Domestic football will be back this coming weekend, and thank God for that. It feels like an eternity has passed since we left the pitch last midweek after running Real Madrid close for 60 minutes of the match.
Who knew our next game would be in Warsaw?
The decision to cancel the entire football card “out of respect” for the Queen seemed ludicrous to many of us when it was made on Friday afternoon. It has since become the subject of widespread derision.
The fans did not want it. Most of the media now claim to have been wholeheartedly against it. Other than some of the uber-staunch at certain clubs, the public appetite for everything to stop appears to be virtually non-existent.
One club in particular clearly took advantage of the situation. We know who that was.
The same one which tried to benefit on the back of the COVID pandemic.
They can hammer out social media tributes and their directors can lay wreaths and all the rest of it until the cows come home; they saw a chance to dodge the Aberdeen game and cancel the Napoli game and take this weekend’s fixture out of the equation and they grabbed at it.
Over on their forums, sanity is rarely the default setting but the past few days have shown them at their schizophrenic worst.
They stamped their feet for the calling off of all last weekend’s fixtures “out of respect” but simultaneously claimed that it was Celtic who pushed hardest for it so as to “avoid embarrassment.”
They took great pleasure in spreading unsubstantiated nonsense about how our club hadn’t released a statement, and then more unsourced garbage about how football’s decision rested on the presumed reaction from Celtic and Liverpool fans.
In the end, they seemed unsure what they would have preferred; the chance to see how Celtic fans would respond, or the cancellation they had demanded.
For many of them, that’s all this really is. A chance to watch the rest of us. An opportunity to climb high atop the dung-heap and crow about how morally superior they are to everyone else, but especially us. The actual paying of their respects to the dead monarch is a minor consideration behind that; this is what they live for.
Their anger is presently directed at the SFA and the SPFL for allowing clubs freedom and latitude to decide how best to pay respect. Whilst every club in England is being forced to wear armbands, hold a silence and play the anthem, the governing bodies here have taken the vastly better decision to let the home club itself decide on those matters.
What St Mirren chose to do will be for them.
But the pressure is already being applied by the fans of the Ibrox club, in order that they go the whole way.
Nobody else on the planet cares about any of this stuff, but their support is fixated on what will happen in a match they aren’t even taking part in, and on what the hosts will do in regards to it.
To me, the English approach is absolutely wrong.
Playing the anthem presumes that everyone in the ground feels the same way. Demanding silence presumes that everyone in the ground thinks that the hereditary monarchy is a good thing and not a symbol of sectarian attitudes and an imperialist past.
Most of the players who will be standing on the field aren’t even British, so why should they care? So getting them all to wear black armbands is preposterous over-reach.
It is like the enforced wearing of the poppy, another gesture imposed on them whether they like it or not.
Clubs should have resisted this lunacy, but it comes from the top of the house where the newly minted Prince of Wales is head of the FA, something football should never have permitted because it leads to just this sort of jingoist drum banging.
Scotland’s approach is more on the nose, but even leaving it up to the home team is a problematic thing. Certainly the visitors to Ibrox will be force-fed all the tribalist bollocks that goes with this and if they don’t like it they’ll have to choke on it.
There are two clubs taking part in each of these games, and any decision should be taken jointly by them both. We don’t live in some banana republic here, although for sure that’s how it’s felt at times over the past few days.
But I suspect we’ll be subjected to exactly what the visitors to Ibrox will be.
I suspect that they aren’t the only people who want to moralise and crow over this stuff.
There are curtain twitchers in every corner of this country at the moment, and what makes them feel good is being able to point their fingers at others. Don’t be surprised if we’re forced into an observance of it all, and then to days of howling invective when it isn’t all pristine.
Let’s face it, we know that it won’t be.
The same people who won’t be silent for the armed forces certainly aren’t going to be for the head of state and the “defender of the faith”, especially when we’ve had a televised reminder of what that actually means.
The idea that “the anthem” should be played before the game and our fans have to meekly accept that is actually vaguely sickening. I’ve never stood for that song in my life. I’m not starting now.
I would not hold it against any person who booed all the way through it. I fully understand the sentiment, not a response to the song itself (although obviously there are big problems there) as much as forcing us to sit through it.
