Sowing the Wind

Sowing the Wind

Way back around about 1986 I attended a Celtic game at Clydebank’s quaint little Kilbowie Park. I don’t recall a huge amount about the match apart from Brian McClair scoring a second half hat-trick and Alan ‘Rambo’ McInally warming up as a sub enjoying the banter with the fans. ‘Rambo, get oan there and bang a few in!’ one fan shouted as the muscular forward warmed up within touching distance. Another added, ‘Naw, stay aff, you’re shite.’ The big forward took it all in his stride and did in fact enter the fray that day and scored a good goal. As he celebrated he ran to the fans he had enjoyed the banter with earlier and high fived one or two. He stopped at his erstwhile detractor who stood hand raised, and smiled, ‘no you, you said I was shite!’

Walking back through the town to the train station an older chap pointed out the bomb damage still prevalent on one or two of the buildings. The old bath house was pock marked with deep shrapnel gouges from the German air raids of March 1941. I was never taught that part of history at school and made a point of learning more about what Clydebank endured all those years before. We are often reminded that London bore the brunt of the Luftwaffe’s fury during the Blitz but places such as Coventry, Liverpool, Manchester, Belfast and the Greater Glasgow area took a pounding too. In all over 60,000 civilians died in air raids on the UK during World War Two. Perhaps in relation to size and population few places in the UK suffered as Clydebank did.

Germany’s invasion of Norway in 1940 gained them access to air bases from which they could launch air raids on Scotland. There had been raids on the east coast of Scotland with towns like Peterhead being bombed more than 20 times but nothing on the scale of what was to occur in the spring of 1941. On Thursday 13^th March, 240 German bombers droned over the North Sea and headed for industrial Clydeside. They flew over Loch Lomond and must have made a fearsome noise as they passed over built up areas. When they arrived over the town of Clydebank they knew exactly what their targets were to be. Clydebank and its environs was a hub of industrial activity with the Singers Factory, John Brown Shipyards, Oil storage tanks and a Torpedo making facility all in or near the town.

Sitting in the River Clyde was the Polish warship ORP Piorun (The Thunderbolt) which was undergoing repairs in John Brown’s shipyard. The Poles manned their guns and fired everything they had at the German bombers who were pounding Clydebank. As the bombs rained down it was obvious that this was a raid on a scale not seen in Scotland up to this point of the war. Of 8000 houses in Clydebank, barely 10 escaped undamaged. Many hundreds of civilians were killed and injured with thousands more made homeless. Clydebank was ablaze and as the German bomber fleet headed back to Norway, it was said you could see the fires in Clydebank from Dundee. It was a human tragedy on a huge scale.

The following night the Luftwaffe returned to a still burning town and pounded it again. It could be argued that the Germans were attacking legitimate targets and that the civilians caught up in the raids were collateral damage. Head of  RAF Bomber Command, Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris had already committed his bomber force to the strategic bombing of German cities and scores of them were reduced to rubble. The raids on Hamburg in July 1943 killed 43,000 people and caused a firestorm which utterly destroyed whole sectors of the city. Berlin, Cologne, Kiel, Rostock and Dresden were among scores of German cities bombed repeatedly. The ‘butcher’s bill’ was in excess of 400,000 German civilians. There are those who quote Harris’ famous words, ‘The Germans have sowed the wind and now they will reap the whirlwind,’ feeling that anything was justified to win the war with fascism. It was a time of total war when any distinction between military and civilian targets was often ignored.

Watching the crass and often tasteless celebrations of VE night this week made me wonder if we had learned anything at all. Jingoism and flag waving were to the fore in parts of England and we had the remarkable sight of two grown men dressed as Spitfires doing a ‘fly past’ down a suburban street as people applauded. Celebrating the end of a brutal war is appropriate but as 75 years have now passed we should perhaps be more focused on sombre remembrance of the victims of war and not in jingoism or goading former antagonists.

Wars are awful things and must always be the last resort. World War Two unleashed a savagery on the world the likes of which had never been seen before. Civilians made up the majority of casualties with some 40 million perishing. Clydebank was but a drop in the ocean of suffering we humans inflicted on each other in those years. Yet every victim was a son, a daughter, a mother, father or friend with their own hopes for the future, their own stories to tell.

Today the German President gave a moving speech in Berlin about Germany’s crimes in the Hitler years and spoke of peace and reconciliation. Germany has confronted its past and recognises its sins with genuine contrition. That sort of tone is appropriate and best honours those who die in war. There are memorials to the victims of war in every land. Perhaps the greatest memorial of all would be to ensure that it never happens again. 

We live in hope.

The laughter of our children

The laughter of our children

This week saw the anniversary of the death of Irish Republican hunger striker Bobby Sands. Those of us who lived through those times remember with clarity the ratcheting up of tension as each successive day passed and the unbending British Prime Minister Thatcher refused to compromise. When Sands died there was an outpouring of anger not just in the north of Ireland but around the world. There were also those who said that he chose the path of violence and could expect only prison or death as a release from it.

