Graeme Souness has claimed that the old Rangers Football Club had a policy of not signing catholics for over 100 years when he took over as manager in 1986.
While that isn’t strictly true with a few sneaking through the net the ‘What school did you go to son’ question was always more important than the ability that a schoolboy had.
By the time players had become established in the game it was easier to establish who was what with many of Scotland’s greatest talents never interesting Rangers (IL) due to their Sunday morning habits.
As recently as the early eighties it was headline news if a Rangers (IL) player was intending to marry a catholic with the careers of Gordon Dalziel and Bobby Russell not quite fulfilling their early promise despite getting their marriage proposals ‘approved’ by the Ibrox club.
The definition of a catholic, or kaflik as many prefer in the West of Scotland can sometimes be as basic as the name of the school someone attended regardless of whether they ever saw inside a chapel or not.
In an interview with Sky Sports Souness explains: “Would you ever sign a Catholic player?”
This question had been asked of every manager on his first day at Rangers FC. If Merseyside is the Friendly Derby, then in the West of Scotland, the Old Firm is anything but. The rivalry between Rangers and Celtic goes far beyond football – it’s religion, it’s politics, it’s both the savoury and unsavoury of the sport.
To be honest, the religious aspect was not something I ever really bought into. I grew up in Edinburgh, and then I was in England, so it was never really a part of my life.
But when I came back to Scotland at 33, I suddenly found myself thrown into the middle of it.
Starting with that question.
For over 100 years, there wasn’t really any question to be answered. Jock Stein, the great Celtic manager, once said that if there was a Protestant kid and Catholic kid, the club would only have to concentrate all of its efforts on the Catholic kid, because they already knew the Protestant would play for Rangers. That’s just the way it was. No question.
But times were changing, it seemed, everywhere else but Glasgow. And it was time the city caught up.
“Yes,” I said. “I would.”
And of course, the journalists took a sigh, their eyes rolled up to ceiling.
“Yeah, we’ve heard this before.”
But three years later in 1989, we did do it when we signed Mo Johnston. I know it sounds crazy now in 2017, but he really was the first Catholic signed to the club in 118 years. And all of a sudden, instead of half of Scotland being looked at by Rangers or Celtic, all of them were.
It’s something that helped the clubs, helped the rivalry and something that I’m very, very proud of.
For that history, for the grittiness of Glasgow, for the size and following of the two clubs, there is nothing like the Old Firm rivalry. Looking back, it’s probably the biggest I’ve ever been a part of. And while I was responsible for some change in the city, I quickly realised I had a lot to learn as well. When I first arrived, I said I didn’t care if we lost to Celtic if we still won the league or the Scottish Cup. That was just my my pragmatic English attitude.
Unacceptable.
I quickly found out that was also just not how things worked in Glasgow. Reason and pragmatism are probably the first two things left at the door at Ibrox and Parkhead. Let me put it this way: I have witnessed an Old Firm game where you will have a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer standing up, ignoring the game completely and just shouting abuse at the opposition supporters. Just non-stop obscenities. And you think, Wait a minute, that guy has been to university, he’s obviously intelligent.
And from the working hours of Monday through Friday, I’m sure he was.
To many fans the signing of Johnston was a PR stunt facilitated by one of Dave Murray’s legendary tax tricks.
Catholic players did play for Rangers down the years as long as they kept quiet about their faith.
After signing a tranche of players from Italy in 1997 Lorenzo Amoruso revealed that he was told not to bless himself in view of supporters.
To this day glorying in the deaths created by the Irish famine and celebrating a Bridgton gang who specialised in murdering catholics is still heard at most games of the Ibrox tribute act with no one in authority in Scotland prepared to take a stand against the songs of hate.