This is not a United Kingdom. It never has been. I’m also a life-long republican. Hereditary monarchy is an insult to those of us who sees ourselves as citizens with equal rights.
Nobody is automatically placed above me because of the circumstances of their birth. No-one has a divine right to “rule” me and mine. The idea offends me, and it’s the concept itself that makes this whole thing feel vaguely fascistic.
The paying of respect is supposed to be a personal thing. It is supposed to be arrived at on your own, not something you’re shoehorned into. Otherwise it’s not really respect is it? It’s compliance. It’s conforming so as not to stand out. It’s fake.
People might have no problem with playing their role in this little national farce, but some of us just flat out won’t do it.
I believe that the whole structure of the monarchy and the unelected British state is imperialist, racist and sectarian and since the media and the chattering classes make no effort to separate the woman from the institution then any observance of respect for one can easily be miscategorised as support for the other, and I’m not playing.
And many thousands of my fellow fans – not just at Celtic but up and down the country – feel exactly the same way, and the curtain twitching moralists who cannot wait for something to sneer at are not going to hammer us into the mould they want and I’m damned if I’m going to let them point their fingers without giving it back to them with both barrels.
If you want to stand in line and watch the hearse go by you can.
If you want to get out your Union Jack umbrella or get into the full dress uniform then you’re welcome to do that.
If you want to attend a wake or host one of your own then go right ahead.
But some of us don’t, and leave us out of it.
One of the things she and her brood are supposed to stand for is freedom; this would be what the word means.
I smart when I hear politicians and news anchors talk about how much she “meant to us all.”
She didn’t mean a damned thing to me. The Christmas speech was not the highlight of my year, we never watched it once, preferring the telly off to having to listen to it.
She had duties and a job to do, but it consisted of opening things not working at the sharp end.
She never pulled an 18 hour shift in a hospital or worked on a factory floor.
She never carried sheet metal or helped a care home resident into or out of bed.
She never changed a sheet or wired a plug. She never had to worry about paying bills or scraping together enough cash for presents at Christmas or birthdays.
I know too that the large section of the population that gets very angry over benefit claimants are the ones most devoutly crying into their hankies at the death of this woman and the suffering of her family, the greatest beneficiaries of state handouts of all.
There was a time, not that long ago it seems to me, when this country found at least part of its sanity again.
It was during COVID when, every Tuesday, we all used to stand outside our doors and applaud those front-line public servants, those real-life heroes, who were bearing up and carrying the nation on their shoulders.
How swiftly they’ve been forgotten by much of this country, and by a government which claims it can’t afford to raise their wages, but which will spend an estimated £6 billion in assorted costs because this woman is dead.
That is the mark of a country with the wrong priorities.
So when Celtic fans get the inevitable stick at the end of all this, I’m going to flatly refuse to accept it. The monarchist moralists can have their wee day criticising, but their ersatz anger will be met by my very real version of it.
Those who are doing nothing here but pursuing their own agendas … stop pretending you have any more respect for the woman or the institution than I do.
Because I might not think they’re entitled to my compliance … but they deserve a lot better than that, a lot better than to be used as some sort of weapon by the likes of you.
I have in the past felt a bit uncomfortable at the lack of silence for whatever it was being commemorated, knowing that the press would take the opportunity to try to shame us. But no longer. Fuck it! I hope any attempt at playing god save the queen/king or forcing a minutes silence on our supporters at the game in Paisley is met with a torrent of abuse. And I hope our club defends their right to do so.
I thought it was a Thursday the NHS sky clappers came out. Sure as fuck I wasn’t doing it. Not because I don’t love the NHS (I do), that I think they do a shit job (they very much don’t) or because I thought they get reward enough (they don’t). Just because I thought it was patronising bollocks. Total cringe. Give them what they are due, not a Boris Fucking Johnson inspired clapping session. Fucking eejit that he is.
Other than that. I loved this article. Best thing I have read on here in ages. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Bravo.
Well said James.
Another very fine article encompassing how many of us feel.
Of course some folk will have respect for the Queen and that is their right to show it if they wish.
However, as you say James, this is a personal thing and should not be thrust upon others. For myself, I agree entirely with your sentiments on this matter.
The United Kingdom is a misnomer. It is not, and has never been, united!
Lol they wanted 2 weeks of mourning but every pub on Paisley Road West is opened and the surrounding areas including both Louden pubs,KERCHING£££££.