The decision taken by the British Government in the 1970s to ‘Ulsterise, normalise and criminalise’ the conflict in Ireland was taken in the cynical belief that the deaths of locally recruited soldiers and policemen didn’t hit home with the British public as powerfully as the deaths of Scottish, English or Welsh soldiers. The ‘criminalisation’ of the conflict sought to deny any political motivation to those involved and treated them as criminal gangs. Thus the British government could try to label the conflict a fight against crime rather than what it actually was; a colonial struggle fought out amid the last spasms of a dying empire. Ireland, Britain’s first colony, was likely to be its last.

Whether a man is a freedom fighter or a terrorist will always depend on your perspective. To the Nazis the French Resistance were terrorists to the British they were freedom fighters. To say that men like Sands joined the IRA for criminal gain is hard to sustain. He knew at the outset that death or a prison cell were the likely outcomes of his choices. Men like him weren’t involved in the armed struggle for personal glory or financial advantage and the British knew this but to pursue their policy of criminalisation, they needed to portray their adversaries in a certain way. Criminalisation led to the withdrawal of political status of prisoners held for offences related to the conflict. Some refused to wear prison uniforms as it was an admission of sorts that the struggle was a criminal enterprise rather than a political one. Thus the ‘blanket men’ arrived. The lyric of a song of the time summed up their defiance…

‘I’ll wear no convict’s uniform nor meekly serve my time

That Britain might brand Ireland’s fight 800 years of crime.’

Any student of Irish history knows that the various rebellions and risings which occurred were not motivated by criminal intent but were in the main a response to invasion, occupation, dispossession and the deeply unfair nature of the society Britain had imposed on Ireland.

Operation Banner, the deployment of British Troops into the province in 1969 was portrayed in the British media as the good guys arriving to keep the warring tribes of Paddies from killing each other. The RUC and B Specials had lost control of the situation and were viewed as partisan by the Catholic minority in the north. The army was there to reassert control and prop up what was essentially a failed state.  Their initial welcome in beleaguered Catholic areas soon changed after incidents like the Falls Curfew, Ballymurphy Massacre, Operation Demetrius and Bloody Sunday. The army killed 306 people in the conflict, 160 of them were unarmed civilians; among this group were 61 children.

The use of sensory deprivation techniques on Republican prisoners by the British Army led to a conviction in 1971 of torture before the European Court in the Hague. This technique consisted of men being hooded and dressed in thick boiler suits and being made to stand against a wall on tip-toe and being subject to "white noise". The British military had used torture in various colonial wars - Fort Morbut in Yemen or Hola Camp in Kenya where the Army attempted to force 88 Kenyan detainees to work. They refused and were viciously clubbed. 11 men died and the other 77 suffered permanent injuries.   Caroline Elkins' details the British Army’s behaviour in Kenya in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, ‘Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya.’ It does not make pleasant reading. One of the victims had pins jammed under his fingernails and into his body. His testicles were crushed between two metal rods. His name was Hussien Onyango Obama and his grandson was to become President of the United States.

Elkins’ book is a horrifying catalogue or murder, castration, rape and torture and yet very few people in the UK today could tell you a thing about what their army did in Kenya. They are not taught in school about the dark side of Britain’s colonial past and are instead fed stirring tales of empire building heroes. Nor are they held to account by the press which for the most part tows the party line. It was only in 2013 that the British Government finally expressed ‘deep regret’ about their actions and gave £20m in compensation to surviving victims tortured by the army.

Some of the methods used in places like Kenya were used in Ireland. The myth that they were there to act as referee in a what was essentially a local conflict is palpable nonsense. Internment for instance was used almost exclusively against one community.  As author Fintan O’Toole said, ‘Ideologically and militarily, the army was a player not a referee.’

Ordinary people were caught up in all of this and had hard choices to make. Some, on both sides, took up arms to protect their people or their political position as they saw it. Others kept their heads down and hoped the spiral of violence wouldn’t affect them or those they loved. All the combatants involved committed acts of savagery which could rightly be called atrocities. None of them emerged with a military or indeed a moral victory.

Looking back through the lens of almost forty years there are those who look for heroes or use hindsight to try to justify some of the dreadful acts which occurred. I could write a long list of atrocities committed by all sides in the conflict and none of them could be justified. Violence begets yet more violence and as with all conflicts it is the innocent who bear the brunt of the suffering. It is those innocent victims who are most deserving of our thoughts and compassion.

Bobby Sands has been described by people with very different perceptions of him this week as both a hero and a terrorist. He himself would probably dismiss either title. He was a undoubtedly a courageous young man caught up in some extremely difficult times and like many others chose to try and change society by force. Those of us lucky enough not to be faced with such choices in our lives can count our blessings.   

He is quoted as saying, ‘our revenge will be the laughter of our children.’ I hope that laughter echoes around Ireland from all its children, north and south, from all faiths and none.

We’ve seen enough tears to last a lifetime.

The Banter Years

The Banter Years

Napoleon is often credit with saying, ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the process of making a mistake.’ It’s tempting to think Peter Lawwell has this phrase in mind as he quietly watches Rangers make a fool of themselves over their claims to have a dossier containing damning evidence against senior SPFL figures. Few of us doubt the SPFL made a mess of the vote on restructuring the leagues to meet the reality of the Covid 19 pandemic but weeks after the Ibrox club claimed to have such evidence we await it being produced. Their latest pronouncement has downgraded their damning evidence to ‘a lack of fair play.’ They look increasingly like a poker player who has a weak hand and tried to bluff his way through the game. Now people are demanding that the cards be laid on the table and they are still prevaricating.

