Sadness after Joy

In much of Glasgow, indeed across much of Scotland yesterday their was an air of hope and expectation. Rangers fans, and people who just like Scottish football (I count myself among the this latter rather then the former) were filled with the joy that Rangers had reached the UEFA Cup Final and while they were perhaps under-dogs they had a reasonable chance of winning.

My two older boys like Rangers so straight after school we headed over to Ibrox Stadium where the game would be shown for free on a giant screen. We arrived about 4pm and the gates did not open till 6pm. The crowd waiting to get in was massive. We met a friend and her son who were leaving saying that they had been told there were 60,000 in the que already and only 25 - 28,000 would get in.

While there were many in the crowd that where just happy to be there, there were too many in the crowd for my liking that had drank too much. Indeed when we walked through the car park at the east end of the stadium you were walking through a carpet of broken Buckfast and bear bottles. There seemed to be an unpreparedness on the part of the football club and the police on the size of the crowd that would gather for this event. We left deciding to watch the game on the TV at home.

As for the actual game - well at points watching paint dry would have been more exciting.

To wake up to the news that there had been trouble by the Rangers supporters in Manchester was very disappointing. There are just no excuses, and while you can appreciate the frustration that the big screen in the city center failed, to trow bottles etc. at the poor guy who tried to fix it and then to turn on the police, to turn this frustration into violence is just unacceptable. I suspect like many Scots this morning I feel ashamed and embarrassed by the behavior of these fans (not all of whom would have been Scottish, but the majority of whom would have been). At is so often the case the actions a minority overshadow the good behavior of the majority.

The joy and hope of yesterday has also evaporated with sad news of the death of Celtic's first team coach,Tommy Burns at the age of 51. Burns came up in conversation once with a Baptist Pastor from the Glasgow area. He had met Burns once for a meeting. It was Burns who suggested that they pray together and latter commented that what the people of Glasgow needed was to know Jesus.

Comments

[jason]

sorry to hear about this...seems to happen a lot with soccer/football....wonder why? I only ask because here in america its not that popular and its the sports stars who usually do the brawling

[Johnny Laird]

That's such a huge question with no easy answers, Jason.

The Rangers game made me think, too:

http://johnnylaird.blogspot.com/2008/05/identity.html

[brodie]

Johnny - thanks for your comment and for pointing to you on post on this matter.
To pick up on your thoughts about Rangers and the Union Flag (note its only called the Union Jack when it is at sea) I think a major reason why it is used by some of the fans is historical. By this I mean the identification by some members of the Rangers fan base with Ulster Unionism and the Loyalist movement there.
I remember well the guys at high school I went to - just outside Glasgow - who would post tattoo’s showing their loyalty to both Rangers football club, paramilitary organisations such as the UVF and sectarian organisations like the Orange Order. As you say in your post - the reasons for the Rangers fans affinity to the Union Flag as complex.
There has been much good work done in recent years to take sectarianism out of football and in our back garden its common to see kids sporting both Rangers and Celtic kits without a hint of trouble or sectarian division. Indeed the funeral of Tommy Burns yesterday was testament to how far we've in recent years with football fans of different clubs laying aside their antagonism to the other to pay respects to a servant of the "beautiful game".

[brodie]

Jason - hmmm to say that the reasons for violence at football matches is complex would be an obvious understatement.
That said I'll venture a few comments.
I think a major difference between most North American sports and football both here in the UK and Europe is that football is a free flowing game of intense passion. The only North American game I can think of that is free flowing with intense passion is Ice Hockey! Base-ball, American Football and I guess even basket ball are all punctuated by stops and starts in a way that a football game is not.
Another observation is that Football clubs are very connected with a specific geographical location in a way that sport in the USA is perhaps not given that the franchised nature means that a team may be based in one city one year and in another the next. Thus in the UK the antagonism between teams can often carry an antagonism between different cities, different regions or even different parts of the same city.
One of the reasons as to why there was such violence in Manchester is that the crowds who gathered in the public spaces to watch the match were not necessarily those who would go to a regular game. The crowd was thus uncontrolled in that the 'hooligans' that over years have been banned from attending football matches in stadia, meaning that 99.9% of games are safe to go to, were free to assemble and cause trouble.
Another major factor is that what happened in Manchester happened every Friday and Saturday night, albeit on a much, much smaller scale all over the UK, that is both in England and Scotland. As a nation we have a problem with alcohol, social order and respect for authority. Thus to have over 100,000 people in confined spaces and allow them to drink for hours and hours was a recipe for disaster.