Fitba Hell

I WAS more than a little embarrassed. Having made the usual festive visit to my girlfriend’s folks’ place in Ireland, I’d had to go to the lounge bar at Greenore Golf Club to watch Saturday’s Rangers game (wearing a 1976 League Cup final replica shirt to display my allegiances, having struggled to convince the proprietor of a local pub that I wasn’t an Ibrox regular the last time I tried to watch an Aberdeen-Rangers game in a neck of the woods known for a preponderance of IRA sympathisers).

A gruff local with an eyepatch and his drinking sidekick were taking a casual interest in the match. As the ball pinged back and forward, the two men tutted and muttered that there used to be a reasonable standard in Scotland. Both teams’ midfields lumped the ball aimlessly and the game failed to settle; the men made derisory but apt comments about the ball being treated like a “hot potato”.

It was dispiriting to hear. I’ll admit to having been carried away by Aberdeen’s rise to second place and accompanying hopes of Champions League qualification, and the inevitable comparisons with loftily placed teams of times past. But the dispassionate assessment by these two men was difficult to argue with: the game was poor.

There was, though, something to be happier about it the week leading up to the game. It’s always annoyed me when managers praise their supporters for their noisy backing, even if the songs they’ve been singing had been particularly nasty; Old Firm managers seem most susceptible to such blindspots.

So it was refreshing to see Aberdeen manager Jimmy Calderwood take to task – albeit subtly – that rump of fans at his club that sing about how apparently glorious the 1971 Ibrox disaster was (when 66 Rangers supporters died in a crush in 1971 after a last-minute equaliser in a game against Celtic).

This is what Calderwood said: "… I urge our fans to go about things the right way when Rangers come here on Saturday. We can beat them without the usual nonsense that surrounds games with Rangers. I want a very sporting victory without reference to stuff that might have happened years ago."

It’s lazy journalism to lump songs about the Ibrox disaster in with the sectarian songbooks of Celtic and Rangers, as the media often do. Religious intolerance has seeped through the fabric of both of the Old Firm for decades (by contrast can you imagine Stewarty Milne doing a Donald Findlay and glorying in the Ibrox disaster at a club function?) Those who reckon the Ibrox disaster was "magic" are a small, sorry bunch of numbskulls, and one that has become smaller in recent years (however much the tabloids might want to fan the flames of controversy). But it still gets an occasional airing, and it was admirable of Calderwood to make his comments when he could have just lapped up the praise his team was getting, and shied away from more difficult issues.

Calderwood was also making an obvious reference to songs about the Neil Simson tackle in 1988 that put Rangers’ Iain Durrant out of the game for a long spell. That song isn’t much cop either – it reduces Simpson, a tremendously skilful midfielder, into a cartoon thug (which, ironically, is the how Aberdeen fans feel he was portrayed in sections of the media for years afterwards). It’s not in the same league of offensiveness as the Ibrox disaster song, but, at best it’s tired and unimaginative.

Interestingly, it was the second time in a week that Calderwood had commented publicly on the content of the Aberdeen’s support’s backing. After the Hearts game, he praised the fans for their witty taunts about the home side’s predicaments ("You’re not Scottish anymore!" was one).

Calderwood did not impress me when he became manager in 2004, as he seemed to babble and have little substance. But, in his selective praise of his own club’s fans, he has shown an impressive independence of thought that few other managers would have dared.

ABERDEEN had just scored a late winner at Tynecastle and the away fans were tumbling over their seats in jubilation. I, on the other hand, was subdued.

For the second time in three weeks I’d done something I’d previously never tried before in my life: sat in the home end for an Aberdeen away match. At Celtic Park it had been easier to remain incognito, witnessing as I did an uneventful 1-0 defeat. This was more of a challenge: a tight match against a close rival with the perfect, last-ditch denouement.

But I and my fellow infiltrator did well. We tutted conspicuously at misplaced passes by Hearts’ Lithuanian duds, and got to our feet to applaud the arrival from the subs’ bench of local hero Paul Hartley. Our best performance, though, came with at the winning goal. As Steve Lovell scored, we slapped the seats in front of us and seethed "That’s terrible defending!", the merest curl of a smile at the edge of our lips.

Afterwards, though, the rosy afterglow of such a satisfying win was dimmer than usual. I felt like I’d enjoyed the goal about 10 per cent as much as I would have under normal circumstances. The enjoyment of a goal like that winner at Tynecastle isn’t all about witnessing it first-hand – it’s about losing yourself in euphoria, wherever you are. I’d have been better off listening to Radio Scotland in my living room, or even seeing “Lovell 87” flash up on Teletext.