Scottish football is famous for its factionalism, suspicion and conspiracy theories and you have to wonder why Rangers would make such claims at a time our game is facing an existential threat. More cynical voices have suggested it’s all part of that old psychological plan to foster a siege mentality. The outcome of this is that supporters feel their club is somehow being treated unfairly and will back the club financially via season tickets without questioning why their marquee signing manager has failed miserably despite spending millions on new players or what the club is doing to stop haemorrhaging money as it tries to stop Celtic’s relentless trophy collecting juggernaut.

The more sceptical among us often think of that old Roman phrase at such times, ‘cui bono?’ (who benefits from this?)  

What are Rangers causing such a fuss about and in what way will they gain from it? Are we really expected to believe they are now moral guardians of Scottish football fighting for the little guy? This from a club that in a former life cheated on an industrial scale by paying players millions via a tax avoiding, EBT scheme without informing the SFA as the rules demand? A club whose owner, Sir David Murray,  called in a debt for under £50,000 from Airdrie FC which forced a founder member of the Scottish League to go into liquidation and make their players redundant? A club which has yet to express any regret about operating a virtual apartheid system for over 70 years of its history? The moral voice of Scottish football- really? You could easily be forgiven for thinking that such an outfit in whatever guise they appear in looks out for number one first and foremost.

The reality that Celtic will complete their second ‘nine in a row’ series of title wins must weigh heavily on their minds. The Parkhead club are in decent financial condition despite taking an obvious hit from the ongoing Covid 19 lockdown and its consequences for sport. They will undoubtedly miss the revenue from 4 or 5 home games should the season be called and were also in the cup semi-final but generally the club is well run and in robust health. The team began 2020 in sparkling form and of 13 domestic matches played since January, won 12 and drew 1. Compare that form to a Rangers side which had something of a collapse in early 2020 where they also played 13 games but won just 7, drew 2 and lost 4. During that sequence they lost twice to bottom club Hearts and also at home to Hamilton. Most people who know football recognises that on that form far from turning around a 13 point deficit in the remaining SPFL games, Rangers were more likely to see the Hoops stretch their lead.

So is all this fuss about trying to somehow discredit Celtic’s inevitable title win? They know that when football resumes Celtic will be favourites to make it ten in a row and thus create a new Scottish record. That is too much for some to stomach and we have already heard much bleating about some of Celtic’s title wins being somehow ‘tainted’ as Rangers were not in the league when they were won. This palpable nonsense is the sort of desperate chain of thought  you’d expect from a jealous child in the playground. All of Celtic’s titles were won fair and square against the teams who deserved to be in the top flight and if Rangers followers want to talk about ‘tainted titles’ they need look no further than the EBT years. It is ironic that since they joined the top flight in 2016 boasting they were ‘coming for you’ and ‘going for 55’ Celtic has won every single trophy competed for and were on track to win another treble this season. They have also handed out some royal spanking to the Govan club along the way.

If Rangers produce their dossier next week and it turns out to be a damp squib then they will look very foolish indeed. You don’t shout about corruption and then refuse to hand over your evidence. The so called ‘banter years’ will continue as supporters of other Scottish clubs continue that great Scottish tradition of laughing at and winding up the opposition at every opportunity. Rangers have given opposition fans much ammunition over the past 7 or 8 years both on and off the field. Not only the calamity of administration and liquidation in 2012 which reverberates in Scottish football to this very day and in many ways poisoned the game here. There was also being turfed out of Europe by a team from Luxembourg to losing at places like Annan and Stirling. From the ball stuck in a hedge, to the ‘winter of discount tent’, Pedro in the bushes and cheering a cup draw against Celtic before being battered 4-0 in the actual match. The latest farce involved a poorly made fake invoice showing Dundee FC receiving funds from a former Celtic director. This led to some hysterical reactions online while others sat back and laughed. Then there are the endless, tedious statements. One wag commented if there was a statement league they’d be forty points ahead.

There is of course a serious side to all of this. The SPFL board need to be more careful and more professional in their handling of important issues. Scottish football is in a perilous state at the moment with income streams drying up and uncertainty over TV deals and Sponsorship. Sponsors want to be seen to be involved with positive organisations not squabbling factions pulling in different directions. Our prominent clubs need to set an example and demonstrate some leadership not act like spoilt children.

Celtic have played a blinder in all of this. Had they got involved in a war of words with Rangers it would have played into the hands of the more unhinged conspiracy theorists among the Ibrox club’s support. By staying silent they have followed Napoleon’s maxim of never interrupting your opponent when he is making a mistake. The week ahead is an important one if Rangers don’t produce a ‘smoking gun’ next week then they are going to look very foolish indeed but then that’s nothing new in these strange times.

The Warriors

The Warriors

Tony Doherty slipped the VHS tape into the machine with the air of a high priest performing some ancient rite. ‘Can you believe we can watch this movie anytime we want? It’s like magic!’ His friend, Geezer, was less than impressed, ‘Aye alright, yer brother robbed the Radio Rentals van. Don’t go thinking yer Hugh Heffner.’  Tony refused to be put off his mystical moment, ‘first family in Camelon wi a video recorder, that’s the Dohertys!’  Geezer shook his head, ‘First guy called Tony Doherty tae get his haw-maws kicked the day if he disnae get the film oan!’ Tony laughed, ‘any mer ae yer threats and you’ll no be watching the Warriors!’ Geezer opened a can of beer and grinned, ‘Aw right, fuxake gonnae just start the movie ay?’ Tony fast forwarded the tape to the start of the film and the minor cult classic in the making that was ‘The Warriors; began.

