Almanac Soccer: The Old Firm

 

 

 

 

By ANDREW “DOUGIE” FRASER

Forewarned is fore-armed, they say. So I canvassed widely afore I, a nominal Rangers fan*, went to Celtic Park, Glasgow, last Sunday for the Old Firm game in the Scottish Premier League.

Away fans have been banned for the first couple of Old Firm matches this year. However, I’d got a ticket back home months ago from a website I was taking on trust at a price I was taking as just what one had to be pay for an unforgettable experience.

The match would be the culmination of five weeks in Scotland, four of them rehearsing and performing as one of 144 pipers each night in the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

The match exceeded expectations. I arrived hours early in jeans, white business shirt and black pipe-band jacket. Neutral enough, as advised by both Russell Chapman, who runs the Sydney Glasgow Rangers Club, and Willie McCallum, the champion piper I chatted with at the Northern Meeting, Inverness, and who watches all Rangers home games sat next to Donald MacPhee, another champion piper.

Found my ticket outlet, in the form of a twenty-something bloke, who directed me to a quiet area before handing over the treasure (“Once they see I’ve got tickets, they might rush me”). It was at this point I started to twig that the website I got the ticket from (based in Spain) might not have been quite as squeaky clean as our agencies back home. This was confirmed when the $900 I’d paid was compared with the 53-pound face value on the document itself. All was forgotten, though, when the thing actually did click open the turnstile.

But, before that, came the arrival of the away team, with the mounted police moving their massive Clydesdales closer to the green army behind the barricades, who let fly with a fast-flowing invective stream at the “sheep-shagging”, “disco-tiger” Rangers’ lads, all with earbuds in and eyes down.

 

 

Irish flags aplenty (and one Palestinian) flying, we washed up into the stands. Capacity at 60,000 and any number of punters outside with fistfuls of notes held aloft trying to get a last-minute ticket.

Inside, the place was like any other stadium an hour out. But with 20 minutes to kick-off, “The Bhoys” had taken up position high in one corner, just to my left, chanting, call-and-response, with the Green Brigade, low in the opposite corner. Various flares accompanied the chants, few of which I could pick up but the IRA were proudly mentioned all day.

I remembered at this point that I had a heap of photos on my phone that were now a potential health hazard, including me sitting in captain James Tavernier’s spot in the dressing room, under a picture of the Sovereign, from the previous day’s magical tour of Ibrox. Nae bovver, I made mates with my neighbours, a Boston Celtics fan from Maine on my left and a hard-core local on my right.

The chanting never stopped, The Bhoys waving huge flags, one with what I was told was the Pope’s Cross, another with a face hidden behind a green and white balaclava, and a sea of Irish flags.

Huge cheers even for substitutions (including one for 500-gamer James Forrest, fair enough). Shrill whistles for any defensive play by Rangers.

On the pitch, Celtic remain just a cut above, their Japanese strikers and wingers (brought in I’m told by Ange Postecoglou) just too quick and efficient for the obviously slower Rangers’ defenders. Midfields even for a time, but captain Callum McGregor soon asserted his dominance and scored a cracking goal to put the icing on the cake for the Hoops.

3-0 Celtic, and it could have been a few more.

The third goal brought the most consternation to this Aussie high in the stand. Everyone turned their back to the pitch, wrapped arms around shoulders, jumped up and down and, for all the world, sounded to be chanting, “Let’s all do the hard-on”. I asked the hard-bitten local: no change to what I thought I’d heard. I joined in the jumping (didn’t really have a lot of choice) but refrained from utterance. I later learned that it was “Let’s all do the huddle”, a move started by the players in the 1990s, when they would link shoulders in a circle on the pitch afore kick-off. Phew.

The Glasgow papers (The Herald, and the Scots edition of The Times) had multiple correspondents who were, unlike many Melbourne AFL matches, clearly all at the same game I was. The reports were spot-on. Rangers good for 10 minutes. Hoops wanted it more and were quicker and cleaner thereafter.

They actually stole Rangers’ two big messages from the Ibrox tunnel: it was Celtic which was Ready and Relentless this time out.

Walked back toward town amidst the throng and met up with a piping mate at (where else?) The Piper Whisky Bar (no football colours permitted) for debrief.

Only then realised that my jacket prominently sported an Edinburgh Tattoo logo, including that inflammatory word “Royal”. Seems to have gone unspotted all day.

Phew again.

*Nominal? I’m a non-believer other than for Carlton. Rangers play in blue and have a monogram. I was also in a Proddy church boys’ choir for five years in late 60s.