But everything else is to come to a stand still,businesses are struggling as it is without putting up the shutters for 2 weeks.
Let Liebrox pay the pubs and shops the money they would be out of pocket for the 2 weeks,they won’t be long in changing their minds.
Oh and don’t forget about the £71 Napoli tickets that are up for grabs for Wednesday another KERCHING£.
Look folks I wish no ill towards this family, but they have never been part of my life, they have contributed nothing to MY family, was there respect when my queen died some years ago (my grandmother) ?
Some people are going to make a load of money out of this. I can see some bars now next Monday opening all day and believe me people will stand and raise a glass to the departed, ALL FALSE.
I can not believe or I can cancelled football last weekend its a smack in the face for working classes as ruby, cricket, golf tournaments went a head. Though I miss my team at this present moment I am glad I live overseas.
LPATIM
I am not a royalist, neither is my family, but we did like the queen, and I don’t feel as though we should be ashamed to say that. The queen was nice, and she had my respect. I would actually have went to Edinburgh today, if I wasn’t working. If it was any other member, then no I wouldn’t have, because they were hangers on. But I don’t feel as I I should be ashamed to say that I did like the queen, and I’ve spoke to a lot of Celtic supporters that feel the same. 70 years, with not a step out of place, so she does have my respect. A mean I understand about this not doing a real job, but are footballers doing a real job, calum mcgregor is on 30 grand a week, I’m not sure the cost of living will be affecting him as much as others. Kylian mbappe is on a staggering 1 million pound a week, but yet we go and watch these guys kick a ball about, a mean is that a real job.
Brilliantly put S Thomas, very well said ,I agree with your sentiments as well.
Hi Sean, how you doing?
“ The queen was nice, and she had my respect”
I’d be here all day if I were to list all her crimes and reasons why millions of people around the world don’t share your sentiment. I don’t know how old you are to be aware of such atrocities or how bad your memory is but I’m 100% confident you’re well aware she recently parted with £12m of tax payers money to bail out her peadophiliac son. Kudos to you for respecting nice people like that.
The Queen was nice!!!! LOLz! She was indeed. But she was the figurehead of a rancid institution. I’d have let her off if the revolution went down but the rest of them would receive instant summary justice. Cunts.
My sentiments exactly, couldn’t agree more. Fantastic article Sir…..well said.
I’m just concerned that our good name will be dragged through the mud worldwide if we can’t observe a minutes silence on Sunday for a 96 year old woman. The MSM will delight in sending this damaging footage to media across the planet. We’re better than that.
A minutes silence should be a matter of choice. It looks a though the Hearts fans are divided on this matter. Why were they subjected to this during the last week?
This is another way in which the Establishment divides ordinary people. The old truism still stands ‘ “Divide and conquer”. It is time we were free of this in a democratic republic.
So you want our fans to bite the bullet, play our designated role in the sham and give credibility to the obscenity that is the Monarchy and the not so United Kingdom.
Take part in a false display of respect and then what about the annual Festival of Poppy Porn that’s just around the corner? Do we give in to that as well?
A Double Whammy to ‘Our’ principles to protect the sensitivities of people that don’t give a fuck about us and would actively seek to harm us at every opportunity.
I’m just concerned that our good name will be dragged through the mud worldwide if we can’t observe a minutes silence on Sunday for a 96 year old woman. The MSM will delight in sending this damaging footage to media across the planet. We’re better than that.
On the bright side James, Clyde SSB was back on tonight- without ads- love to listen to the mad world they live in. Wednesday will be a 6-11pm vigil for Sevco’s demolition v Napoli. Yeeee haaa.
I can’t help but agree with you on this. The forced mourning has become a little tiersome to me, the Queen or the royal family for that matter mean nothing to me. The idea that people want to be ruled over is preposterous to me however, let them do their thing and let me do mine
Spot on.??
Great article James. Given our history and the broad demographic our club embraces and the reaffirmation of a singular religion over all others, one in particular, leaves this agnostic dumbfounded and chilled. I for one hope they boo the beejazus out of any attempt to play that noxious dirge.