For the next 92 minutes the two friends were spellbound by the journey of New York gang, the Warriors, who had to make their way home across the various gang areas of the city. Having been framed for killing a gang leader, every gang they met was hostile and it led to a protracted and violent journey home. Tony and Geezer barely said a word until the movie ended and the credits were rolling. It was Tony who spoke first. ‘That was fuckin brilliant!’ Geezer had to agree and nodded saying just, ‘mag-fucken-nificent!’ The spell was broken by Tony’s sister Karen who knocked on his room door. ‘Tony, can we use yer video when yer at the fitbaw the morra? Moira’s Da got her Rocky 2 oot the video van.’ Geezer looked at his beer disguising poorly the crush he’d had on Karen for a long time. Tony answered her, ‘Aye but ye need tae put a blank tape in and tape the match the morra. Deal?’

The following day was one of those hot Scottish days you sometimes got in the early summer. All roads would lead to Hampden as Celtic and Rangers squared off in the final of the Scottish cup. From Falkirk and the surrounding towns and villages cars and buses streamed west towards Glasgow. Some were festooned in the green and white of Celtic while others had a more blue tinge. Friends and neighbours had boarded the bus of their choosing and joined their tribe for the day. As rival buses passed on the motorways there was the usual cat calling and banter but things were still relatively good humoured and had that excitement and edge that only cup final days could bring. Adding to this was the realisation that whoever lost the 1980 cup final would finish the season with nothing. Aberdeen had won the league and Dundee United the League cup so it was win or bust at Hampden.

The great bowl of Hampden was a sea of faces as they topped the stairs at the Celtic end and looked around. Sunshine bathed the stadium and there was a growing sense of anticipation. From the far end of the stadium a rumbling song was heard, ‘and its colours they are fine…’ This was greeted by boos and jeers from the Celtic end and they in turn began to sing, ‘Hail Hail the Celts are here….’ The two Falkirk boys made their way down towards the front just as a roar went up to announce that the teams had come out. ‘Here we go Geezer boy!’ said Tony, an excited smile creasing his face, ‘the old butterflies are going! This will be tough withoot McAdam and big Roddy.’ Geezer was more confident, ‘We’ll do this mob today. They’re absolute keech.’ The players lined up to start the game; this was it, the defining game of the season for both clubs.

As the game kicked off the 70,000 crowd roared and seethed, they would kick every ball, cheer every tackle and hope to God their team would emerge victorious. The game was tense with players too wound up and too aware of the importance of the match to play much flowing football. There were chances at both ends but as the relentless sun beat down on the uncovered terrace it was obvious it was going to take a piece of brilliance or an error to win the game. As extra time commenced it was Celtic who looked more likely but where would a goal come from? Then after 117 minutes of football, it happened. A corner was headed out of the Rangers box where Danny McGrain, Celtic’s experienced full back was there to collect it. No noted for his shooting prowess, McGrain lashed the ball towards goal. At the other end of the field Tony watched as the ball zipped back into the box where George McCluskey was sharp enough to flick his left leg as the ball as it sped towards him. This deflected the ball beyond the despairing reach of Rangers keeper Peter McCloy and into the yawing net.

The Celtic support in the huge crowd exploded! Geezer grabbed Tony, ‘Yaaaasssss! We’ve done it!’ 

A great cloud of dust arose from the cinder terrace steps as it often did on dry days at the decrepit old stadium. The release of tension and joy in the Celtic end was in contrast to the sullen silence in the Rangers end. The Celtic supporters roared and rumbled for the remaining minutes of the game just wanting it to be over. As it neared its end, Rangers were throwing everyone forward and Celtic broke with four attackers bearing down on one Rangers defender. Davie Provan slid the ball to Tommy Burns who raced towards the keeper and waited for him to commit himself before deftly chipping the ball over him towards the empty net. The ball spun agonisingly just wide of the target. Thousands of whistles reminded the Referee that time was almost up but Rangers had one last assault on the Celtic goal. The ball was clipped high into the Celtic penalty box but Peter Latchford rose highest and clutched the ball safely. As he did so the final whistle sounded and Celtic had won the cup.

Geezer and Tony joined other excited young fans and clambered over the metal fencing onto the pitch to celebrate with their team. The mood was joyous and they hugged each other on the lush green glass of Hampden Park. As they danced and cavorted on the pitch with hundreds of others a more malevolent group entered the field from the opposite end. Tony nodded towards them, ‘Look at these bastards, worst fuckin losers in the world.’ The Celtic supporters retreated towards their own end of the stadium but a more hard core element on the terraces arrived to take up the challenge. Soon there was a full scale battle taking place on the pitch. A bottle whizzed over Geezer’s head and that was all he needed to encourage him to join in the fray.

