There is a part of the west

of Scotland where

sectarianism isn't rampant

Peter MacAulay

 

One of the great myths of the age is that sectarianism is rampant in Scotland. It is not. Yes, there is a problem in an area of west central Scotland, mainly in communities within shouting distance of the M8. It remains to be seen whether a bill to regulate 'behaviour at football' is the answer. Can we really legislate away centuries of tradition just like that?
     It's also necessary to redefine that awful geographic description, 'the west of Scotland', where the problem is said to reside. This media-induced perception is a crude misrepresentation of fact. The fact is that the west of Scotland stretches from Cape Wrath to the Mull of Galloway and includes numerous islands and communities of very decent and tolerant people. Huge swathes of the west of Scotland have no more of a sectarian problem than the craters on the moon.
     Those of us who grew up, football mad, in the rural west of Scotland find it all a bit hard to understand. Support among us for Rangers and Celtic was mixed and entirely devoid of hostility. Although we were fans, there was no prospect of seeing either side play for years to come, for two reasons: we lived far away and we did not have two brass farthings to rub together. Our support had nothing to do with religion or with politics.
     It probably had more to do with the daily coverage given to both teams on the back pages, and the need for young boys to identify with heroes. As it happened, we did have one of those. The Scotland centre-half at that time was Ronnie MacKinnon, whose mother had been born and brought up in the community. MacKinnon's summer visits were a huge draw for us football-crazy youngsters. The fact that he was the Rangers centre-half was neither here nor there. Billy McNeill, the Celtic centre-half at the time and MacKinnon's rival for the Scotland jersey, would have been equally welcome. I've since been in McNeill's company and can think of no better person to be the club's official ambassador.
     My own childhood kitchen had a colour photo of the Celtic first-team squad glued to a wall. Given equal status on an adjoining wall was a colour photo of the Rangers first-team squad. I was blissfully unaware that one lot was reputedly Catholic, the other Protestant. It was bad form to talk about other people's religion, and worse still to denigrate it. The photos remained there until they became faded and disappeared under new wallpaper.
     Of course at that time a great war had been over for less than two decades, so those dark days were still vivid in the memory. Nobody had forgotten that different traditions of the Christian faith had stood shoulder to shoulder and had fought and fallen side by side for a cause in which they believed. They had been united in body and spirit during critical battles all over Europe and beyond, and they were still united in spirit years later. Alas, we have not risen with the vision.

 

     Yet the 1960s did offer some hope on the football front. Celtic brought in a non-Catholic, Jock Stein, as manager and he led the club through its most successful period ever, even winning the European Cup. The memory of that evening in 1967 is still clear: black and white television pictures being fed live from Lisbon to Lewis, and dozens of teenage supporters, not a Catholic among them, cheering Celtic on. Stein – a freemason to boot – became a hero at Celtic Park, where a statue of him still stands.
     But Rangers remained defiantly traditional. They did eventually – in the 21st century – break the mould and opted for Paul le Guen as manager after Alex McLeish. But it was not a popular appointment and I recall Rangers making – or perhaps having to make – the point that le Guen was a 'lapsed' Catholic. Dearie me. In any case he lasted around six months, having fallen out with that pillar of trackside respectability, Barry Ferguson.
     It's hard to avoid the feeling that the new legislation is aimed at fans only, and that somehow the players themselves are a breed apart. Many of us remember Paul Gascoigne mock-playing the flute and Maurice Johnston crossing himself during Old Firm games. Oafish behaviour by players surely ought be punished by a night in the slammer, followed by a court
appearance next morning. Superstars in the same dock as the common fan -
what a leveller. Perhaps it's long overdue.
     Respect for our traditions is wonderful, but it means nothing unless we respect other people's traditions as well. But tradition is only tradition and it is not righteousness set in stone. Time changes everything on planet earth and if we don't move with time, it soon moves against us. West central Scotland is now stuck in a time warp that's giving the whole country a shameful image which may prove horribly difficult to shift.
     Perhaps I'm not best placed to give a first-hand account of the behaviour of football fans in Glasgow. For one thing I have not been at Ibrox stadium since 1983. The last time – a Scottish Cup game against Forfar Athletic – I had the misfortune to be surrounded by hundreds of thoroughbred idiots who had come to a football match to sing about the Bishop of Rome, the IRA and the UDA.
     Fast-forward to 2010 and the Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden Park between Celtic and Ross County. As the train pulled out of Central Station towards Mount Florida, a group of youngsters in Celtic tops brought out the special brew and treated us to something about graffiti on the walls and 'up the RA'. They were young – certainly not out of their teens – and hopefully they'll grow out of it, at least on public trains. But it did make me wonder if Glasgow had moved on much in 30 years.
     This weekend marks the start of the new football season, which means Ross County fans go to Dingwall's Victoria Park in the certain knowledge that we will not hear one sectarian utterance until the last ball is kicked next May. That's neither smugness nor complacency, but rather a view based on around 40 years of near-perfect attendance. In today's wretched football climate it's also a privilage. Yet it ought not to be a privilage at all, but a right for every football fan everywhere in Scotland.

 

Peter Macaulay is a journalist based in the Highlands