Football Culture and Sectarianism

“I’ll take you back,” says Ian Murtagh – a sports journalist of more than 30 years and a Celtic fan.

“You’ll have heard of Jock Stein, Celtic’s greatest manager – won the European Cup in ’67. He was a Celtic player but he was a non-Catholic, a Protestant.

“And, when he was interviewed for the Celtic job after doing very well at Hibbs and Dunfermline, the board of Celtic, who were all Catholic, I think he was the first non-Catholic to be interviewed.

“He’d been a player with Celtic but, during the interview, they said to him: ‘Mr Stein, one final question. You’re watching a schoolboy match. There’s two players.

“‘Identical ability, identical age, identical position, identical build, identical promise.

“‘One’s a Catholic, one’s a Protestant. Who would you sign?’

“And he said, without drawing breath, ‘I’d sign the Protestant.’

“And they said, ‘Why is that?’

“And he said, ‘Because Rangers wouldn’t sign the other one.’

“And that was it, in a tee. And he actually did that. That’s how people like Kenny Dalglish and Danny McGrain got to Celtic, he prioritised that.”

Murtagh tells this story – one seemingly typical of the charismatic, inventive Stein – in the midst of a discussion about the Old Firm rivalry. That so widely discussed topic in relation to football, in relation to Glasgow, in relation to Scotland.

Also, of course, in relation to religion – and Sectarianism.

It’s a phrase that is said and heard a lot.

‘Very strong support for the religious or political group that you are a member of, which can cause problems between different groups,’ is the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition.

It encompasses a lot of things for a lot of people, though, of course. Actions speak louder than words and the Old Firm rivalry – between Celtic, who are generally associated with Catholicism, and Rangers, generally associated with Protestantism – has often represented a point of focus.

What kind of point of focus? That’s a difficult question to answer. Especially given the answer feels notably different now to what it might have been half a decade, or so, ago.

That tale about Stein gives an idea of the context when he earned the Celtic job in 1965.

As Professor Graham Walker, of Queen’s University Belfast, recalls, Rangers would follow an unwritten but known exclusivist policy, when it came to signing players, “until Graeme Souness came in and just kicked things into shape and signed Maurice Johnston and got rid of all that.”

Professor Walker, who specialises in Northern Irish and Scottish politics, modern Scottish and Irish history, and religious identity in Scotland and Northern Ireland, also speaks of the longer-term context.

“Celtic are undoubtedly founded as a team of that Irish Catholic community in Glasgow. They have that identity, I think, right from the start. It’s quite clear.

“Rangers do not have any specific identity, I think, until we come into the 20th Century. In fact, Rangers were struggling for a long time financially in the late 19th Century,” he says.

There had been notable Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant immigration into Scotland during the 1800s, relating both to industry and the Irish Potato Famine of the middle of the century.

The religious tensions, it seems began to arise more during the interwar years of 1919-1939, as “The Irish Question” – the debate surrounding calls for Irish independence – became a more prominent issue and paramilitary violence began to spill over from Belfast to the likes of Glasgow.

Once more, as the Stein tale shows, this had grown into that exclusivist mindset on the football front by the middle of the 20th Century – and it remains relevant today, despite the approach of both clubs being almost immeasurably more open-minded.

Tensions remain but they are somewhat challenging to measure, when they can be seen to be linked to football matches, religious beliefs and – more noticeably in recent years – debates over Scottish Independence.

But the football matches do play an interesting role here. They feel more contained, perhaps that bit more tangible – and there is also plenty of attention on them, of course, such is the fame of the Old Firm rivalry.

“Rangers and Celtic – as a rivalry – is the biggest in the world, in my opinion,” says YouTuber and Motherwell supporter Gordon Bonnes.

“You may have much bigger clubs across the globe but nothing can match Rangers and Celtic.

“Because they’ve even got a day to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne which was in 1690 on 12th July. So, the fact that they’ve got a day to commemorate such a historic battle which both sets of fans can refer to, I don’t think you’d see that in any other place in the world.”

Ross Kilvington, a football writer and Rangers fan, echoes that outlook.

“The Old Firm derby is the best in the world, there I said it! Although it may lack in quality compared to other fierce rivalries around the globe, the passion that match day evokes in people is incredible.

“It screams passion and the two sets of supporters are at constant loggerheads with each other.  Unfortunately, I have never been to an Old Firm game, but everyone I have spoken to who has attended one have said the same thing, there is nothing like it in the world!”

Kilvington also recognises the intricacies of the rivalry that remain – and how they can be exploited.

“To be perfectly honest, I feel that although the religious aspect of the derby bubbles away under the surface and isn’t quite what it used to be 30 or 40 years ago, it still manifests itself on derby day.

“The media grossly overplay it in my personal opinion, and I feel there is always a media bias towards the Rangers support in regard to sectarian singing and chants during match days.

“I don’t condone this whatsoever, but both sides are just as bad as each other, and while both exist, then unfortunately the religious hatred will always be lingering.”

Professor Walker makes the point, meanwhile, that political debates and legislation surrounding Sectarianism have, since the turn of the century, been somewhat outdated in perspective.

“It’s one of those things where it’s very difficult to be against a campaign that sets out to eradicate religious tensions from Scottish life but, at the same time, you know, you’ve got to be clear about how these tensions arose,” he says.

“The extent to which they still exist. If they do still exist, why do they still exist? And, to me, we didn’t have, really, that debate a few years ago. We had a lot of grandstanding. We had a lot of gesture politics, you might say.

“We had important issues like education just completely left off the agenda. There was a readiness, again, just to scapegoat the Old Firm rivalry and this was clear in the SNP’s legislation in 2012.

“I actually gave some evidence to the Parliamentary committee on this, as to why I thought it was a bad idea.

“And, again, it was just this notion, it was a very facile way of dealing with it where you say – ‘If you stop football supporters singing certain things,’ and you somehow get rid of the problem. I mean, it was naïve in the extreme. And, of course, the legislation proved to be unworkable.”

By having such a high-profile point of reference for such an issue in the Old Firm rivalry, football – in this context – becomes a very easy thing to point the finger at.

A microcosm is significantly easier to pin down, which perhaps explains why football and its passions can also represent the accused.