On the other side of the human mound, on the empty stairs beneath it, matchday police began rushing upwards. Since radio and then TV at 6pm had only mentioned casualties at Ibrox Park, the Albion Street newsmen did well to hit the Saturday night streets with 46 dead. He hadnt an earthly chance, the resistance was being stamped out of him by any number of unwilling feet. His name was Irvine Smith, and part of his judgment on 23 October 1973 read: So far as the evidence is concerned, the Board never so much as considered that it ought to apply its mind to the question of safety on that particular stairway [] and would appear I put it no higher to have proceeded on the view that if the problem was ignored long enough it would eventually go away [] Indeed it goes further than this because certain of their actions can only be interpreted as a deliberate and apparently successful attempt to deceive others that they were doing something, when in fact they were doing nothing.. I was much more aware of my surroundings than others in the tumultuous frenzy of swaying men, and I quickly pulled my arms up to shoulder height. It was their proud boast entering the 70s that they hadnt signed a Catholic in nearly 100 years. Why do Protestants support Rangers? The two clubs are the most successful and popular in Scotland, and the rivalry between them has become deeply embedded in Scottish culture. Another criticised Celtic and Rangers fans for offering their interpretation of 500 years ofIrish history. Most of the Rangers end didnt know. Police radios pandemonium. Does the queen Support Rangers? https://www.ncregister.com/blog/scotland-s-notorious-catholic-protestant-sports-rivalry, Vatican Announces Pope Francis Marseille Visit Schedule; Trip to Highlight Mediterranean Migrant Crisis, Off to World Youth Day: Maryland Family of 10 Heads to Lisbon for Special Pilgrimage, A Pilgrimage Ending in Fatima Reveals Many Catholic Surprises, Mike Pence at Catholic Conference: God is Not Done With America Yet, The Church Points Us to Angels, Because Angels Point Us to God. Today, through various cultural practices and expressions, including song and fan symbols, many Rangers fans celebrate the historical conquest of Ireland, while Celtic supporters commend rebellion against it. [9][10], In the five years before 2011, annually there were between 600 and 700 charges of an offence aggravated by religious prejudice in Scotland. As a further nua. (modern), The funeral of Peter Easton, Douglas Morrison and Bryan Todd, three teenagers from Markinch who died at Ibrox in 1971. The crowd were nearly all gone. Catholic kids had chapel and a separate education, while my birthright decreed I that was sent to Sunday School and got to wear my blue scarf to see the Gers at Ibrox Park every fortnight. There was also a rise in arrests for weapons possession, vandalism, breach of the peace and street drinking. An ambulanceman was kneeling over two inert men, beating alternately on each chest. They were still looking into the accident, and could I help them? Those already halfway down the stairway 13 exit would have shuddered to 100 halts as the air split from the roar of celebration above them, grabbing each other, dancing and jumping up and down on the uneven steps. Photograph: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy, 'Singing and dancing to their deaths': footballs forgotten tragedy. 8. Irish republican marches use much the same format to commemorate various important dates in the history of Irish republicanism, such as the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the 1981 hunger strike. Every month two priests were shown into our living room and given glasses of whisky while they passed the minimum amount of time before collecting a small brown envelope containing 10% of my dads wages for the Mother Church. When the ball hit the back of the net, those on the dirt exit track tried to push back into the delirious crowd. One minute we were moving down, edging and lurching towards the third flight of stairs, the next we were standing still. The Resurgence of HBCU Athletics. They had not implemented the reports recommendations. Soccer in Scotland is largely dominated by two famous institutions: Rangers, a club and fanbase with a definitive anti-Catholic history and tradition, and Celtic, a club founded by Irish Catholic immigrants. As the crowd thinned, I sat down on the top wooden strut of the stairway, unable to move. The same examples of low animal life who force their support on Glasgow Rangers are one and the same with the foul-mouthed drunks who cause us great embarrassment every July when they turn up to 'support' our annual rallies". . I was near the top of the terracing and saw many around me leaving, dejected, but able to shuffle down stairway 13, its steps as uneven as ever. [21] In response, the Rangers manager Willie Waddell declared an intent to change the media perception of Rangers being a sectarian