting, ‘Aye, we’ve got ye on video this time ya c*nt.’ How sad that the person who shouted that didn’t realise that all he was capturing on video was his own and others depressing prejudice.

As our society seeks to eradicate such behaviour it has taken a few wrong turns. You can’t pass laws against bigotry and expect that to end the problem. It needs to be educated out of people as it requires a change in attitude and thinking. That’s why the ‘Offensive Behaviour at Football Act’ is so flawed. It was created by well-meaning but essentially ill-informed middle class politicians who took advice from everyone but the fans themselves. Their politically correct attitude to the rough tongues of the average group of football fans has criminalised behaviour that is essentially harmless tribalism. It may have touched on the real issues of racism and sectarianism but in its absurd attempt to appear even handed has encouraged the vain attempts to reclassify words such as ‘Hun’ as sectarian when it clearly isn’t.

John Guidetti like Artur Boruc before him is learning about the unique football culture we have in Scotland. Like Artur Boruc he did nothing wrong. As the Green Brigade’s banner said, he was guilty of nothing more than telling the truth.