The Old Firm is the
collective name for the Scottish football clubs Celtic
and Rangers,
which are both based in Glasgow. The two clubs are by far the most successful and
popular in Scotland, and the rivalry between them has become deeply embedded in
Scottish culture. It has reflected, and contributed to, political, social, and
religious division and sectarianism in Scotland.[2] As a
result, the fixture has had an enduring appeal around the world.[3]
Between them the two clubs have won
103 Scottish League championships
(Rangers with 54 and Celtic with 49),[4]
71 Scottish
Cups,[5]
and 45 Scottish League Cups.[6]
Interruptions to their ascendancy have occurred rarely, most recently with the
challenge of the New Firm of Aberdeen
and Dundee United in the first half of the 1980s.
Since the 1985–86 season, one half of the Old
Firm has won the Scottish League consistently and in all but
one of seventeen seasons between 1995–96 and 2011–12, both clubs finished in the
top two places. In the early 2010s, the holding company of Rangers endured
financial difficulties, and was liquidated in 2012. Subsequently, the team was
demoted to the fourth tier of the Scottish league. Celtic have won the last
seven consecutive Scottish championships.
Celtic and Rangers have played each
other 415 times in major competitions: Rangers have won 160 matches, Celtic 156
matches, and 99 ended in a draw.[7][8]
The clubs have large fan bases
around Glasgow and Scotland, and have supporters clubs in most towns throughout
Scotland and Northern Ireland and in many cities around the world. In 2005 the
presence of Rangers and Celtic was estimated to be worth £120 million to the
Origin
of 'Old Firm'
The origin of the term is unclear
but may derive from the two clubs' initial match in which the commentators
referred to the teams as "like two old, firm friends",[10] or
alternatively may stem from a satirical cartoon published in a magazine prior to the 1904 Scottish Cup Final between the sides,
depicting an elderly man with a sandwich
board reading "Patronise The Old Firm: Rangers, Celtic Ltd",
highlighting the mutual commercial benefits of their meetings.[11][12]
The name may also be a reference to these two teams being among the original
eleven members of the Scottish Football League formed in 1890.[13]
Rivalry
and sectarianism
Main article: Sectarianism in Glasgow
The competition between the two
clubs had roots in more than just a simple sporting rivalry.[3] It
has as much to do with Northern Ireland as Scotland and this can be seen in the
flags, cultural symbols, and emblems of both clubs.[14]
It was infused with a series of complex disputes, sometimes centred on religion (Catholic
and Protestant),
Northern Ireland-related politics (Loyalist
and Republican), national identity (British or
Irish Scots), and social ideology (Conservatism and Socialism).[15]
Another primary contributor to the
intensity of the rivalry in the west of Scotland was that Rangers supporters
are historically native Scots and Ulster Scots,[16]
and Celtic supporters are historically Irish-Scots.
Although the confrontation between the two sets of supporters was often
labelled as 'Sectarianism', 'Native-Immigrant tension' was an equally accurate
catalyst for hostility between the two teams' supports in Scotland. Rangers'
traditional support was largely from the Protestant community, and for decades
the club had an unwritten rule whereby they would not knowingly sign a player of the
Catholic faith.[17] The
policy was decried by Graeme Souness when he became manager, and he
brought ex-Celtic forward Mo Johnston to the club in a very public move away from
the practice, which no longer continues.[18][19][20][21]
Celtic's support was largely from those of Irish
Roman Catholic backgrounds and while the club practiced no exclusion of
Protestants and signed many of them to play for the team, there was a
pro-Catholic mindset among some of the employees.[22] One
effect is that Scottish flags are rarer than might be expected
amongst both sets of supporters; Celtic fans are more likely to wave the Irish
tricolour while Rangers fans tend to wave the Union Jack.[23]
"When I was growing up, I went
to a Catholic school, and there wasn’t one Rangers fan
in the entire school," said Neil McGarvey, 43, who is involved in the
operation of Kerrydale Street, a popular Celtic fan Web site. "It’s much
more mixed now — my boy goes to a Catholic school, and there are maybe 5
percent Rangers fans now."