Incredibly profound statement and completely agree. Well said.
the queen was “nice” ? have you met her? did she ring you up to see if you and your’s were ok when ye were going thru a bad time – as all families do ? – DID SHE FUQ !!!
when i see pics of her “subjects” shedding tears….over an entitled,distant woman…so distant, she may as well have lived on the moon…i feel like throwing up first…then kicking them up the arse ffs
that was one of the best articles you have written james…
HH
Red Poppies were the first to flower on the fields of Flanders and Northern France. Worn
Armistice Day, now Remembrance Day, it represents the shed blood of fallen comrades.
Further on, De Valera was wrong about many things. 5O,OOO Irish volunteered and fought for Britain against the evil Hitler. 70,000 Northern Irish were conscripted.
If victorious over Britain, Hitler would have taken Ireland. When Hitler was declared dead,
De Valera sent a letter of condolence to the German people. Symbols can be important.
Your point being what?
Symbols can be important only when they are not conscripted and used by ‘Special Interest’ groups to force people to conform to a particular message. By that I mean the Military using it in a Ceremony of Remembrance while hoping to blind people to the errors they made, to the fact that over 2 World wars predominantly Working Class people were sacrificed not to defend Democracy as they were told but to uphold an Imperialist State Machinery that only survived and flourished by exploiting the self same people and denying them any measure of ‘Real’ democracy. A state 70 years on that we still haven’t attained.
They can all fuck off back to their twitching curtains and keep reading their fucking Daily Mirrors/Express/Record/Sun and Sunday Post to keep them numb and serially offended.
No more ‘ back of the Bus’ for us. On anything.
I haven’t seen Football Fans coerced into buying red poppies. It would be “Peer Pressure” at work; but then I might be wrong. That is what lit me up. In Scotland a lot of poppies are made in Edinburgh, by disabled war veterans They get some benefit from the sale of poppies. If anyone is jingoistic in a football sense, surely it would include a portion of Celtic Fandom. If Rangers FC Club died tomorrow; James would be calling for 20 days of mourning, for his raison d’etre also had died. Do not despair; the Unionists will start another Club in mighty Glasgow. One thing that concerns me, is that one day Celtic Fans will turn against Ange. This is what Scottish Fans do often, and not fairly.
What?????
My maternal grandfather was a captain during the war. and He along with his fellow Irish colleagues was captured and sent to Belsen POW camp. During interrogation he understood that the german intelligence knew EVERYTHING about him and his life back in Belfast. He was coerced into helping the british prisoners escape with the promise that they would come back and free the rest. My Grandfather was in that hell hole until the end of the war. He was awarded medals which he told them to stick where the sun don´t shine and refused point blank in even thinking about wearing a red poppy!
This enforced grieving is basically a form of fascism which he and all the others supposedly fought to prevent .. Being as I am now based in Portugal .. even over here we have had round the clock footage of what is going on there .. it all seems pretty North Korean like if you ask me ! Was reading the other mobs forum the other day and couldnt believe some of the comments .. “Shouldnt play until after the funeral etc” … And then I found this on youtube … https://youtu.be/HNSQCaJXBQQ .. This UKIP eejit … ” She showed great loyalty to the country” sorry ?? HOW exactly ?? I she was disloyal would she have abandoned ?? Plus loyal usually insinuates Loyal to the crown .. so she was loyal to herself and her kin ?? Ps the other lot are usually so full of the “Paedo” chants when they are trying to taint the name of our club … they do realise who their beloved new ruler was besties with don´t they ?? Give you a clue …”Now then Now Then Guys ands Galls .. Rattle Rattle Jewellery Jewellery”
A country is not a country without a memory of
It’s past .without it we have no present and no future. So I ask why should I feel remorse for someone who became queen in 1952 in Kenya .were 150 thousand Kenyans were interned and mudererd.How many country’s were colonised how many deaths .I look forward to Scotland being free.
Just a wee bit worried that our protest, if there is one, won’t be understood by the wider public or those outside Glasgow, nor the reasons for it. The media will misrepresent it and we will be cast as the villains yet again.
Whatever we do will invite criticism, it never changes does it. The struggle goes on
Well put! Carefully and logically argued.
Brilliant.You echo the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of us.
No way will it be observed by our fans on Sunday but will be very interesting to how it is observed and reported throughout the UK?
Two massive games not taking place in the EPL for policing and strategic reasons ie massive disruption to the national anthem and silence!