Some years ago, a journalist friend of mine told me a story about attending a post-match press conference at Ibrox. When Walter Smith, now as then the Rangers manager appeared, the journalists left it to their colleague, the legendary Alex ‘Candid’ Cameron to open the inquisition.
“Walter, your thoughts please…”
And so a hundred pens poised ready to take dictation. Investigate journalism it was not.
For most tasked with covering Scottish football, maintaining good, unchallenging, relations with Celtic and Rangers is a fact of life for compliant types required to promote the agendas of those behind the scenes in order to guarantee a few priceless exclusives and being viewed as ‘a man in the know’. Some journalist have an ‘in’ at Celtic, some at Rangers. With fans of the two clubs massively outnumbering the support of all the other clubs combined, this is understandable, but it’s not inevitable.
It’s for these reasons that Graham Spiers strikes me as an unusually courageous journalist. For some time now, in The Herald and now The Times, Spiers has fearlessly taken on the culture at Rangers and taken a great deal of criticism for doing so from those determined to see conspiracy in everything he writes.
In a recent piece, Spiers quotes Willie Waddell, Rangers manager in the early 70’s, addressing Rangers fans after they rioted in Barcelona following their Cup Winners Cup in 1972:
Rangers have undoubtedly made real efforts to change in recent years and deserve credit for doing so, however belated it might be and whatever the driving factors behind it. But the facts aren’t good: two European finals, two riots. That isn’t a coincidence, but a culture.
Celtic are far from angels, and there are a number of distinctly unpleasant characters in the stands there too, particularly at away games. However, there is a fundamental difference between Celtic and Rangers and it concerns what they are for.
The ‘Old Firm’ is a convenient but lazy label – there are sharply contrasting cultures at the two clubs. For me, part of this is that while Celtic appear to exist like Barcelona as més que un club (more than a club), an expression of a positive, of Glasgow’s large and distinctive Irish Catholic community. Rangers aren’t for anything, but instead primarily exist as a negative, an opposition to something, a protest, an anger. ‘We are the people’ isn’t a chant of celebration, but exclusion. ‘You’re not’, the clear implication of the Rangers fans.
Celtic continues, largely, to be a more open and inclusive place, where Rangers is more insular and closed. While significant numbers of Rangers fans turned to violence in the aftermath of the UEFA Cup final as they’ve done elsewhere in recent years, Celtic’s fans did no such thing after their own loss in the same competition five years ago and won an award for their behaviour.
Last night’s dramatic end to the Scottish Premier League showed it all over again to me in the way Celtic’s victory was celebrated. Celtic’s fans didn’t even invade the pitch at the end of a game that won them the title, never mind cause trouble. Instead the celebrations turned into a rather moving tribute uniting fans, players and management alike to one of their own, Tommy Burns, who died a week previously.
I can say with confidence that the scenes wouldn’t have been the same had Rangers taken the league at Pittodrie. The police surrounding the travelling support there told the same story.
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