— The New York Times, 2012[24]
Celtic were founded in 1887[25]
on the promise that the club would deliver much-needed money and resources to a
poverty-stricken Irish Catholic population in East Glasgow (although records
indicated little of this income reached those causes)[16]
and quickly drew large crowds at their matches, becoming a symbol for that
section of the local population which were marginalised in other areas of
society[21]
and had previously shown little interest in the emerging sport.[16][26]
Rangers had been founded much earlier in 1872 and had no particular religious
leanings in their early decades, indeed they were described by the press as
friends of Celtic in match reports at the turn of the 20th century.[27][26]
In that era Rangers had won three successive championships and expanded their
stadium at great expense, only for one of the new wooden stands to collapse during a Scotland v England fixture in
April 1902, killing 25 and injuring hundreds of others.[28][29]
The disaster forced the club to rebuild Ibrox for a second time and financed
this by selling off their best players, with Celtic in particular taking
advantage of the weakness to win six successive titles between 1905 and 1910 before Rangers returned to their
previous strength.[26][29]
The sporting side of the rivalry was now established, with their meetings
providing considerable financial benefit as seen in the Scottish Cup finals of 1904 (which appears to be the origin of the
'Old Firm' term)[11][27]
and 1909 when they drew twice and a further
replay was ordered, with supporters of both teams deciding to riot on the
assumption the results were being fixed to make more money – amid multiple
injuries and considerable damage to Hampden Park, the trophy was withheld.[12][30][27][31]
The political aspect of the feud
also developed in that period,[32]
with perhaps the most significant development occurring in 1912 when Belfast
shipbuilders Harland and Wolff (a company which already had
anti-Catholic hiring practices)[33] set
up a new yard in Glasgow due to instability in Ireland. Hundreds of Ulster
Protestant workers, many of Scottish descent, also made the move, and they
adopted Rangers – the closest large club to the Govan yard – as
their new team.[21][27][34]
Other events such as World War I and the Easter
Rising contributed to the club being adopted as a symbol of the Scottish
establishment and of British Unionism in the face of Irish Catholic
rebellion personified by the success of Celtic[35][21][27]
and from that time on, many across Scotland and Northern Ireland (and the
diaspora of those communities in England, North America and elsewhere) became
supporters of Rangers or Celtic over and above their local teams according to
their own political and religious leanings, including polarised attitudes
towards 'The Troubles'.[34][25]
Nevertheless, this dividing line
seems to be blurred in 21st century Glasgow: religious adherence in general is
falling,[36][34]
marriages between Protestants and Catholics have never been higher and the old
certainties — the Rangers supporter voting Conservative and the Celtic supporter
voting Labour — are no longer in evidence.[35][23]
In 2005 both Celtic and Rangers joined a project to tackle bigotry and
sectarianism in sport,[37]
but there was little change in the behaviour and subsequent prosecution of the
fans.
The majority of Rangers and Celtic
supporters do not get involved in sectarianism, but serious incidents do occur
with a tendency for the actions of a minority to dominate the headlines.[37][14]
The Old Firm rivalry fuelled many assaults on Derby days, and some deaths in
the past have been directly related to the aftermath of Old Firm matches.[38] An
activist group that monitors sectarian activity in Glasgow has reported that on
Old Firm weekends, violent attacks increase ninefold over normal levels.[39] An
increase in domestic abuse can also be attributed to Old Firm fixtures.[40]
A freedom of information
request found that Strathclyde Police incurred costs of £2.4
million for the seven derbies played during the 2010–11 season, with the clubs
only contributing £0.3 million towards that.[41]
Other high-profile games involving Rangers and Celtic incurred much lower
costs.[41]
The reason for the disparity in costs and the contribution made is that
Strathclyde Police had to increase its activity elsewhere in Glasgow and
beyond, while the clubs were only responsible for costs incurred in the
vicinity of their stadium.[41]
In a period between April 2016 and December 2017, when nine matches were
contested (three each at the club's stadia and three at Hampden), more than
£550,000 was spent by Celtic, Rangers, the SFA and the SPFL on policing inside
the stadium alone. Rangers paid more than Celtic despite having a smaller
capacity and a plan for the away support at Ibrox which required less of a
'human barricade' of officers to separate the rival supporters than was
necessary at Celtic Park.[42]
In 2015, former Rangers player Brian
