But if the popular name for their clashes sounds benign, it has become a cruel euphemism over the years, conveying nothing of the hatreds and lurking violence that characterize what may be the oldest, and the most dangerous, crosstown rivalry in all of sports. If sports are a metaphor for life, the Rangers-Celtic story is one of age-old Protestant and Catholic enmities that are one of the ugliest strains in Scotland’s history.
Late last week, those tensions seemed to reach a new extreme with the disclosure that four crude bombs were sent through the mail to Celtic’s manager and two of the club’s most prominent supporters over the last six weeks. All were intercepted or reported to the police before they could explode, but spokesmen for the police said their components were capable of inflicting serious harm. British news media reports suggested they contained flammable liquids and nails.
The police say they will deploy unprecedented numbers of officers at the Rangers-Celtic match on Sunday, a game that could go a long way toward determining the winner of the Scottish Premier League, which Rangers lead by a point over Celtic. Police spokesmen said they would arrest anybody at Rangers’ Ibrox Stadium whom they catch giving voice to sectarian slogans or songs that have been the motif for the teams’ games for as long as anybody can remember.
So far, there have been no arrests for the intended bombings, and the police have not disclosed whatever information they may have on suspects or possible motives. But a police official, who did not want to be identified discussing a developing investigation, said inquiries were focused on the sectarian hatred between the clubs. The police raided homes in Glasgow on Saturday morning and arrested two men, 23 and 27, for posting “sectarian and hate-filled” comments on unspecified Web sites. More raids are expected as part of an continuing campaign focusing on online soccer forums.
According to statements by the police and the intended victims, the bombs were sent to the Celtic manager, Neil Lennon; to Paul McBride, a lawyer who has represented him; and to Trish Godman, ?a former politician in Scotland and a prominent Celtic fan. In interviews since the case went public Thursday, Lennon, 39, a Catholic from Northern Ireland who had a successful career as a player in England and in Scotland, said he had received bullets through the mail before the two bombs that were mailed to him.
In an interview that was quoted in most of Britain’s major newspapers Saturday, he described the bombs as "a tipping point."
He added: “Hopefully, all this rubbish can stop. It has nothing to do with football, and we’re all fed up with it. We’re all fed up with the singing, fed up with the abuse, and we just want to do our jobs.”
Suggesting the turnaround could begin with Sunday’s game at Ibrox, he added: “There might be a few sympathetic voices in the ground, which would be nice. But I am not looking for sympathy. I am looking to go there and win a football match.”
His counterpart at Rangers, Walter Smith, a former manager of Scotland’s national team and of Everton in the English Premier League, was less sanguine. In interviews, he told reporters that the Old Firm environment was too toxic to enjoy, and that if he had not already announced his retirement from Rangers at the end of this season, the mailing of the bombs would have prompted him to question his staying on anyway.
“After the happenings of the last week, I’ll be delighted that it’s my last one,” he said, referring to Sunday’s game.
The enmities between the two clubs have their roots in the 19th century, when waves of Irish migrants fleeing famine and the seizure of their land by British authorities crossed the Irish Sea and settled in western Scotland, many around Glasgow. About three-quarters were Catholics, a quarter Protestants, and they brought with them the sectarian hatreds that had festered in Ireland.
“They decanted their historic tensions and hatreds to western Scotland and Glasgow,” Tom Devine, a professor of Scottish history at the University of Edinburgh, said in telephone interview.
In time, the animosities found expression in the two soccer teams, and in the so-called “90-minute bigots” who pack the stands. Celtic, which plays in green-and-white stripes, was founded in 1888 by a Catholic priest, partly to counter religious persecution. Rangers, whose colors are the blue, white and red of Britain’s Union flag, drew mostly Protestant support. From the start, the underlying loyalties — Protestant and Catholic, British and Irish — lent strong passion to their encounters. Yet these seem to have intensified even as their original causes have eased. Religion has declined in an increasingly secular Scottish society, and 13 years have passed since Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland concluded the Good Friday agreement that has brought at least a fragile peace.
That has led Devine and others who have studied the issue to say that the enmities now are more tribal than religious, and fueled by poverty and social breakdown. Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, has pockets of poverty that are among the most extreme in the developed world. The Catholic minority, particularly men from 18 to 35, has traditionally been among the poorest, and has suffered “a bigoted anti-Catholicism in certain sections of society,” Devine said. ?
In the most deprived areas, encompassing crumbling public housing towers ravaged by joblessness, and alcohol and drug abuse, male life expectancy is 54 — four years lower than in war-torn Sudan — according to World Health Organization figures.
In the soccer rivalry, the resentments have often found expression in violence, but soccer authorities have been slow to act. Rangers were fined $12,000 last week by UEFA, soccer’s governing body in Europe, after its fans continued singing sectarian songs at high-profile matches, including one that urges those of Irish origin to “go home,” and another, “The Billy Boys,” that includes the refrain “We’re up to our ears in Fenian blood,” Fenian being a derogatory term for Irish republicans. Celtic supporters have refrains of their own, including “The Fields of Athenry,” an old Irish republican ballad.
Magnus Linklater, a Scottish journalist writing in Saturday’s Times of London, said the tribalism appeared to have crossed Scotland’s class divide.
“Among the baying fans are lawyers and accountants, whose language is often as extreme as the thugs they stand alongside,” he wrote.
Like many others, he called for the police to crack down hard, beginning with Sunday’s match.
Ally McCoist, the assistant manager of Rangers and previously a longtime player for the club and for Scotland’s national team, agreed.
“I honestly don’t know what more the clubs can do,” he said.
Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, who is facing a difficult election next month, blamed the violence narrowly on what he called a “lunatic element,” but Devine, the historian, sees a more sinister threat.
“I think it’s ironic that in a post-Christian, secular society, the problem seems to be intensifying,” he said, adding: “What’s happened over the last few days is unprecedented. There have been riots, but sectarianism in Scotland has never had this violence and criminality.”
没有评论:
发表评论