TWO dozen pairs of eyes bored into my back: the Scripture Union wasn’t happy. They had invited a devout Christian to the school to speak about his faith. He also happened to be a professional footballer, and a fatuous query about his day job had, embarrassingly, shifted attention away from an earnest bible discussion.

I had never been to church in my life, but the Scripture Union knew I was a Pittodrie regular. They invited me along, perhaps hoping to secure another member by dangling in front of me the prospect of an audience with Brian Irvine.

This was a lunchtime at Oldmachar Academy, Bridge of Don, circa 1988. Irvine had been speaking for a few minutes in the drama studio when questions were invited from the floor. Cue a couple of measured questions about the New Testament.

Then Irvine nodded to me, and I asked my question. I drew inspiration not from the scriptures, but from the wonderfully inane footballers’ Q&A that was trotted out in Shoot! each week

“What would you do if you found a million pounds?” I quizzed.

Irvine looked back, a little perplexed by my trifling fanboy query in the midst of a rather more weighty debate. To his credit, he made a polite attempt to form an answer about some act of charity or other. Meanwhile, I sank in my seat as tuts and glares tumbled in my direction from everyone else in the room.

Brian Irvine’s decency that day sums up the man. He has always been upfront about his religion, but with the modesty, integrity and quiet commitment - compare the crazed warblings of Glenn Hoddle - that also summed him up as a player.

He was not particularly gifted, and on a bad day was outright clumsy. A centre-half by nature, the consistency of Alex McLeish and Willie Miller in his early days with Aberdeen in the mid-eighties meant his sporadic first-team appearances tended to be uncomfortable stints at right-back; many’s the time he was on the end of a bollocking from his more celebrated defensive counterparts.

But as age caught up with McLeish and Miller, Irvine seized his chance at centre-half. He played nine times for Scotland and became feared for his power in air both in defence and attack; in one prolific spell he scored six goals in nine matches.

It was in 1995 when Irvine came into his own. Aberdeen seemed doomed to relegation, until he returned from injury to almost single-handedly drag them to safety. A modest and unshowy man by nature, he was not a player given to badge-kissing platitudes. That’s why his wild, vein-popping joy after a crucial goal against Celtic is one of my finest footballing memories.

Years later, as Irvine approached his late thirties, Aberdeen made an approach to take him back to Pittodrie. Irvine admitted that returning to the club would be a dream come true, but he turned down the chance of a Premier League swansong; he’d already said he would sign for First Division Ross County, and he was a man of his word.

Brian Irvine lost his job as Elgin City manager this week, despite almost taking them to the Third Division play-offs on a minuscule budget last year. It seems a rushed and foolhardy decision by those in charge at Borough Briggs - they’ll struggle to find another man of his stature.

EIGHTEEN years and counting. I watched from Hampden’s old main stand as Ally McCoist scored a late winner in the 1988 Skol Cup final. Ever since I’ve been waiting to witness Aberdeen win in Glasgow, choosing the wrong games to go to: skirting adroitly around the rare wins, blundering straight into losses against Partick Thistle and Queen’s Park. There was no change on Saturday, but at least I had a novel experience to consider: sitting in the home end at Parkhead.

I’d messed up in my attempts to get into the Aberdeen section, forcing myself to loiter outside the ticket office before a chirpy Irishman sold me and my dad tickets. Inside, we took precautionary action by excising any suspicious Doric content in our conversation and sitting on our hands whenever Aberdeen made a foray across the half-way line.

But it was … well, quiet. There were no sectarian songs; there were no songs at all to be heard from where I was sitting. (Other than some game attempts by half a dozen tracksuited teens and a ripple of sound when Celtic got their goal). "Where’s your famous atmosphere?" sang the away end.

The reaction from the home fans, a couple of vein-popping eejits aside, was distinctly amiable. A lady behind me commended a neat passing movement from Aberdeen; a dad told his young son in measured tones about how the other team had once beaten Real Madrid; people around me glanced across to the boisterous away fans with more than a hint of admiration.

Last year I travelled from Queen Street to Bellgrove station with a throng of Celtic fans revelling, in song, about Norman Tebbit’s wife having had her legs blown off in the Brighton bombing. But on Saturday’s evidence, Celtic should have no worries about sanctions from UEFA like those imposed on Rangers last season. A song or two would have been nice, though.

OUR national radio station broadcast live commentary from the Queen’s Park v Brechin City Scottish Cup match last Tuesday evening, a game that attracted a mere 535 spectators. It was played days after it emerged that BBC Radio Scotland was scrapping its only programme dedicated to books, Cover Stories.

Radio Scotland has a public service remit, but the coverage of last Tuesday’s game was not catering for the honourable minority interests of Queen’s Park and Brechin City fans; it was an embarrassing sign of our national obsession.