Laudrup said that the Old Firm topped all of the rivalries he had played
in,[43]
which included the Milan derby and the Fiorentina-Juventus meetings[44] in
Italy; ex-Celtic striker Henrik Larsson, who experienced El
Clásico in Spain and De Klassieker in the Netherlands, has made similar
comments.[3]
Jim Bett,
who had already played in Iceland prior to joining Rangers in the 1980s and
thereafter moved to Belgium, stated that he declined an opportunity to return
to the Ibrox club due to the sectarianism associated with life as a footballer in
the west of Scotland, in contrast to his positive experiences living abroad.[45]
Disorder
within stadia
Supporters of both clubs, when
interviewed, have conceded that they do not particularly enjoy the intense
atmosphere of Old Firm matches.[34][35]
Opposing fans fought an on-pitch battle in the aftermath of Celtic's 1–0
victory in the 1980 Scottish Cup Final at Hampden.[27]
This remains one of the worst invasions onto a football pitch ever reported,
and was instrumental in alcohol being banned from football grounds in Scotland.[30][46][47][48]
In January 1994, Rangers chairman David Murray announced that
Celtic fans had been banned from Ibrox
due to repeated instances of vandalism to the stadium which Celtic refused to
take financial responsibility for.[49] Only
one fixture, which ended 1–1, was played before the ban was rescinded[50][51]
(the Scottish Football League passed a
resolution preventing clubs from taking that action in future).[52]
There was serious fan disorder
during an Old Firm match played on a Sunday evening in May 1999 at Celtic
Park, with the usual tensions heightened by the fact that Rangers could clinch the league title with
victory (and it became clear that they would do so from the early stages of the
match). Several objects were thrown by Celtic fans, one of which struck referee
Hugh
Dallas forcing the game to be stopped while he received medical treatment.[53][23][48]
With many of those in attendance having spent a full weekend drinking alcohol
prior to the event, at least four Celtic fans invaded the field of play to
confront Dallas during the game,[53]
and more missiles were thrown at players on the pitch after the game.[53]
Since the events of that day, Old Firm league matches have normally been played
in the early afternoon and the possibility of an Old Firm title decider has
been deliberately avoided.[54][55]
Incidents
involving players
Over the hundreds of matches played
between the rivals, players and staff have been involved in many incidents
beyond the usual bad tackles and red cards commonly associated with derby
mataches around the world; in the modern age of video footage, such incidents
are more frequently observed, reviewed and scrutinised. In 1987, four players were charged
by the police with breach of the peace for their conduct during a
match at Ibrox and had to appear at court,[48][56][57] with
two (Chris
Woods and Terry Butcher) convicted and fined.[58] While
warming up on the touchline at Celtic Park in January 1998, Rangers' Paul
Gascoigne was caught on television reacting to verbal abuse from the stands
by briefly miming the playing of a flute (representing The Sash and
the typical repertoire of songs on an Orange
walk, considered an offensive gesture by Celtic's many supporters of an
Irish Catholic background).[48][59][60]
Gascoigne, who had pleaded his ignorance of the situation after he made the
same gesture in a friendly just after joining Rangers in 1995[61] and
had been sent off on his last visit to Celtic six weeks earlier,[62] was
fined for the provocative act[63] and
left the club later that year. He has stated that he later received threats via
telephone calls from persons purporting to be members of the IRA over his behaviour.[60]
In 2000, after being sent off during
an Old Firm match, Rangers midfielder Barry
Ferguson was involved in a violent brawl with Celtic fans at a hotel later
in the same evening;[64] a
year later, Ferguson (by now club captain) was sitting in the stand when he
appeared to throw ice packs towards the Celtic dugout after Rangers conceded a
late goal, however the referee missed the incident and no action was taken.[65]
In that same match, a Celtic supporter was photographed making an 'aeroplane'
gesture towards American Rangers player Claudio
Reyna a few weeks after the September 11 attacks.[65]
A 2004 match at Ibrox which "descended into even more mayhem and madness
than usual" led to a police enquiry over the conduct of the players and
staff.[66][67]
In February 2006, Celtic goalkeeper Artur
Boruc was cautioned by the police for gestures he made to Rangers
supporters during a match at Ibrox; six months later, it was clarified that
this was for "Conduct which appears to incite disorder" rather than
simply making the sign of the cross as he entered his area, as some
had thought.[68]
He also blessed himself in the fixture in December of that year, annoying
Rangers fans who saw it as a provocative act, although the police stated that
