Sectarianism At Ibrox Was Fed And Nurtured By The Media
Over the last few years, this website and others have lamented the way the so-called “Glasgow derby” has been pushed on the basis of hate.
It was always like this, as far back as I can remember.
The promotion of it as a derby “like no other” is built on the idea that here are two clubs and two fan bases that loathe and despise each other to an epic degree.
It is one of the most disturbing, and shocking, ideas in football on this island and we can’t escape from it.
The media simply won’t let us.
The real irony is that the media are the causes of our current dilemma anyway.
As they have promoted the Sevco rivalry as one based on hatred, so too they played a key role in making the old Rangers rivalry into one.
It was a paper called The Scottish Sport which first referred to Rangers as “Scotia’s darling club” as a naked reaction to the dominance of the game by Celtic and Hibs … the “Irish clubs”.
It was the press which first pushed the idea that these two clubs were interlopers, outsiders who could not be allowed to dominate the game.
A hero was needed and the press took a side for the first time.
In the midst of the First World War, when the Irish had launched the war of independence, in keeping with the old maxim that “England’s misfortune is Ireland’s opportunity”, things naturally got worse. At that point, anti-Irish sentiment was being pushed heavily in the press and the football press knew exactly how to drive the point home with a sledgehammer.
This stoked the bigotry which was already bubbling away to ever greater heights.
Stephen describes cartoons of that time which depict Celtic’s players as if they had “crawled out of the bogs” whilst Rangers players were drawn as smart, upstanding citizens.
There are some in the press who still think of us this way.