WELL DONE BARCELONA – NOW WIN THE FINAL
Well done Barca. I was absolutely delighted to see Chelsea lose yesterday. It was about negative football against positive football. It was also about different modes of organisation and guess what – the good guys won [dodgy decisions aside].
When I am asked what team I support I obviously say Celtic. When asked what other teams I like I usually use the old joke ‘Celtic reserves’ although nowadays that should be Celtic under 21s I suppose. Most Scottish supporters are the same about their clubs. This is in marked contrast to somewhere like Italy where people support their local team but will also choose one of Milan, Juve or Inter to support.
However, I have a soft spot for Barcelona for a few different reasons.
• One of their managers [Jack Greenwell, 1917-24] shares the same name as me and may be a distant relation as he comes from the same neck of the woods as one of my grandfathers [long dead so I can’t ask him – we also have a Champions League/European cup winner in the family but he is a very distant relation from me and I have never met him].
• I like the way they usually play an attacking and exciting style of football.
• There is a similarity with the Catalan political situation and that of Celtic with the Irish-English Scottish-English problems.
• They succeed despite the best efforts of the establishment in the state they currently play in.
But in particular, I like the way that the club is organised. Yes, they have overpaid, spoilt idiots running about on the pitch like every other big team but it is a team that is owned by the fans and the president of the club is decided by an election.
This leads to something like them having UNICEF on their shirt and actually PAYING UNICEF for the privilege and giving them other money besides.
This is what I have always wanted Celtic to be like. The fans of Celtic see it as a community. We all feel that our club is different from others. From the history and the beginnings as a charitable organisation, the way the fans behave and the way people rally round when we lose one of our own – it is a very special thing for us.
But I think I am not the only one with whom it rankles that our club is run by some pretty ruthless people. I am fairly sure that John Reid would not have been appointed chairman if the fans had a vote. It made me fairly annoyed that when I was watching the otherwise fairly good Official History that the club recently produced that in the early part of it they seemed to be trying their best to shoehorn the words ‘business acumen’ or similar in so much that it sounded like a New Labour party political.
Some Celtic fans have shares in the club but about the most they get for it is better opportunities to spend money and the chance to have a question fudged at the AGM. Recent efforts to have fans representatives on the board have been rebuffed.
Unfortunately the way the club is currently run means that a system like Barcelona’s is a long way off for Celtic but it is something that the fans should be shooting for.
One look at Barca will show you that there is more than one way to run a club and that a community or supporter controlled model is no barrier to success.
It was reported yesterday that the fans of Stirling Albion are trying to buy the club at a price of 40 quid each. I dearly hope they succeed. If they do, I might change my second [well ok, third] team to Stirling Albion.
And well done again Barcelona – truly more than a football team.
what is Celtics position Michael, firstly, on the Scottish – English problems? Secondly what is Celtics position on the Irish – English problems? And thereafter, how does that position equate with Barcelona as an expression of Catalan nationalism?
What are the “best efforts of the establishment of the state they currently play in” to do them down? The state they currently play in is the UK. Within the U.K.they play in the Scottish leagues. If that’s the case who makes up the establishment that wants to do Celtic down?
Is the current Celtic chairman not a former British Home Secretary? Can you get much more establishment than that? Have they not been supported by the last 4 Lord Provosts of the city they play out of ? Was one of those Lord Provosts not a chairman of the club? Who can you mean by the establishment of the state they play in?
What the establishment really did in Scotland in relation to Celtic is make sure that such divisions as already existed in Glasgow between working class protestants and working class catholics were nurtured and fostered so that they persisted as long as possible. It was classic divide and rule.
Nowadays all big football clubs are a business whether you like it or not, and all the Celtic supports, mawkish sentimentality about being a “special ” club won’t change that.
If you want a community football club I fear you’ll need to go and watch your local juniors.
Michael, I’d like to refine last nights moan for you if I can.
Iaccept that you were really talking about Barcelona when you were setting out the factors you liked about them.These factors are,however exactly the same as those set out by my Celtic supporting mates, about Celtic, even down to the comparison with Barcelona politically.
I have no quibble with those mates when they say that Celtic try to play exciting attacking football and indeed in the mid sixties, late sixties, and early seventies they did play exciting attacking football of an extremely high quality.
I know that first hand because I went to a lot of their games at that time.
I don’t however, accept any comparison with Barcelonas political situation so far as Celtic are concerned. For that to be true there would have to be a British league, with Celtic playing in it and the club allowing their support to express Scottish nationalism at games, which is of course not something that Celtic supporters do!
I see Catalan and Basque flags at Celtic park as well as the odd Che Guavara banner but the idea of Celtic as romantic anti fascists doesn’t really work does it?
Your third point about Barcelona is, of course, the one non Celtic supporters have to listen to most from Celtic supporters and that is that there is an anti- Celtic conspiracy of some sort by the establishment and whether or not that had any truth 60 or 70 years ago it’s so clearly not true now that it hardly bears rudimentary scrutiny.
As I said before, their current chairman is a former British Home Secretary, their previous chairman Brian Quinn CBE was a deputy governor of the Bank of England, and I believe a member of the IMF, who have done so much for progressive causes as we all know!