no offence had been committed.[69]
Boruc, who became known as the 'Holy Goalie' for his overt displays of his
Catholic faith, escaped personal punishment in 2008 for displaying a t-shirt
with the slogan "God bless the Pope" and an image of fellow Pole Pope
John Paul II after an Old Firm win at Parkhead in April 2008, although
Celtic faced scrutiny from FIFA as it was an unauthorised garment under their
regulations on slogans.[70][71] He
was fined £500 and warned for (non-religious) gestures made towards Rangers
fans in a defeat at the same venue in September of the same year.[72][73] Prior
to an international match between Northern Ireland and Poland in 2009, graffiti of a
threatening nature mentioning Boruc appeared on walls in a Rangers-supporting
area of Belfast.[74]
In March 2011, an angry exchange
took place on the touchline at Celtic Park between Celtic manager Neil
Lennon and Rangers assistant coach Ally
McCoist, requiring police officers to separate them, at the end of a match
in which three players had also been dismissed; again captured on live
television footage, the incident resulted in both men being banned from the
dugout for disconduct.[48][75][76] A
'crisis meeting' was convened involving the clubs, the Scottish Government and
Strathclyde Police some days later regarding the trend of violence among
supporters away from the pitch increasing on Old Firm mathdays and concerns
that incidents during the matches was a factor.[77] The
incident occurred during the tense environment of a season where seven Old Firm matches
took place (including a League Cup final and a fight for the title eventually won
by Rangers by one point).[78]
Visitor
allocation and crushing incident
During the 2018 close season,
Rangers announced that they would be cutting the ticket allocation for Celtic
fans at Ibrox from around 7,000 (the entire Broomloan Stand) to 800, situated
in a corner where smaller travelling supports were usually accommodated,
following a fan survey backing the proposal as well as an upturn in season
ticket sales. In response, Celtic indicated they would do likewise, bringing to
an end a long tradition of both clubs offering an generous proportion of their
stadium to their rivals.[79] The
development was criticised by former players as diluting the famous atmosphere
of the fixtures,[51][80]
although others praised the extra income the change would likely generate.[81]
In the first Old Firm fixture at
Celtic Park under the new arrangements, many more home fans were able to attend
but segregation was still required outside the stadium to keep them apart from
the smaller away support. In the minutes before kick-off, a main access road
was closed as part of the amended segregation plan and thousands of spectators
approaching Celtic Park from both directions were directed to the narrow
enclosed walkway below the North Stand to reach the opposite side of the
stadium, along with those trying to enter that stand via turnstiles. The volume
of people in the walkway area built up to the extent that many were unable to
move forward with more approaching from either side, and crushing was experienced in the congested area for some
minutes, causing panic, with several fans scaling a high perimeter wall and
fence to escape; one of them fell from the wall and later required hospital
treatment, while four other persons were treated at the scene as the situation
subsided. Those involved expressed their anger afterwards regarding the
arrangements and the policing at the stadium on the day, with Celtic issuing an
official apology to the fans.[82][83][84]
Legislation
From 1 March 2012, the police were
given more powers to act against Sectarian acts at football matches through the
new Offensive
Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.
The law was designed specifically to target the Old Firm rivalry by reducing
the religious hatred between the two opposing sides.[34]
The Act created two new offences, one covering behaviour in and around football
matches and the other related to posts sent by either electronic or postal
methods. People convicted under the act could face up to five years
imprisonment, a much higher sentence than was previously in place. It was hoped
it would make it much easier to prosecute this misbehaviour, which had proved
difficult in the past.[85]
In March 2013 a protest by a number
of Celtic fans took place to protest against the new laws and the subsequent
match bans that a number of fans had received for breaking the Act. The
protesters, known as the "Green
Brigade," had marched without police authority and the event was
therefore cracked down on by local authorities resulting in thirteen arrests.
The protestors claim that the police instigated the trouble that occurred at
this march.[86]
Following the march, media coverage reported that the fans were growing further
apart from the police than ever before. They claimed that the trust the fans
hold with the police to work in cooperation with them is falling dramatically.