The charging and counter charging went on and the air was full of flying beer cans and bottles. The Police finally appeared on their horse and rode among the fighting fans lashing out at them with their long sabre like batons. The battle was over, at least in the stadium, as both sets of supporters headed back to the terrace leaving just the injured and the litter of battle behind them. Tony and Geezer headed back towards the bus Park a mixture of elation and adrenalin coursing through them. However their time on the pitch meant that the bus to Falkirk had already left without them. ‘Fuxake!’ grumbled Tony, ‘We’ll need tae hike it tae Queen Street and get the train!’ As they headed along Aitkenhead Road towards the city centre they could see that there were still battles going on in the streets. The sound of sirens, shouts and breaking glass was filling the summer air.

They managed to avoid the worst of the trouble until they reached the Gorbals where another battle was already in progress. ‘This is like the fuckin Warriors trying tae get hame,’ said Geezer. A group of Celtic fans pushed past them to join the frey. One of them, a wine bottle in his hand, looked at the two Falkirk lads in their hooped shirts, ‘Better stick wi the Cumbie, boys, these liberty takin bastards are oot for a body!’  Geezer and Tony did as they were bid and joined the larger group. There was always more safety in numbers on such days. The skirmish in the Gorbals was more posturing and throwing things but as they reached the city centre things took a turn for the worse.

At George Square there was a real melee going on with fists and boots flying. The two friends stayed on the periphery and let the harder elements get up close and personal in the fight. At long last they reached the train station and climbed the stairs to the platforms. Noise echoed inside the station as Police tried to form Celtic and Rangers fans into two orderly if noisy lines. Songs filled the air as Tony and his friend squeezed into the line for the Edinburgh train which stopped at their town. At last it arrived and they poured on with hundreds of others. The journey back was at least a calmer one than the walk from Hampden. It seemed to be mostly Celtic fans on their carriage and the songs were soon flowing as was the beer. Tony exhaled and looked at Geezer, ‘Whit a fuckin day, man!’

They got off the train at Falkirk High and saw both Celtic and Rangers fans heading out of the station. Half a dozen cops watched them, ensuring there would be no repeat of what had gone on in Glasgow. Things had calmed though and the two pals relaxed as they walked back to Camelon. ‘Fancy a pint?’ asked Geezer. Tony smiled, ‘I’m exhausted mate. You’d think I played in that game. I fancy getting a curry oot the Wok and heading hame tae watch the game.’ Geezer agreed, ‘No a bad idea, mate. Might even watch the Warriors again.’ Tony smiled, ‘Seen enough warriors’ today tae last a lifetime.’

Oh God that bread should be so dear

Oh God that bread should be so dear

Having more time to enjoy, if that is the right word, a movie during the current lockdown, I watched again the excellent ‘Black 47’ a film about a returning soldier seeking revenge on those who wronged his family. Set against the backdrop of the great hunger in Ireland in the year 1847 it is a brooding and at times harrowing film. The effects An Gota Mor had on Ireland reverberate to this day. It is only European country with a smaller population now than in 1841. In that year 8.2 million people lived on the island of Ireland. Today the figure is around 6.6 million. It also greatly affected the national consciousness of the Irish themselves.

At the height of the Brexit debate it was reported that Conservative MP Priti Patel had suggested that negotiations with Ireland over the backstop could see Britain use possible food shortages in Ireland as leverage to get a good deal for the UK. The insensitivity and historical illiteracy in her remarks caused a huge row at the time as commentators on both sides of the Irish Sea reminded her of Britain’s callous policies at the time of the great hunger in Ireland which contributed to the disaster which engulfed the country in the mid nineteenth century. Labour MP and descendent of Irish immigrants Jim McMahon asked the Prime Minister…

"In 1997, the British prime minister issued an apology to the people of Ireland for their historic role in the great famine. A famine that saw one million people die and a million people displaced from their homeland. That sent out a powerful and important message. Will the Prime Minister condemn any notion - or suggestion - that food shortages in Ireland will be used to strengthen Britain's hand during the Brexit negotiations?,"

The crassness of Patel’s remarks is all the more marked given that her grandparents came from Gujarat in India, a land which also suffered famine due to British mismanagement. She isn’t the first British politician to show a degree of ignorance about the turbulent history of British-Irish relations. Indeed the man Parliament gave the task of overseeing relief works at the height of the great hunger, Charles Trevelyan,  said that famine was an…

“effective mechanism for reducing surplus population and was the judgement of God The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people”

The tragedy which befell Ireland in the years after 1845 was the culmination of long years of mismanagement and the treatment of Ireland as a colony to be exploited and not in fact a part of the UK which it was following the 1800 Act of Union. In 1846 around 90% of the potato crop failed due to the blight but there was surplus of oats and other crops and had these been distributed to the people rather than exported then mass starvation would not have occurred. Would the British government have allowed such a catastrophe to occur in Yorkshire or the Home Counties?

An archaeological dig at the site of Kilkenny Workhouse found the remains of almost a thousand victims of the great hunger. Modern scientific techniques demonstrated that they suffered from the effects of malnutrition and the diseases which come from it. The site at Kilkenny is sadly one of hundreds of such sites dotted across Ireland. One of the largest is of course to be found in Abbeystrewry graveyard in Skibbereen, County Cork. There the remains of 9000 victims of the great hunger were buried in a mass grave without coffin or shroud. Today there are poignant and fitting memorial stones but little can assuage the trauma An Gorta Mor caused there and indeed to the whole of the country. It led many to conclude that Ireland would be best served controlling its own destiny rather than relying on colonial masters who seemed only interested in what they could wring from an already impoverished land.