club. at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Some who had their arms in front of their chests got one free and waved frantically at the bawling hordes above. Some would have stumbled, causing others to trip over them in a mad melee of happy bodies struggling to get past each other back up to the top, just as the ref blew a long blast for time up, doubling everyones jubilation. Rangers on brink of Danilo deal with Feyenoord set to accept final offer. Duncan Morrow, a lecturer in politics at the University of Ulster, was asked by the Scottish government in 2011 to chair the independent Advisory Group on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland. But the rise of social media, opposing views over the Scottish independence referendum and Rangers' 2012 liquidation have led to heightened tensions in recent years. Mine werent the kind of statements you would want to have delivered from the witness box if you were representing the Rangers. 2. But speaking after the Old Firm fixture at Ibrox in March, where sectarian singing was heard and fans clashed in Glasgow city centre, Lennon said he believes the situation is improving. Perhaps nowhere is this more the case than when the Old Firm supporters have taken sides in the on-going conflict in the Middle East. It was those who had followed Rangers who were broken. Such an exercise also offers insight into how sport and politics are often inseparable. For many supporters of Rangers and Celtic, such memory is infused with politics, religion, history, ethno-religious discrimination, colonialism, and anti-colonialism. Manager Willie Waddell ensured that everyone behaved with decorum and dignity. Is Liverpool or Everton a Catholic club? and Rangers F.C., the two largest Scottish football clubs sometimes referred to as the Old Firm, whose support base is traditionally predominantly Catholic and Protestant respectively. In 2011, while manager of the Parkhead club, he was sent parcel bombs and bullets in the post and when he quit in 2014 he said he had become worn down by the abuse. 6. Elite soccer in Scotland operates within a relatively small financial domain compared to wealthier soccer countries like Italy, England, Spain, and Germany. Being a young boy, my feet werent touching the ground, as I was swept down over the edge of the stairway in a tidal wave of humanity. Rangers and Celtic has had a sectarian nature: Rangers are typecast as Protestant and Celtic as Catholic." Given the Old Firm derby has existed for 135 years, to list its sectarian incidents . There were a few uninjured fans near me, some trying to breathe life into bodies, others lifting people on to stretchers and hurrying them away up the rotten stairs to join the ranks of the injured. The ferocious passion generated when the teams clash in the Old Firm derby makes global headlines but behind it is a hatred whose roots can be found in Scotland's history of religion and immigration. South African Don Kitchenbrand kept his Catholicism secret[4][13][14] and Laurie Blyth left the club after his Catholic faith was discovered. Born a Protestant in 1947 and raised by Catholics in Glasgow, I had something of a conflicted childhood. 141 TheJobbyJabbinBandit 2 yr. ago People are making assumptions that you're a member of the orange order, and therefore Protestant. Sounds like some people got injured at the game. Scot Symon, who managed Rangers between 1954 and 1967, told the court that some improvements had been made to stairway 13 after the fatal accident in 1961. Twice I leaned over a body and applied the kiss-of-life. With brave, weeping policemen and heroic ambulancemen I pounded the chests of those who showed small stirrings of life, in an effort to get their hearts moving. In his autobiography, Smith said that 40 years after his decisions, he was still viewed with disapproval by some Rangers-supporting friends, who accused him of disloyalty. For a time it seemed as if the religious-inspired rancour was being pushed to the margins in their rivalry in a more secular society. [37], Bruce also found that less than a third of one percent of murders in Scotland over nearly two decades had any sectarian motive, and those that did were the result of football allegiances, not religion or ethnicity.[38]. I would head for the other stairs available to Rangers fans the safer ones, wider and descending less steeply to the main Edmiston Drive exit. or school. [4][24][26][27] Johnston had recently agreed to return to Celtic from Nantes, but the deal had not been completed, and signing such a prominent ex-Celtic player was an especially big coup for their rivals. 