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Joined August 2022
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Sports Historian, founder of the Scottish Football Museum, author of 'Played in Glasgow', rediscoverer of the Scotch Professor: Andrew Watson - the world's first played of colour to captain an international team.
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I have covered my opinion in another reply, but I cannot let this one go. I am a Celtic fan, so you may take my comments and allow for bias. I note you are a ‘guest’ so you know me but I don’t know you.
Celtic were founded in 1887, to collect funds for the Poor Children’s Dinner Table and the unemployed. They were founded to try and protect their community of immigrants. They were political from the start. Michael Davitt laid the ceremonial first sod at Celtic Park.
A then Catholic support, in a state which legally discriminated against them. It is illegal to be a Catholic monarch. Turn Catholic and you lose your right/claim to the British Throne. The UK Head of State is anti-democratic. You cannot and will not be allowed a vote. This is not democracy.
This is the background to supporters objecting to being forced to mourn for a representative of a state designed to oppose them. By the way, they were objecting to the monarchy, not an old woman who had, sadly, died. That is a personal and private matter, which should not have been forced upon us.
To conflate this matter with what happened at the ACF, is a disgrace. One group demanding that their voices be heard over a matter of democracy. One group of fans, demanding that we accept the anti-democratic lunacy of the 1940s.
Oh – and as a citizen of Glasgow, I know absolute no-one who wanted anything to do with the forced mourning of the last fortnight. We all just had to keep our heads down until the madness subsided.
But our heads are up and we have risen off our knees, a long time ago. Racism will not win.
'Sick to the stomach': Night of utter shame as Welcome to Country booed and fans display Nazi salutes
I recall England in the 1970s and 80s, when racism stalked many grounds. Thousands of ‘fans’ making monkey chants. Abuse of opposition black players, whilst their own team had black players. I recall a Southampton fan – in about 1980 – shouting about one of their own black players George Lawrence ‘He might be a n****** but he’s our n*****’.
Fast forward to the 80s and finally the authorities started seeing it as a problem. Organisations like Rock Against Racism and the Football Supporters’ Association were already organising their demographic. Please don’t walk away, Stuart. The fight that’s about to begin, needs people like you.
I remember doing a wee TV film in 1986 for their Community Department, about the BBC’s policy of not mentioning racist chanting on Match of the Day – on the grounds that it would only encourage people to be more racist. (I know, I know). They set up a then black footballer to disagree with me. They basically gave me a doing in the studio debate.
But the change started, because the BBC had misjudged the mood. It’s a long walk and racism is never ‘cured’. We can at least drive it into the shadows where it can stay lonely and despised by those of us, who love football.
'Sick to the stomach': Night of utter shame as Welcome to Country booed and fans display Nazi salutes
I am now back in the home of world football. My thanks to Stuart for a poignant and nuanced article on our day out.
I have 135,000 words written on my certainty that the Scots invented modern world football and have had their history stolen from them through English Exceptionalism and the malign influence of the Public (Private) Schools in the south east of England. 135,000 words based on 32 years of research.
I will return. I will somehow find the resources for a fitting memorial to a man who played in the Game Which Broke English Hearts and gave us a sport that is – in parts – social phenomenon and full-time religion. Many thanks to Stuart, Paul and Trevor for their kindness to a stranger.
Australian football could learn a lot from Rookwood Cemetery: RIP Eadie Fraser
Amusing though it is to have your attack reduced to one abusive phrase, perhaps you might care to pick apart my comments. I’m a big boy. I can take it. Otherwise the majority Australian audience will see you for what you are… someone who cannot back up their words with some intelligent comment.
'Sick to the stomach': Night of utter shame as Welcome to Country booed and fans display Nazi salutes