Monday 16 December 2019

Rod Stewart or the Green Brigade? Rod. Every. Time.


With their banner yesterday the Green Brigade showed us their true colours, and they’re not green. 

Rod Stewart has been a Celtic supporter for over 40 years and never misses an opportunity to promote the club at home and abroad. He has supported Celtic through thick and thin and while that doesn’t put him above criticism, it should afford him the respect from Celtic fans not to have that message on a banner from the Green Brigade. He and his children should he able to come into Celtic Park without being greeted with a banner telling him to f*** off.

Rod’s thoughtcrime was to post a message congratulating Boris Johnson on winning the election and the student Union politicians of the Green Brigade saw their favourite colour - red - and swung into action.

I couldn’t care less what the Green Brigade’s politics are. They can support any political cause they like as far as I’m concerned, but my problem with them is that they not only use Celtic as a platform for those views, they also insist that they are being “real” Celtic fans by doing so. That they are being true to the ethos of Celtic by behaving like late 1940’s Soviet commissars purging Eastern Europe of “fascism.” And everyone must agree with them, or they’re “not welcome” at the club either.

In actual fact, Celtic’s ethos has never been political. Celtic was founded by devout Catholics for charitable purposes. The Green Brigade and their comrades like to tell us that means our founders were socialists like them. That the founding of Celtic was a political act. Which is ahistorical nonsense.

To read the first circular released by Celtic in January 1888 is to see it was a profoundly Catholic initiative. Founded by the laymen of three Catholic missions; first patron the Archbishop of Glasgow and the clergy of the missions. Founded to raise money for the Poor Children’s Dinner Table and the St Vincent de Paul Society.
It places great stress on the need to provide sports facilities for “our Catholic young men.” Indeed, the word “Irish,” is mentioned nowhere. 



The Celtic Football & Athletic Club was founded for purely charitable purposes and had no political aims at all. Our founders were a mixed bag - the Marist Brothers Walfrid and Dorotheus, the Liberal John Glass, the Fenian Pat Welsh, and the Tory monarchist Willie Maley who allowed the British Army to recruit at Celtic Park during WWI. Individually they had political beliefs of course, but the only thing that united them was their Catholic faith. Institutionally, Celtic was neither Republican nor socialist. It was charitable.

Which brings us to the entryists of the Green Brigade, who are to Celtic what Momentum is to the Labour Party. Take a look at their self-aggrandising website http://www.greenbrigade.co.uk/history/

They saved Celtic Park don’t you know? We were in decline. The atmosphere was rotten, till these “ultras,” came along and Made Celtic Park Great Again. But they’re not simply a crowd of boys who want to bring a bit of atmosphere with non-stop singing and dancing. It’s their stated intent to politicise the Celtic support and they’re distorting our history to claim they’re living the ethos of the club. 

“With a few early meetings in Glasgow pubs discussing the dire state of the Celtic support, Ultra culture and influence, the role of politics within football and how all are or could be linked with supporting Celtic the Green Brigade was founded.”

Do you get that? The Celtic support was “dire” till these arrogant neds came along to save us. And there’s that intent to politicise supporting Celtic.

It can’t be denied the Green Brigade contribute a great deal to the colour and noise at Celtic Park, but they are rapidly becoming, if they are not already, more bother than they are worth. With their repeated, persistent refusal to follow the same rules the rest of us are expected to; with their political displays and pyros that would see any other Celtic supporter banned for life from the stadium and are costing Celtic hundreds of thousands of pounds in UEFA times, they need reining in by the club and if that means dispersing them around the stadium, so be it. If they don’t like it, they know where the door is.

Not only are they costing the club financial and reputational damage, they bring nothing good that is irreplaceable to the party. No doubt their apologists will point to the annual food bank collections and the charidee money they raise for Palestinian causes. But like everything else they do, they do it for themselves. Anyone can donate to a food bank; you don’t need to give it to the Green Brigade to hand it over. But every time they are criticised they’ll put out a pathetic statement refusing to acknowledge any fault and pointing to the charidee work and food bank collections they do. Al Capone ran soup kitchens for the homeless in 1930’s Chicago - does that mean despite all the racketeering, extortion and murder he was actually a great guy really?

