Phil Mac - The Celtic away support.

I thought Phil's article was balanced and sensitive.

Particularly agree with his unease about using the deaths of people in a then-desperate political struggle as a cheap GIRUY to opposing football fans. It demeans the sacrifice made.

I feel similarly about that as I feel about people shouting "* Bless The Pope!" at Rangers fans in the same instant as giving them them finger etc. It's clear from their gesture and tone that they're not really blessing anyone, they're saying "* you". It's just cheapening to the religion they are ostensibly supporting.

Unfortunately there's people on both side of the fence who can't seem to fathom the difference between their relationship with the divine, and their hatred of people who wear a different colour of top. And that's kinda sad, really.

 

a very good, well balanced article.

 

On the one hand, I basically agree with his article. On the other hand, though, any attempt to get Celtic to regulate its own song-book runs into the problem that the Billy Boys has never stopped being sung. Rangers has not even made even a modest effort to stamp it out. They've failed to stamp out the "F___ the Pope" nonsense, too.

So we have a situation where the Huns are continuing to sing the most offensive things in their songbook with no consequences inside Scotland.

And to add to the problem, you have the media which is desperate to present the Old Firm as equivalent to each other, so even if Celtic cracks down to the point that you don't hear the phrase IRA all season long...an "aggressive sign of the cross" will be put up next to the * blood bit, and presented as somehow equivalent.

That's a tough set of circumstances to convince people to pull back on the IRA chanting.

 

i wont sing ira chants because they've got nought to do with me. as for others i cant comment.

 

Looks like Phil has gone from hero to zero with some of the comments in this thread.

The guys always been a * in my eyes, this is the first decent article of his I have read.

 

Shocking piece from him, pretty much changed his tune IMO.

 

What the Huns or their supporters sing, shouldn't have any bearing on what we sing or how we conduct ourselves in any stadium.

Craig Whyte has already shown his 'colours' by immediately going on the defensive by issuing the 'It's not just us' type of statement, instead of dealing with the fact that his club's supporters have brought REAL trouble to the their own door with UEFA. IMO they really are an insular bunch.
The more they sing their songs of hatred, the more trouble will esculate for them.

We should try and avoid it.

 

Offensive songs? ok, why doesn't every other SPL team stop singing offensive songs about Neil Lennon first.

 

Exactly.

I find that offensive, but will songs like that be topic of governmental questioning, or just passed off as football banter?

 

Watched the Rangers / Hearts game on Saturday, all it took the Rangers supporters 13 1/2 minutes before I heard " No Surrender " I was under the impression this was a sectarian song. However I must say I never heard it again during the match, perhaps Sky edited it out or the supporters were warned by police, I'll never know.

At Easter Road on Sunday I heard some pro-IRA songs, okay they are not banned as sectarian, but do we need to keep singing such songs, knowing that they cause offence in certain quarters and cause embaressment to Celtic Football Club ?

We are very fortunate at Celtic to have so many gifted supporters that are so quick to make up new songs or adapt others to suit Celtic, so let's move on and continue to lead the way in football circles when it comes to singing and generating new songs and chants.

 

Exactly. I just cringe when I hear us sing it because I know that, as long as we continue to sing these songs, we'll be tarred with the same brush. We don't need these songs to create a good atmosphere.

 

I agree; the problem isn't that large, just stop singing ooh ah up the ra in the celtic symphony and any other add ons; boys of the old brigade is not sectarian so that's fine but to the uneducated they only hear "I JOINED THE IRA" and their minds are made up; a bit of a grey area that one.

 

Yeah like me I'm half English and I'm visiting all my relatives in England just now. I consider myself Scottish though and that stuff usually doesn't offend me but I do think it's at times narrow minded.

I also agree with people who have said that whatever Rangers and other teams do shouldn't have any bearing on what we do as a club. It's a childish way of looking at things. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard.

 

stokesys da hates the queen

 

Didn't disagree with a single song that our away support belted out. Fair enough, maybe we should have another song for Stokes but only to assure him that we appreciate his contribution.

Do not allow yourself to believe we should be tarred with the same brush as the hun support.

 

The "don't let ourselves be tarred with the same brush" is a noble idea but it doesn't work-we will be tarred with the same brush because the media will make the actions of Celtic and the actions of Rangers equivalent. Even if we're squeaky clean except for one man who is heard to yell "Tiocfaidh ar la!", this will be presented as the Billy Boys.

I don't disagree-we should drop the add-ons to the Fields of Athenry and ooh ah up the Ra from the Celtic Symphony; BOTOB is tougher. However, it is going to be difficult to accomplish this when there will be no tangible gains seen-the hatred from them from will still pour at absurd levels, both towards Irish Catholics in general and towards Neil Lennon, and the media will present us as equivalent.

We ought to do it, but it won't be easy.

 

i heard about 5-10 seconds of up the ra chants, which i don;'t like, but other than that it was pretty clean was it not?

 

To me this article smacks of someone elses work, paying Phil to use his name/site. Why would he see fit to write that in a week when we've heard the usual bile coming from the huns, a mega stupid column from Kaye Adams about that lovable rogue, Fat Sally, and yet another political display from the huns with their tickets for the troops nonsense for the game tonight versus Malmo. This on the back of their bigotry at Stirling last weekish.

Their is an air of desperation surrounding the banned songs issue as anyone with a brain knows that the vast majority, if not all, of them come from one side. Why do they not report that?

They say every man has his price and I think we've just found out that Phil will accept his pieces of silver no matter what.

 

Seems to me that after the government got involved recently any kind of song seems to highlight some kind of insult to someone. Any song can be interpreted as offensive to someone, every other team in the country will insult lennon when they play celtic but no one reports about that because Neil lennon "brings it on himself"

Its a one sided biased story to try to illustrate he's not one sided to one side of glasgow like he has been in previous articles. My guess is he hasn't been getting many offers to print his articles. If we keep highlighting songs that arent sectarian but are offensive then we risk turning into a PC nation.

 

No chance...

Phil was even arguing with a few tims on Twitter about it, definitely his work.