“Scots and Russians have set up camp in the Manchester sunshine – and got straight down to partying together.”
So cooed the Manchester Evening News in the hours leading up to last night’s UEFA cup final at the City of Manchester Stadium between Zenit St Petersburg and our affable friends from up north, Glasgow Rangers.
UEFA: The Party Begins cried the excited banner headline. Over 100,000 all singing, all dancing Rangers fans were in town, lapping up the early summer sunshine along with generous helpings of the amber nectar.
And Manchester, as a concurrent football and party city was the perfect setting for all of this. The beautiful game is about more than two 45 minute halves. It’s about the social and emotional experience around it, the celebration of common humanity that make 22 blokes kicking a bag of air around so important. The locals and the unexpected flood of visitors from Glasgow were a match made in heaven.
Manchester Chambers of Commerce expects the Rangers fans to have brought between ten and 20 million pounds into the local economy. Profits for bars are through the roof and ever hotel room in the city is full. There was no room at the inn. If local businesses had adopted a terrace chant for the occasion, it would have been “can you play here every week”
A news video on the MEN website closed with the thought that “which ever team is victorious tonight, Manchester has certainly come away a winner.”
As if to truly test such sentiments, Zenit had the bare faced cheek to run out deserved 2-0 winners.
Unfortunately, by the time referee Peter Frojdfeldt’s final whistle sealed the Russian’s triumph, the Manchester love-in had already turned sour.
Earlier, one of the big screens laid on by Manchester City Council for the thousands of Rangers fans without match tickets broke down. With no where to watch the match of the season, the Rangers faithful were understandably disappointed and angry. However, the numbskulled clashes with police, hurling of missiles and sporadic outbreaks of violence that continued throughout the night thereafter were completely unacceptable.
There had been 30 arrests by the time a bleary, damaged morning broke. Most sickeningly, one Russian supporter was stabbed outside the City of Manchester Stadium.
So where did it all go wrong? The combination of broken big screens and a dreary Rangers display on the pitch are the obvious answers.
However, the Rangers invasion bore one similarity with the brainless British hooligan exploits of the 1970s and 1980s from the moment it arrived – namely the omnipresence of the Union Flag.
It is truly unfortunate the sight of the Irish, Welsh or (ironically) Scottish flag can lift ones spirits in a celebration of heritage, while witnessing those draped in the Union Flag often means reflecting upon its latest unfortunate outing in the name of mindless violence.
A large number of Rangers fans broadly accept a general ideology of unitary British nationalism. When pushed to it’s extremities beyond basic national pride, this ideology is often intolerant, blindly superior and vulgar.
The dated images of an all powerful Britannia still resonate along the sectarian divides of Glasgow football. Yes, Catholics are allowed to represent Rangers today, but unionism remains a central to the identity of the club’s faithful.
“No surrender to the IRA” has been bellowed frequently across Manchester’s public places over the last two days. As have “Rule Britannia” and the national anthem. These are also staples when the English national team departs for sunnier climbs. And we all know the habit of those occasions ending in police baton and CS gas induced tears.
On a train journey from Preston with a group of Rangers fans the day before the game, I was treated to an array of historically informed “football” chants charting the noble deeds of William of Orange, the Battle of the Boyne and the Ulster Voluntary Force.
Oscar Wilde once wrote “patriotism is the virtue of the vicious”. Unfortunately, some Rangers supporters have shown this to be the case.
May 28, 2008 at 8:41 pm
It chills me to the bones when I hear the chants of ‘No Surrender’.
Sectarianism is as bad as racism, perhaps worse as it does not get the media attention that it should in comparison to the issue of racism in football.
The people that sing these chants are mindless cretins who know little about the Troubles in Ireland and probably don’t even know what they are singing about.
I remember going to see the first England International friendly against Brazil at the new Wembley and heading to the nearest pub afterwards. I got frisked for knives and weapons by two brusiers on the door before walking into a barrage of ‘No Surrender’ chants from some English supporters.
I didn’t even know that Brazil were large IRA sympathisers.
I pleasantly walked out of the pub, gave the bruisers a mouthful about strict security to get in but doing little about the sectarianism inside and went across the road to ‘PFC’ instead (down town Wembley equivalent of KFC).
It’s the same with the fans that insist on going to the Northern Ireland games in Rangers or Celtic shirts while the IFA and general community are supporting the ‘Sea of Green Campaign’ – to get everyone united in the green colours of Northern Ireland.
Then there are the chants of ‘Ulster til I Die’.
These are all issues that need eradicating but it takes time and effort and are complicated to comprehend let alone tackle.