The Highlands of Scotland suffered to in the years of potato blight but to a far less extent than Ireland where a quarter of the population relied on the potato as their basic sustenance. There was great hardship in the Highlands but immigration, forced and voluntary, to places such as Canada or the growing industrial cities was an option for many. The Scottish crofters were not as deeply impoverished or disenfranchised as their Irish counterparts. There were even serious disturbances as food prices soared and the military became involved. As a bitter winter gripped the land, the Highlanders would have known of the calamitous famine ravaging in Ireland and did not want a repeat in Scotland. Grain carts were seized by rioters, ships boarded, harbours blockaded and a jail forced open before the military intervened. The army opened fired on one set of rioters and savage jail sentences were imposed on others however the people gained key concessions chiefly among them was cheaper food. Our old friend Charles Trevelyan said in a letter about the hardship in the Highlands of Scotland, ‘the people cannot under any circumstances be allowed to starve’ and the government forced Landlord’s to help their tenants, a far cry from the attitude in Ireland.

Trevelyan’s attitude towards Scotland was in marked contrast to his actions in Ireland. Scotland did suffer, grievously in places but the poor of Ireland were sacrificed on the altar of free market dogmatism and up to a million perished. Over a million others found escape on famine ships across the Atlantic or cattle boats to England or Scotland. There they faced an uncertain future in the harsh crucible of the industrial revolution.

In the darkest days of the great hunger there were those who tried help. The Choctaw Native American tribe who had themselves known hunger and hardship on their ‘trail of tears’ raised $170 for famine relief in Ireland. ($5000 in today’s terms) It was an incredible gesture from people living 4000 miles away who were themselves dispossessed. In 2015 a sculpture commemorating this event was unveiled in Midleton, County Cork. It is called ‘Kindred Spirits’ and shows huge steel feathers in the shape of a food bowl. A delegation of twenty Choctaw people attended the unveiling and received the heartfelt thanks of the Irish nation.

In the sad cemetery at Skibbereen there are various plaques commemorating An Gorta Mor. Perhaps the most poignant contains the following words…

‘Oh God! That bread should be so dear and human  flesh so cheap…’

The Second City

The Second City

I am fortunate that my occupation has gained me access to many of Glasgow’s finer buildings over the years. One place which I always enjoy visiting is the City Chambers in the centre of Glasgow; from stunning marble staircases to the splendour of the great banqueting hall, it really a sight worth seeing. The building was inaugurated by Queen Victoria in 1888 and was a statement of confidence and wealth in a city which had grown from 200,000 inhabitants to 750,000 in Victoria’s reign alone. Perhaps Glasgow’s rapid growth during the industrial revolution led to some of the social problems which blighted the lives of so many but as the ‘great and the good’ fawned over Victoria in 1888 another Glasgow with a very different face existed just a mile away from the Carara marble and gold leafed splendour of the new city chambers.

In the Wynds and closes of the High Street and the Saltmarket a perfect storm of circumstances arose which made it a deadly place to live for so many. Rapacious landlords gleefully sub-dived small flats until whole families were living in one room. The influx of highlanders thrown off the land and impoverished Irish migrants flooding into Glasgow looking for work meant they always had takers for their ramshackle slums. Dr James Young delivered a lecture in Glasgow in 1888 and said of the one roomed slums in the poorer quarters….

‘It is those small houses which produce the high death-rate of Glasgow. It is those small houses which give to that death-rate the striking characteristics of an enormous proportion of deaths in childhood, and of deaths from diseases of the lungs at all ages. Their exhausted air and poor and perverse feeding fill our streets with bandy-legged children. Of all the children who die in Glasgow before they complete their fifth year, 32 per cent die in houses of one apartment; and under 2 per cent, in houses of five apartments and upwards. There they die, and their little bodies are laid on a table or on the dresser, so as to be somewhat out of the way of their brothers and sisters, who play and sleep and eat in their ghastly company. From beginning to rapid ending the lives of these children are short parts in a continuous tragedy. A large proportion enter life by the side-door of illegitimacy and one in every five of all who are born there will never see the end of their first year. Of those who so prematurely die, a third will have never been seen in their sickness by any doctor.’

That was the reality of life in the ‘Second City’ of the Empire in the late Victorian era; one in five children born in the impoverished parts of the city didn’t live to see their first birthday. For those who did survive there was a harsh life of poverty, exploitation and illness ahead. Fredrich Engels travelled north and wrote of the slums of Glasgow…

"I have seen human degradation in some of its worst phases, both in England and abroad, but I can advisedly say, that I did not believe, until I visited the wynds of Glasgow, that so large an amount of filth, crime, misery, and disease existed in one spot in any civilised country. 

Glasgow University stood on the east side of the High Street for 400 years but the rapid overcrowding and ‘slumming’ of the area in the 19^th century saw this august institution flee west to a green field site at Gilmorehill in 1870. As the wealthy fled to the west of the city the east end struggled on in a city that was growing too fast. In 1811 Glasgow’s population reached 100,000. By 1840 it had tripled to 300,000. The drive for industrialisation required a pool of cheap, exploitable labour and was drawing people into the great cities to work in the burgeoning factories and docks. The Irish community made up 20% of the population of the city by 1850 and usually took the more demanding physical jobs building roads, canals and railways. Their efforts and contribution to industrialisation and the building of Scotland’s infra-structure have never really been recognised.