2.25 However, given that there are only half as many Catholics as Protestants in Scotland, these figures imply that a Scots Catholic is twice as likely to be a Celtic supporter as a Protestant is to be a Rangers supporter. Following the disaster, Rangers embarked on converting Ibrox into a predominantly seated stadium. A St John Ambulanceman in blue and black uniform grasped hold of my arm. For fucks sake, move. We stopped again. Millions of feet had worn down the long, narrow dirt steps, leaving their wooden rims exposed and easy to trip over. Given that 57% of religiously aggravated crimes in Scotland happened in Glasgow, at the very most approximately half of religiously aggravated crimes in Glasgow could have been football related in this period. It really sticks in my throat. John Hodgman survived the terrifying crush and, 50 years on, asks how Rangers avoided taking responsibility. For example, commentaries favoured by political and media elites in Scotland frequently suggest that the Rangers and Celtic football clubs and their respective fandoms characterise an importation of Irish problems into Scotland. Why sign him above all others? Celtic, Scottish professional football (soccer) team based in Glasgow that is one of the most dominant clubs in Scottish domestic football. In that city, politics, religion and soccer have proved a potent and perilous mix for over a hundred years. From a sociological standpoint, it's important to understand how communal memory contributes to this great and storied rivalry. Alloa Athletic . Occasionally, Rangers players and directors attended functions in Orange lodges, and subsequently,[6] with the connections between Rangers and loyalism/Orangeism rapidly strengthening, the club quietly introduced an unwritten rule that they would not sign any player or employ any staff member who was openly Catholic. 2023 Copyright France 24 - All rights reserved. Sectarian rivalry between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Glasgow, "Explained: The Bitter Religious Divide Behind Celtic-Rangers Rivalry", "Sectarian killer who slashed Celtic fan now up for parole", "Sectarianism: Action Plan on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland", "Use of Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 Religiously Aggravated Reported Crime: an 18 Month Review", "Catholics bear brunt of Scottish sectarian abuse", When Mo Johnston signed for Rangers - how the Record reported that momentous day in 1989, "Former Old Firm Italians give their take on derby clash", "Neil Lennon bomb police probe fifth suspect package", "Annabel Goldie shows racism the red card", John Kelly: Scotland's Shame is alive and kicking - News - Scotsman.com, "Review of Marches and Parades in Scotland", "Beware myths that tarnish 'sectarian' Scots", "Scottish sectarianism? Generally, even when collective memories commemorate famous people and events, they can be selective and malleable. The hospital doctor said I was lucky that I was bulky and that I was a good wee Rangers man. The pressure of the slow-moving crowd was strong, but not enough to prise me loose. [11], Sectarianism in Glasgow is particularly visible in the rivalry between the supporters of Glasgow's two main football clubs, Celtic and Rangers, together known as the Old Firm. Fanbase. Soccer is a sport; the following of a team is supposed to be a pleasurable pastime. The spectrum of insult in this bitter sporting rivalry is broad, and coheres to a loathing that is seemingly integral to the occasion. When Colin Stein scored with the last kick of the game, it was like a bomb going off. [8], In 2011, Celtic staff and fans, including then-manager Neil Lennon, were sent suspected explosive devices and bullets. Such is the case in the Scottish city of Glasgow. Rangers and Celtic continue to dominate Scottish footballl, although the company that now owns Rangers is different from the one that was running the club in 1971. Celtic was founded as a charity for poor Irish immigrants in Glasgow by Brother Walfrid, a Marist Brother originally from County Sligo, Ireland. [33] The Rangers kitman refused to lay out Johnston's kit before each match as a protest against a Catholic playing for Rangers. Some commentators have suggested that the Irish roots of the problem in Scotland should be properly acknowledged, and that a possible way forward could involve cooperation between Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland within the structures and procedures of the BritishIrish Council (BIC). He has authored, joint authored and edited several books, and written numerous journal and newspaper articles on sport and ethnic, national and religious identities, and prejudice. In 2002, a year after signing for the Hoops, Lennon, a Catholic, stopped playing international football for Northern Ireland, where the majority of the population are Protestants, following a death threat. A succession of fans and emergency service workers gave their harrowing accounts. Rangers began earlier in 1872. K 3. What are Ranger fans called? Thirty teenage boys included two brothers and five boys from the same Fife village of Markinch. His report would lead to the 1975 Safety at Sports Grounds Act. In the hectic couple of hours before the first edition they had struggled to nail down even the basic facts. I pulled a youngster from