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Working Class Football Cheering On A Monarch? It’s Not The Celtic Way.

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There are few things easier to do this weekend that spotting a Sevconian, whether that’s online or out on the streets. If you live in certain neighbourhoods you can actually look down a row of houses and identify them instantly. I am endlessly fascinated by what goes on in their heads, because it bears so little relationship to what’s in my own.

A few weeks ago, Liverpool fans were roundly criticised by the gibbering goons of the right when they dared booed the national anthem. I have begun to feel that those who decry “woke culture” are amongst the most scared people in this country. That level of bile, hatred and anger at their fellow citizens can only spring from deep fear.

Imagine the lefties got their way and every statue came down, every Union Jack was hoisted off the public buildings and we all had to respect a persons right to self-define as they liked and if we whipped out the curriculums and replaced them with something that taught people the actual history of these incidents, warts and all?

How in the Hell would the lives of these people change in a negative way? What difference would it make to their basic existence? I can tell you that minorities and other social groups would feel a lot more relaxed and at home in this country, but I struggle to understand why that would harm those who would condemn those changes as something evil.

In the aftermath of Paris, one of the things the spiteful bastards of the right used to justify the hatred they poured on the Liverpool fans – who, let’s remember, have gotten an apology from UEFA, who acknowledge they were treated abysmally – was that they booed the anthem, as though one thing has anything to do with the other.

We would have booed the anthem as well, not just Celtic fans but a lot of fans in Scotland. Of course, we already have our critics anyway and they would be criticising us no matter what we did or didn’t do. That’s a reality we live with every single day. They would have been driven to a heightened level of apoplexy this week though and I find that funny.

Most amusing of all is all the bunting and flag waving and generally grovelling at the feet of old leather-face and her delinquent brood, all but the one who married a black girl and ate no amount of shit for it. What always brings me to the giggles is when they celebrate their culture on the basis that it won their “freedom from Rome”.

What a joke. They got the Pope off their backs only to drop to their knees as “loyal subjects” – Good God, in the modern age, “loyal subjects” – of the German-Greek crime family instead. You would be forgiven if you considered it for a minute and then pissed yourself laughing. Yet a picture of the monarch adorns the Ibrox dressing room wall, like a teenage girl puts up a poster of the latest boy-band to trend on Twitter.

Liverpool fans strike me as particularly sane and well adjusted here. Not for them any of this forelock tugging pish. Few of them will have been queuing up at the Palace gates these past few days in the hope of getting what may or may not be an actual a wave from some third rate individual 121st in line to the throne, any more than our guys would be.

The whole thing is vaguely loony to me, and I have never understood it and I never will. I am nobody’s “subject” and find the idea that somebody is “born to rule” over me and mine to be alien, grotesque and utterly offensive.

But that this is widely embraced by the Ibrox fan-base is certainly no surprise to me at all. They cling to it even when it’s clear that the institutions they kiss up to couldn’t give a shit about them. Their club died because they believed in infantile fairy-tales about their own importance, and they waited for someone to save them because it was Rangers and Rangers was special when, in fact, they were just a West of Scotland football club.

Our support is not a homogenous lot, and I accept that we have various different strands of opinion within it and that this encompasses a wide range of views and perspectives and politics. But our club has a history steeped in the story of the underdog and the struggle against authority and establishment, and especially this British version of it.

But even if it were not so, we are based in the East End of Glasgow, representing working class communities whose relationship to that inbred sect could not be any more remote. The core of our support – Catholic and Irish – knows more than anyone on the planet about the struggle against the Crown and all who wear it … but we’d reject all this crap anyway.

It’s anachronistic, nonsensical and degrades all those who bow and scrape and accept the status quo and I can fully understand why the cowards of the right, hanging onto their reality by their fingernails, are so pissed off at the fans of Liverpool, another club born from a working class community in a working class city … but those fans are not the backward ones, the ones embracing century old traditions that have no place in the modern world.

Our fans would have done the same; indeed we have done the same, and I’m proud to say I come from a household where no matter where we’ve been in the world, or in whatever company, we have refused to stand for “the anthem” and never goddamned will.