Imagine if you will the modern Celtic Park packed to capacity. That was the number of Irish migrants who arrived in Glasgow in the year 1851. That is to say 60,000 new arrivals in one year: on average 5000 arrived each month or around 1250 each week, often with little more than the clothes they wore to their name. They came from a land wracked by famine and eviction and it says much about conditions in Ireland that many thought the slums of Glasgow offered better prospects. Of course there is much evidence that they were not welcomed with open arms. There was no council housing, no NHS, no social security and most could expect nothing but a hard life of toil.

The majority of these migrants were Catholic and they were coming to the country which had perhaps adopted the reformed faith more completely than any country in Europe. Tensions and old hatreds were always likely to arise and some of those attitudes echo down the years to today. The Irish were derided as ignorant, drunken and carriers of disease but in reality the squalor in which they and many native Scots found themselves living in was to blame for much of their behaviour. As Victor Hugo wrote in Les Miserables; ‘If the soul is left in darkness then sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sins but he who creates the darkness.’

The journey from the degradation of the past was a long one and it took long years of struggle and organising to make it. The fight for better housing and working conditions, the trade union movement, the arrival of the NHS and of course the proper education of all the nation’s children helped. Many born into poverty didn’t accept that this was the way things had to be and Scotland produced working class activists such as John MacLean, Mary Barbour, Willie Gallacher and James Connolly fought for the ordinary people of Scotland. They organised, led strikes, refused to pay rent to landlords exploiting the people and helped form the Labour Party to challenge the existing order.

Celtic Football Club was one example of a community trying to help itself in those hard times. It was formed with words known to every Celtic supporter; ‘A football club shall be formed to maintain dinner tables for the poor children and unemployed.’ Of course a football club could never cure all the ills of society but it did demonstrate that people yearned for things to be better and that altruism and a willingness to work for a better tomorrow for their children existed among the poor.

Glasgow today still has the lowest life expectancy in the UK and great disparity in wealth and health but things have improved enormously since the dark days of the industrial revolution. Those changes often had to be fought for and every change which benefitted the poor from the NHS to better working conditions and pay was resisted by those in charge. The slums may be gone but the poverty, the food banks, the appalling attrition of drug misuse still exist. The journey to a better life for all is far from complete though and much remains to be done but the ‘second city’ has come a long way.

So if you ever find yourself on the tour of the ornate and beautiful Glasgow City Chambers and the guide uses the phrase ‘the second city of the Empire’ try to think of it as I do; not in terms of second only to London in terms of industrial output but in terms of that ‘second’ Glasgow which existed less than a mile from the marble halls of the City Chambers. That place where one in five children never saw their first birthday. Some may choose to remember Victoria in all her splendour or the great industrialists with their wealth built on exploitation but I’ll remember the suffering poor who fought a long and bitter struggle for better lives for us all.

Let Glasgow flourish for all its children.

Honest mistakes

Honest mistakes

Spending much more time at home due to the Covid 19 pandemic has a few suffering from what was once called ‘cabin fever.’ We may not have reached the levels of irritability and restlessness which once afflicted prospectors stuck in a log cabin during winter in the Yukon or submariners spending long periods at sea but more than a few are missing their outings to the pub or the football. It isn’t only the 90 minutes of action on the field we miss but the journey to the stadium, the pre match trip to the pub, chatting with friends and those around us at the match. Then of course there is social media which allows us to debate, squabble, dissect a game and generally spout off like a Twitter Trappatoni or a Facebook Ferguson.

With the ongoing lockdown, we are left looking at videos of games past, speculating what might happen to the remaining fixtures of 2019-20 season and generally coming to realise what a big part football plays in the lives of so many of us. One online conversation concerned recently centred around what some like to call ‘Celtic Paranoia.’ As far back as the foundation of Celtic there has been a suspicion among many who follow Celtic that at certain times in its history there have been individuals in officialdom who have been less than even handed in their dealings with the club. There are also some among the much maligned refereeing fraternity who have on occasion made decisions or statements which defy logical explanation but how much of this is down to bias and how much incompetence?

Willie Maley in his book written to celebrate Celtic’s first 50 years in 1938 remarked in that understated way of his that after some games players were ‘much aggrieved about the officiating.’ Celtic, the so called Irish, Catholic club in Scotland would not, it seemed, be immune to the prevailing attitudes of some in society at the time. The actions of certain officials didn’t stop Celtic being a successful club in those first 50 years, indeed in 1938 when Maley’s book was published Celtic were champions.

My old man was in no doubt that what he saw growing up in the years after World War 2 was evidence of bias against Celtic. Of course Celtic’s lack of success in those years was more down to poor planning and decision making within the club than any decisions made by referees. A club the size of Celtic almost being relegated in 1948 cannot be explained by poor refereeing but that apart he did give examples of things he saw which were hard to explain. The infamous Cox-Tully incident involved Rangers player Sammy Cox delivering a kick to the groin of Charlie Tully in front of 95,000 witnesses. Tully collapsed in a heap as Celtic fans behind the goal awaited the inevitable sending off for Cox. The inaction of the Referee caused crowd trouble and bottles flew. The Herald Newspaper describes the scene in the following words…

‘There is no doubt about what caused the crowd trouble- the foul committed by Cox on Tully after 30 minutes play and the astonishing attitude of the referee in ignoring the offence and actually waving play on.’