Football is only of secondary importance at best to the Green Brigade. They have hijacked Celtic to amplify their political posturing and their politics is way more important to them than their support for Celtic. They proved that by their pathetic banner attacking Rod Stewart. Doesn’t matter that Rod is a Celtic fan. All that matters to them is that he is a thought criminal who apparently likes the Tories.

It’s not even enough for the Green Brigade to use our stadium as a giant soapbox, they viciously attack anyone who doesn’t share their politics and that should concern us all. Rod Stewart will be alright in the directors’ box with his minders. What about the ordinary Celtic fan who is guilty of thoughtcrimes against socialism? Who’s going to protect him if word gets out he votes the wrong way?

The Green Brigade are bringing trouble and division to the Celtic support with their petty, self-indulgent posturing. They are repeatedly costing the club money in UEFA fines which will eventually lead to stand closures and have no intention of stopping. Now they are turning on a high-profile and long-standing Celtic fan who has done more for Celtic than they ever will. 

They’re not walking in the footsteps of the founders of Celtic. They’re not living out the ethos of our club. Brother Walfrid, John Glass, Willie Maley, Jimmy McGrory, Jock Stein - they would all have been appalled by that banner on Sunday and by the very idea a section of self-proclaimed uber-fans are are politicising the Celtic experience, treating the club as their support act rather than the main show and abusing anyone who doesn’t meet with their approval.

If this is to become a battle for the heart and soul of Celtic, I know whose side I’m on. And it’s not the Green Brigade’s. 

13 comments:

  1. I would have taken this more seriously if it had came from Daniel O Donnel, while the GB are not everyone's cup of tea I suspect this writer is part of the old brigade who think that people value their opinion, I have been going to Celtic Park for 50 years and don't remember RS being there in the bad times, another Sean Connery springs to mind.

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    1. I've been supporting Celtic for 60+ years. Rod Stewart wasn't born a Celtic man but grew to love the club. He was close to Scottish internationals like Sandy Jardine, Kenny Dalglish et al in the 70's. Jardine got him to pose in a Rangers Jersey at that time but the Celtic players in the national team swung him to Celtic.

      I lived in the USA mid 90's when things weren't great at Celtic. He was touring there and promoted Celtic during his concerts, so he has supported Celtic through thick and thin.

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  2. does it really matter what political party rod follows.celtic are a football team not a political party .

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  3. When your collecting food for poor families due to Tory austerity you deserve the right to let people know how you feel.
    Rod Stewart put flowers on Grace Giffords grave the other week that makes Rod hypocrite as it was tories who killed her husband.
    You see Celtic is for the poor Rod forgotthis by congratulating someone born to think he has more rights than the rest of us.
    Boris Johnson doesn't give a fuck about anybody but himself he is an Eton superior being doing you know this

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    1. Politics has fuck all to with paying your respects to the dead. What a moronic reply.

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    2. Tories didn't kill her husband you moron. The Liberal party were in power and had been for the previous 11 years.
      You should log out and leave the internet alone

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  4. Couldn't agree more Daniel,
    Celtic Football club was there long before the Green Brigade and it will be there long after their gone. Celtic spent thousands accommodating them and this is the Thanks they get constant fines by uefa,banners that only bring shame to the Club and songs and chants just as bab as the mob across the river. Oh and no doubt they will think up some charity to raise money for after the latest fine and that makes everything alright.

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    1. Not the point Joe. The GB have stepped over the line at times, but their ethos v the ethos if the Tories as represented by 'Boris' and hailed by Rod? Then the GB are closer to the Celtic ethos, imo

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  5. Sick and tired of the green brigade.... And their romantic notions of the Spanish civil war.... When hundreds of catholic priests were murdered nuns raped in their convents at the hands of the Reds time for the gab to be shown the door

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  6. Not even reading it all. Headlines enough,GB for me

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    1. Which is enough for me to know your opinion on anything is worthless.

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  7. Forgive me if I've not properly understood your comment but it reads as if your suggesting that the communists didnt murder and abuse priests and nuns during the spanish civil war. If thats the case you need to seriously educate yourself. Not only did it happen, it happened all across Europe during the Bolshevik terror. It was endemic. People were sickened and horrified by the the looming threat of the communists. You could only benefit from reading a history book or two on the subject.

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