ARTICLE FEATURED IN ISSUE 11 OF VFTAE FEBUARY 2019…..BY MICHAEL CONBOY:
A port city situated on the river Clyde famous for its architecture, trade and shipbuilding in the 18th – 20th Century. Glasgow is Scotland’s biggest city and a top tourist attraction with museums and galleries, shopping, food and drink and most importantly for the majority of its loyal resident’s football…….
Football has and always will be an intrinsic part of towns and cities, look at the recent rise and decline of Sunderland football club. Their drop from Premiership football to League 1 has been widely published recently in the media, issues with the owners, players not wanting to play but quite happy to see out contracts to the detriment of the club financially, very rash and unjustified managerial sackings. I must say though the club do seem to be currently doing well in league 1 to press. Hopefully bouncing back to the Championship first time of asking.
Yet under some extremely difficult circumstances, on and off the pitch the community has joined together under the common bond of football and all the baggage positive and negative that brings with it, I am yet to find the negatives win or loose you always support your team.
For Glasgow the social landscape is very different, a city divided by religion and football. One side Catholic the other Protestant.
Celtic the Catholics and Rangers the Protestant…….
The religious divide dates back to the sectarianism of Northern Ireland which was brought to Scotland in the 19th Century. Thousands of Irish Immigrants settled on the West Coast of Scotland in industrial towns, a large percentage settled in Glasgow fleeing poverty caused by the natural disaster of the potato famine.
In the early days the two newly migrated Glasgow communities got on well, but in the 1920’s a huge recession hit Glasgow. The collapse of the shipbuilding industry had a massive effect on the Scottish economy. This caused massive unrest between the two communities.
Moving swiftly forward but by no means flippantly to the 1980’s the troubles in Northern Ireland only heightened these problems, this hatred was most evident between the cities two football teams. Over the years violence and the Old Firm have never been too far apart.
It would seem if the trouble wasn’t on the terraces the players on the pitch were happy to oblige, clattering high tickles, mass player brawls, red cards flying everywhere…..difficult games to control!
The plus side of this for a supporter is the tension and action must have been short of breath taking to watch these games, who am I rightly or wrongly to judge that’s the referee’s job, even the managers had a good go between them, emotional times!
May 1980 the 95th Scottish Cup final 70,000 fans witnessed what was has been described as the worst football violence in the fixtures history, a late goal by McCluskey in the 107th minute of extra time gave Celtic a 1 nil victory.
Unfortunately hundreds of fans invaded the pitch, it was initially Celtic fans celebrating the win with the players. Then confrontations broke out with Rangers supporters, bricks, bottles and cans were thrown. The mounted police struggled to regain of the mass pitch invasion.
As a result of this incident the sale of alcohol was banned from all Scottish sporting event
In conclusion this tie is emotional and unlike any other football match on the planet. But one club was ready to challenge this domination in the early 1980’s.
Aberdeen was where it was at…….
Flashes of Italian sportswear, La Coste, Fila, Sergio brought over from the continent by its loyal supporters, anyone would think we are on a Trans Alpino rail trip, but no it’s a boom town due the North Sea oil industry, lads working off shore on the oil rigs for Months at a time, returning home with massive wage slips. They were spending their money on going to the football and designer sportswear.
Arriving from St Mirren in 1978 bringing a very healthy CV with him which included bringing in young players through and forming a successful young team, this got them promoted from the first division to the premier league, the crowd figures for Aberdeen rose from 1000 to 20, 000 the legendary Alex Ferguson was a welcome appointment, Aberdeen went on to win the next 2 seasons under Sir Alex, and the Scottish Cup two years in a row.
The Old Firm have since returned to their domination.
TNH - The Northern Hemisphere 
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