It is unusual for sports reports of the time to criticise officials and their ire was usually pointed towards players who did not accept refereeing decisions like gentlemen. The name MC Dale also cropped up in my old fella’s lexicon of biased officials out to do Celtic down. In a match against Rangers in 1946 he gave a hotly disputed penalty to Rangers and sent of two Celtic players who expressed their disgust at the decision. Celtic players suggested that the Referee reeked of whisky and it was reported that he needed help filling out his post-match report. Bob Crampsey, author and football historian said of those days …

‘Many of the Press were uneasy about what they considered to be scandalously partial refereeing. There had been disputed decisions in Rangers favour in both matches (Cup ties) and when Dumbarton were equally dissatisfied with the handling of a league match at Ibrox, Waverley, a normally phlegmatic Journalist was moved to reply to a plea from Mr R Lindsay, Chairman of Dumbarton, ‘’You are right in saying that Rangers don’t want favours from Referees but they certainly get them. I appeal to the SFA to let it be known that so far as whistlers are concerned all clubs are equal.’’

One name bound to get my old man angry was that of RH Davidson, an official who reduced the 1970 Scottish Cup final to the level of farce with his decisions. You will find the goals from that game online but not the incidents which went a long way to deciding the game and you have to wonder why? Aberdeen was a fine side then and learned from their 1967 cup final defeat that they shouldn’t approach the game defensively. That being said the Referee skewed the game so badly we’ll never know what would have happened had a competent referee been in in charge. Firstly, he awarded Aberdeen a hugely controversial penalty when a cross struck Bobby Murdoch on the shoulder. Bobby Lennox was the victim of two awful decisions the first of which saw the Dons keeper Bobby Clark drop the ball at his feet and Lennox netted. The referee awarded a foul. Then as Lennox raced in on goal a desperate last ditch tackle from Martin Buchan scythed him down in the box. Astonishingly, Davidson waved play on. Some Aberdeen fans were honest enough to say that although delighted to have won, Davidson ruined the match.

Too often though, poor refereeing has been used as an excuse for failure. The folk memory of biased officials, real or imagined, has Celtic supporters antennae fine-tuned as they judge decisions. There are still things which occur which defy logic though. The sending off of Tony Shepard in the 1986 League Cup Final with Rangers after the referee was struck by a coin leads one to ask what the referee’s thought patterns were. He cannot have seen Shephard strike him as it didn’t happen and the error of his ways was apparent when the Celtic player lifted the coin from the turf and showed it to the official who to his credit reversed the decision but why reach for the red card in the first place when he hadn’t seen the player do anything which merited it?

The Farry-Cadete saga was another incident when an official seemed to be acting in a manner which put Celtic at a disadvantage. Normally registering a new player takes no more than a day or two as fax messages are exchanged with his previous association. Farry held up Cadete’s registration for six weeks at a vital time of the season. Cadete missed key matches which he may (or may not) have influenced. Celtic drew 3 SPL games as their striker sat in the stand unable to play. Those three draws were to cost them the title. Fergus McCann brought in his lawyer and comprehensively demolished Farry’s arguments for holding up the player’s registration. He had no option but to resign. Celtic fans immediately saw an official out to hurt the club. Farry’s apologists said he was an over-officious and perhaps pompous man but that he was an honest official. His actions though, remain inexplicable.

Of course fans of other clubs in Scotland find it risible when Celtic supporters talk of bias. How can a club with over 100 major trophies and a treble-treble in the bag be moaning about referees? Football is a fast moving game where officials have a split second to make a call. Having refereed school games I can assure you it isn’t easy to get things right all the time. Errors do occur in professional football and the big Leagues introduction of VAR was aimed at reducing this. What VAR has shown though is that the rules themselves don’t always allow for the smooth running of games. Players are literally called offside when a toe is beyond the last defender. VAR gets it right but infuriates fans who celebrate a goal and then see it disallowed by a fraction of an inch.

I don’t buy into conspiracy theories but I do think over the years there have been some referees who gave my club very little and did so for reasons beyond football. Most are honest men doing a tough job and like all human beings make mistakes. We notice the more obvious ones and the high profile errors which affect the outcomes of games. We don’t tend to notice the efficient officials who get through matches with a minimum of fuss. In many ways the referees you don’t notice are often the best. Others, who boast at sports dinners of ‘never having refereed a game which Rangers lost’ are a disgrace to their profession and sully the reputation of the decent majority.

My old man may have had his suspicions about some of the officials of his time but with wall to wall cameras now the chances of repeatedly making ‘honest mistakes’ are much slimmer. Of course in the heat of the action a referee has to make a call and we all hope it is an objective one. I watch enough football to see that errors occur in most games but that they are down to mistakes rather than bias. The nature of Scottish football and the rivalry between its two biggest clubs means officials are watched like hawks by some who lack any objectivity. We all want football matches which are decided by players’ skill and effort and not poor officiating.

The days of Bobby Davidson are long gone. He simply wouldn’t get away with that in the modern era.