The march that took place resulted in a number of complaints from both Celtic
and Rangers fan groups that they were harassed by the police.[87]
Labour MSP James Kelly introduced the Offensive
Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Repeal) (Scotland) Bill
in June 2017. Kelly had described the 2012 legislation as having
"completely failed to tackle sectarianism" and as
"illiberal" which "unfairly targets football fans", and was
"condemned by legal experts, human rights organisations and equality
groups".[34][88]
Professor Sir Tom Devine previously spoke of the Football Act as
"the most illiberal and counterproductive act passed by our young
Parliament to date" and a "stain on the reputation of the
Scottish legal system for fair dealing".[89] Much
was made of when a Sheriff described the law as "mince".[90]
After passing through the
parliamentary process in early 2018,[91][92]
on 19 April the bill received royal
assent, repealing the 2012 Act.[93]
Joint
sponsorship
Glasgow-based brewers Tennent's
were the primary commercial sponsor of both teams for several years;[94][95] any
local business that only sponsored one would likely lose half its customers.[24]
Previously, glazing company CR Smith (who later had a
deal with Celtic alone),[96][97]
communications firm NTL[98] and
English brewers Carling[99] had
also sponsored both clubs.
Events
post-2012
In 2012, Rangers suffered a financial
collapse leading to the liquidation of the commercial entity,[100][101]
however the sporting assets were acquired by a new company[102]
which allowed its playing membership to continue unbroken (albeit in the lowest
division of the Scottish football league system).[103]
As a result, this would mean that for the first time in 120 years, no fixtures
would be played between Rangers and Celtic.
The status of the Old Firm was also
challenged,[16]
following the logic that since Rangers 'died' during the events of 2012, the
rivalry also expired and any matches played since that point would be between
Celtic and a 'new Rangers', albeit playing at the same stadium, in the same
colours, with the same supporters and some of the same players as before.[102][104]
Adherents to this point of view refer to the club disparagingly as Sevco
(the original name of the post-2012 holding company),[105] and
Rangers supporters as 'zombies' or 'the undead'.[106]
This difference of opinion became a new factor in the rivalry.[104]
Some Celtic supporters were
particularly vociferous in their assertions, to the extent of a group paying
for a full-page newspaper advertisement in January 2015 announcing that their
club would soon play its first fixture against the new Rangers.[107][108][109]
It is regarded as a continuation of
the same club by the SPFL chief executive Neil
Doncaster;[110]
external governing bodies such as UEFA, the European Club Association and FIFA have never
formally stated their position on Rangers but have issued general remarks about
the continuation of a club's history when controlled by a new company.[111][112][113]
In 2013 numerous complaints were
made to the Advertising Standards
Authority (ASA) over official marketing communications from Rangers which
stated they were "Scotland’s most successful club", with this claim
being disputed as the complainants declared the club had only been in existence
for one year. Having considered the evidence including advice from UEFA, the
ASA did not uphold the complaints.[114]
In July 2012, a large banner was displayed
at Celtic Park during a game showing a cartoon zombie representing Rangers
rising from the grave before being shot by a sniper, drawing criticism due to
the gunman resembling a paramilitary from the Northern Ireland conflict,
although Celtic escaped formal punishment over the matter.[115][116] Celtic
fan groups have continued to display banners claiming Rangers are ‘dead’[117] as
well as mocking other aspects of their economic problems.[118]
Celtic and their followers also
became involved in other legal proceedings relating to Rangers,[119][120][121]
including the outcome of the long-running EBT
investigation.[122][123][124]
Results
on the field
It took Rangers four years to climb through
the lower divisions and re-take their place in the Scottish Premiership for the 2016–17 season; in the interim only
two cup semi-finals were played between the clubs[125][126][127][128]
and Celtic won all four league titles by significant margins (never less than
15 points).[129]
The rivalry resumed in earnest by way of six matches during 2016–17, with
Celtic eliminating Rangers from both cups at the semi-final stage on the way to
lifting the trophies and emerging victorious in three of the matches in the
league championship, which they also won without losing a game to secure their
sixth successive title and a domestic treble.[130][131] The
2017–18 season was much the same:
Celtic won three of the Old Firm league fixtures[132]
plus a Scottish Cup semi-final meeting[133]
and lifted all three domestic trophies;[134]
Rangers finished third, behind Aberdeen.[135]
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