A number of previous Glasgow Provosts have been declared Celtic supporters and one, Michael Kelly was also a chairman of the club. It could be argued that they are the establishment now!
The stuff we hear now about the Celtic family, is, I’m afraid, another marketing tool. The club say it, because as you point out, that is how the supporters feel about it, but it doesn’t make it true.
They are like all big clubs , big business, and that isn’t likely to change.
I’ve managed to ,in large part wean myself off the Old Firm although part of suppoting a team is visceral and not cerebral, and therefore it’s impossible to do altogether.( i.e. you still get the odd lurch in your stomach when the results come in)
I have taken to watching the local juniors though and there is no doubt that if community feeling is what you want ,it exists there, more than it ever can with clubs that play in the SPL or European competitions.
Hi
will try to answer both comments.
Celtic’s position on Scottish/english/Irish comments is usually ‘no comment’ which I think is fairly weak and is only designed to keep the club clear to make profit.
I don’t want the former home secretary who has to take a great degree of responsibility for the massacre in Iraq to be our chairman.
That said, establishment figures or not I do think anti-celtic bias does bear scrutiny. Just look at the rearrangers last year [which was unprecedented] or Craig Levein’s comments about playing at Ibrox last year.
The general point of the article is about what i would like celtic to be – not what celtic actually is.
As for establishment keeping them down, a cursory glance at some of the problems in scottish society shows you that it is a problem of institutional racism. I am not a fan of george galloway but he was correct when he drew attention that in one town in scotland there was a party thrown only a couple of decades ago when the first catholic in the town got a job in a bank. The fact that the ‘famine song’ is sung without so much as a whimper from the ‘fannies with typewriters’ is some evidence of this.
For the marketing tool – your answer is in your own response. The supporters feel it and they make it true themselves – that in fact makes it a community and if the people in control of the club go against that then that is to be viewed as a bad thing. That was one of the points of the article.
Finally, I am not ignoring any subsequent response you might make, i just won’t be online till tomorrow because I am going somewhere.
and the similarities with the catalans are obvious.
A degree of autonomy but not as much as they need and want.
There are huge inherent contradictions in supporting and club/organisation/political party
which is why i join none of them.
Hi Michael,
I can see there’s no prospect of us agreeing here so I’ll bow out with the following few comments.
I understand that the general point of your article is about what you would like Celtic to be rather than what they are. I also understand that there are similarities between Catalonia and Scotland in terms of semi autonomy etc. The point I was making is that while it might be true that Barcelona are an expression of Catalan nationalism or at least their fans see it as an expression of Catalan nationalism, the same cannot be said for Celtic or their fans, so far as either Scottish nationalism, or further Scottish home rule is concerned.
I also don’t agree with you that institutional racism applies to catholics ( I presume you principally mean catholics of Irish extraction) in Scotland anymore.
Other than obtaining a certain amount of entertainment from his performance in the American senate, and from his making a total arse of himself pretending to be a cat in Big Brother I wouldn’t give any credence to George Galloway and what he says.
His anecdote might be true and it might not be true but I could troop out any number of catholic pals who have “succeeded” to a high level,in the Scottish legal system in particular , and in medicine, and indeed in banking. (witness Brian Quinn C.B.E. , not that he’s my pal.)
As for Craig Levein – is this not a guy so level headed when things don’t go his way, that he banjo’d a teammate and broke his nose over a tactical disageement during a Hearts game?
If Craig Leveins complaint has any legitimacy, it has the same legitimacy that all “wee clubs” complaints have in any country i.e. Manchester United get all the decisions in England, Juventus get all the decisions in Italy, There’s no point in turning up to play Bayern Munich in Bavaria because they’ll get every 50 – 50 decision. etc.
In other words it’s a problem of power rather than racism or sectarianism. I’m not denying that crude racists and bigots exist but I am denying that they influence Scottish football anymore, either consciously, or unconsciously.
Anyway as I say I’m going to bow out. Interesting blog though. Back to Newlandsfield and Pollok for me.
You should go and watch your local club Michael, wherever you are, (of course you might be in the east end!) and liberate yourself from the tyranny of the Old Firm.
Well what a great posting and counter argument from Leveller whom I know personally to be a recovering Rangers fan.
Yes support your local team.
I was brought up in a Rangers supporting family. However my dad encouraged me to support my local team (Dumbarton) and I have done so since 1970 and enjoyed seeing them lift their third championship in all that time on Saturday.
The truth is that Celtic and Rangers are simply too big for Scottish football’s good. No other team has won the top league in over quarter of a century. I’m in my fiftieth year and I think I’m right in saying that only four teams from outwith the Old Firm have lifted the top prize in my lifetime.
As far as I’m concerned they are two sides of the one coin and the sooner that they bugger off to England, take the Moderator of the General Assembly, the Union Jack, the Pope and the Irish tricolour with them the better.
I know you’re a good sincere man Michael.
Why not make Stirling Albion your first team?
It fits much more with your other values.
Whilst I stand by the above, sorry it was expressed in a condescending way.