Today, the Daily Record is running the first article in a multi-part piece on links between Scottish clubs and teams abroad. Today, they open with one about the “link” between Espanyol fans and those of Sevco. It is desperate stuff.
There’s not a lot to the piece. The claim in the headline is that Sevco has become the Espanyol fan’s “second team”, which is quite a boast since it appears to relate to twenty supporters from Spain, one of whom is a Scot.
Doubtless there’s some casual link; the piece says both are monarchist clubs, unionist, right-wing. Espanyol is described in the article as being “loyal to the Spanish state” which is true, if the state you’re referring to is that of Franco, at the height of the terror. It’s not for nothing that they were the club of the policeman, the intelligence officer and the army general even more so, it seems, than Real Madrid in their part of the country.
Now, I’ve looked into this, as perhaps the writer of the article should have done, and found out a few things. There’s a section of Espanyol’s support which, I have no doubt, is pre-disposed towards allying itself to a club like Sevco, but they are not exactly the majority. In fact, the modern iteration of the club is staunchly apolitical, and ever wary of being seen as a mere mirror of their more well-known local rival Barcelona, with whom we do have an affinity.
(The writer talks about that, and the guy from Spain makes much of the way even their local media talks about the links between Barcelona and Celtic.)
Some of that is down to UEFA.
Espanyol knows that there’s a section of their support which has embraced the right, and the far right at that, and that UEFA is ever watchful of this sort of sentiment being expressed in the stands. It’s not something the club is exactly happy about, but it exists and it’s hard to weed out.
There’s a picture in the article that requires a second look; in it, the Espanyol fans are outside Ibrox.
They’re carrying a banner which is notable for including the badge of a third club; Linfield. This is the revealing picture because it tells you from which section of the Espanyol support the Sevco faction hails from; it’s not the one that promotes social cohesion and tolerance.
So yes, this article tells me a lot about without actually saying anything. As an expose of a club’s links to foreign fans it more revealing than intended. The interviewee inadvertently puts his foot in his mouth in his very first line of the article; “Barcelona are associated with the political status quo in Catalonia – the desire for independence, whereas Espanyol are directly linked to loyalism in Spain, the preserve of the country’s union …”
The Linfield part of the banner certainly makes the “Loyalism” part pretty clear, even to an outsider, but you get the impression that either the guy, Andy, isn’t terribly aware of what connotations that word has in the context of Spanish politics and its association there with the fascist hard right or that he and the paper hope the average reader doesn’t. As I rather suspect that’s something he’s fully acquainted with and understands very well indeed, I have to think it’s the latter.
The one link to the actual club itself, and thus the majority of Espanyol fans, instead of the narrow strata Andy and his guys represent, is that Rangers once tried to sign Espanyol’s local hero Raul Tamudo. And, err …. that’s it.
The guy, Andy, does misunderstand a few things; he says one of the similarities between the clubs is their “economic situation” wherein they are dominated by a richer neighbour and “don’t get much money.” In this, he’s 100% right. But his club doesn’t squander what little they do get, and this idea of them as a plucky upstart club doesn’t sit right with their actual status as one of the establishment clubs, and thus allowed the “Real” title in their name.
(It’s the R from RCD Espanyol; they don’t use it because it doesn’t go down well with the locals.)
Or maybe it does. Because I’ve always found this reverence Rangers and Sevco have for the monarchy and the state to be bizarre and even hilarious. To get all sociological for a moment, when you look at where the majority of their support is drawn from – the Scottish working class – you can’t help but be aware that the same union and crown they worship is the one that has used and abused them and theirs for centuries. Its functionaries have paid them the occasional lip-service, but no more than that. For the rest of the time they’re ignored, even more so than the other social groups they share their country with.
Because that’s what they never understood; slavish adherence simply makes people take advantage of you. Their support is taken for granted. Their loyalty is assumed. The state never had to earn it, so it can piss all over them as much as it likes, and it does.
So yes, I found the piece illuminating in many ways. The bulk of Espanyol fans probably have no idea what this is all about, but for the purposes of presenting Sevco as a club with international appeal – at least in the minds of the Peepul – the piece does the job.
But once again, that appeal is constricted to the narrowest segment of society. This club simply cannot, and will not, break out of the box its put itself in; that of a provincial Scottish football team whose only “appeal” is to far-right goons.