Boo it? You better believe I’ve booed it. And the more, and the louder, the grovelling gutter rat goons of the right complain about it, the more I know that I was right.

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18 comments

  • Mark b says:

    Out of date institutions such as a monarchy have no place in a modern society. I will not celebrate a jubilee for a concept I find unfair elitist and outdated. It’s not about the person but the whole idea of an elitist group.

  • Charlinick says:

    Been ‘asked to leave’ places for not standing for that song and I never will, great and timely article, thanks

  • Scouse bhoy says:

    In this best wee country they are loyal to the crown for one reason only.will rod go up and sing grace or the fields ? Just asking

  • JoeKSG says:

    Well said. Reflects my attitude also. Born of Irish parents with all that entails, I was instilled with a disdain of The Establishment and all that shite.

  • Mick says:

    James, I’m sick of yer lefty pish. Stick to football.

    • Thomas M Daley says:

      Sevconuts forget how the 3rd verse of their anthem belittles them.
      “Onward General Wade, rebellious Scots to crush”?? But, we forget they are not Scottish inside but English.

  • Johnny Green says:

    One word sums them up…….Parasites!

  • RSABhoy says:

    James you touch on a very interesting phenomena in this era, wokeness(wrongs being engaged) fear is indeed a factor as it is irrational. I feel this behaviour is linked to feelings not objective reality as acknowledging reality is not an option. The post truth era even has scared people ready to accept things (status quo)

  • Walter Chinstrap says:

    Asked to fight for their beloved queen and country (England) the sparks emanating from the seggs on their brogues as they head in the opposite direction of conflict must be a headache for the fire brigade

  • Bhoy4life says:

    My dad was Irish, I’ve supported Celtic since I was old enough to understand what it was all about, but I hold no particular opinion on royalty or the royal family.
    It doesn’t enter my thoughts in any way, I actually take exception to the headline that says its not the Celtic way, its a big assumption to make that all Celtic supporters feel the same way and boo the national anthem when they hear it?
    I don’t give a feck about it but its not for any other reason than indifference.

  • Frederick Howden says:

    Amen to you sir !

  • Seppington says:

    The anti-Irish problem in Scotland will likely never cease as long as Scotland is part of the union and part of the commonwealth. In a free Republic of Scotland there will be no union jack or queen to worship, which you’d have to hope would eventually kill off “ra peepul’s kultchurr”. Then again, these are the fuds that also still worship a 17th-century Dutchman so maybe not. Still, it would be interesting. They love accusing Tims of being “Plastic Paddies” but the shoe would be on the other foot in an independent Scotland. They be, what, “Plastic Tommies”?

    One area where they will never be “Plastic” and will always be “genuine 100% pure authentic” is in their fuddishness…

    Fuds.

  • owen dolan says:

    Exactly my feelings James…

  • Sophie Johnstone says:

    Fine sentiments I believe widely agreed amongst our support

  • Stephen hannaway says:

    Well said

  • john clarke says:

    James, fortunately in Britain no ” Thought Police ” will be knocking on your door and MI5 won’t be starting a dossier on you. If the English are playing, I stand out of respect for the players. It’s good manners. Most of the 44.3% of the referendum YES voters for independence would agree that the Monarchy is obsolete. The First Minister hopes for another vote in 2023. Her party will not be successful. The voters don’t know what the big picture will look like. You cannot eliminate the co-ordination functions of an overall Government of Great Britain. Westminster is where the reform starts. 650 members in the House of Commons to represent c 70 mill people. That is a costly and unwieldy democracy, relative to other former British colonies. Britain should look at a Federation of States (Countries) with a Federal Government and no Monarch. You can also reform the House of Lords….full of unrepresented swill.
    As for Northern Ireland; women leadership and effort has been responsible for the recent electoral success of Shin Fein. Women party members must now scrap the party name, which scares all decent Northern Irish. I can’t stand the name for obvious reasons.
    “alright, the double locks are locked”

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