the jumbled pile of bodies. But these five flights were dangerous at the best of times. Police and ambulancemen who had been on the pitch and the terracing were infiltrating the crowd from below, coming up the passageways as walkie-talkie radios at the bottom of stairway 13 squawked for reinforcements. The club chairman, John Lawrence, and the director, David Hope, gave evidence, but the issue of safety was barely touched upon as it was deemed to be a matter for the subsequent inquiry into crowd safety at sports grounds, to be conducted by Lord Wheatley. I panicked. All in all, no disaster. This is what happens when religious strife is added to the noxious mix of sports and politics. Soccer rivalry is not unique to Glasgow. Celtic could do much better than it does, if only it was.'. I didnt recognise it at first, it was just a soft surface that gave under my left foot. They included 19-year-old Kenny Dalglish, soon to join the Celtic first team, but willing to honour the Rangers dead in a foretaste of the unstinting and unprecedented service he would do as manager of Liverpool when 96 died in the Hillsborough stadium disaster in Sheffield in 1989. 9. Sectarianism in Glasgow takes the form of long-standing religious and political sectarian rivalry between Catholics and Protestants. To change now would lose us considerable support". Sometimes, however, the respective fans political positions are less fathomable. This was reflected in the songs the clubs' supporters adopted, which have tended to use the political events being played out in Northern Ireland as their inspiration. The signing of former Celtic player Mo Johnston in 1989 brought Rangers' boycott of Catholic players to an end. Pences 35-minute address on the role of faith in public life was one of the headline events at the nonprofit Napa Institutes 13th annual summer conference. Comprehending the political and religious divides of Ulster in general, and of Belfast in particular, is essential to understanding what is happening on and off the pitch in Glasgow. The day trip in France will be Sept. 22-23. The youngest lad, Nigel Pickup, was nine years old. The evolution of the Rangers-Celtic rivalry and its contemporary media and political representations demonstrates how history is contested terrain. But I could write. Quigley 13. . Subscribe to receive an email notification each time a new article is posted on Engaging Sports. It was then that I stood on a stomach. My ears were hurting. A song about the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. The metal rails that divided the stairs into several open passages were mangled, flattened and twisted out of shape, but not broken. And still well on course for six league titles in a row. 7. [33] This prompted a group of loyalists to gather outside the newspaper office demanding the story be retracted, while their telephone switchboard was busy with angry callers. Morrow added there is evidence that violence spikes when sectarian rituals are played out in the street or at stadiums. [34] Some fans responded by burning their season tickets, although this view was not shared by all of the Rangers supporters. The people who are bringing me up are Catholics. [2], During the late 19th century, many immigrants came to Glasgow from Ireland, of whom around 75% were Catholic and around 25% Protestant. There were blinding lights. No criticisms were made of the club in any of the evidence. The floodlights. I sent off my reply, but I never got a call back. 'Singing and dancing to their deaths': footballs forgotten tragedy podcast, Get the Guardians award-winning long reads sent direct to you every Saturday morning, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Their singing and chanting still roared out. "[43], In 2006, Rangers appointed their first Catholic manager, Paul Le Guen,[44] and in 2013 signed Jon Daly, a high-profile Irish Catholic player.[45]. Football An Irish tricolour flag visibly held by Celtic fans (left) and the Union Jack and St George's flag visible in the Rangers fans section (right) Sectarianism in Glasgow is particularly visible in the rivalry between the supporters of Glasgow's two main football clubs, Celtic and Rangers, together known as the Old Firm. In the space of a handful of years, over a million humans perished and a similar number were forced to emigrate as refugees, including around 100,000 to nearby Scotland. A social organization founded in 1888 to aid Glasgow's poor Catholic immigrants, Celtic and its successful soccer team have aroused the undying resentment of the Protestant establishment, symbolized by blue-clad Rangers. Deep in the heart of Glasgow, a holy war has raged for over a century. However, these memories are also contestable, particularly in terms of what is actively remembered, unconsciously forgotten, and knowingly discarded, as well as how and when such memories might be recalled, abused, or celebrated.

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