Fitba Hell

THERE really is no escape these days. For all the media attempts to define the essence of summer as stawberries and cream at Wimbledon, tumbling in the mud at T in the Park or inane sexual shenanigans on Big Brother, fitba still creeps through the cracks of the close season and demands our attention.

Flicking through the channels late at night earlier this week, I stumbled across one of the most bizarre fillers ever to take up space on the box: Gaelic fitba. Presumably having struggled to fulfil a Gaelic broadcasting quota, Scottish Television had exclusive highlights of an amateur match from some picturesque corner of the north-west Highlands.

The game was watched in the flesh by one distracted-looking elderly chap in a bunnet and a gaggle of urchins behind one goal, intent on demonstrating their mastery of profane hand gestures to an unfortunate goalkeeper. The Gaelic-speaking commentators made game attempts at stirring up enthusiasm, but were somewhat undermined by the portly players' muted celebrations each time a goal was sclaffed into the net; they looked almost ashamed (is participation in football the act of a social pariah in shinty country?)

I had no interest in who won and neither, it seemed, did anyone else, but my neutrality and the lilting, unintelligible commentary was strangely pleasing. It was less like watching football and more like the the zen bliss of Burt Bacharach-soundtracked Teletext pages on BBC2 in the wee small hours of a Tuesday morning.

What a traitorous mercenary that Steven Naismith is. So you might expect Rangers fans to protest as one of their own stands to be pilfered by the green and white hordes.

Naismith - unlike the more bilious element that takes up much of Ibrox - seems an even-tempered, amiable type of chap. He's part of a generation where the old tribal loyalties are fading away - ever more quickly as the Scottish and European football authorities have finally cottoned on that sectarianism might not be a good thing. So who's to blame him if he moves to Parkhead if it's a better move for his career?

Even Rangers fans seem reluctant to direct vitriol at Naismith so far. He'll undoubtedly have to field abuse from a few vein-popping, blue-nosed eejits if he moves to Celtic, but a glance through the Daily Record Hotline today suggests that Ibrox regulars are more concerned about the humiliation of having lesser financial clout than their rivals - not that Naismith might ditch the chance to go to the team he's long supported.

Things are changing in west of Scotland fitba. I wouldn't have believed I'd be writing this a couple of years ago, but it looks like the singing of the Billy Boys at Ibrox will be reduced to the quaint quirk of a lunatic fringe before too long.

IT WAS a little strange to see gruff football manager Davie Moyes wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Madeleine McCann when Everton played their last game of the season. It’s a horrible thing that this little girl has vanished, and no one should doubt the good intentions of Moyes or any of the other footballers to have appealed for her safe return. But what if Moyes had appealed on his t-shirt for an end to the poverty that kills thousands of children each day, or for something to be done about the relentless killing of civilians in Iraq? Football’s governing bodies are fanatical in their efforts to keep the sport apolitical (best not to scare away the sponsors, they reason). Sadly, while Moyes is free to express sympathy for the plight of the McCann family, there are millions of other tragedies he must ignore.

MAYBE Liverpool do have the worst-behaved fans in Europe. UEFA says so, and its findings at least seem to be based on some sort of scientific, unemotive criteria. But there’s been a predictable outcry from all with even the remotest stake in English football.

Had the same findings been published 20 years ago, politicians and media pundits would have rallied round UEFA and got stuck into what was an easy target. The prevailing narrative of the day when football hit the news was that of the football thug; something for England to be ashamed of.

In 2007, the narrative has changed. Now, the English game has been buffed up by Sky to produce the shiny “best league in the world”, the bigger teams have become lifestyle choices for the chattering classes, and football gets in the news because players have famous girlfriends. The thug has no place in the sanitised rebranding of English football.

The change is crystallised in Michael Howard, that ersatz Koppite, who this week sees fit to decry UEFA’s findings. Two decades ago he was part of a government hellbent on introducing identity cards at football grounds, his leader, Margaret Thatcher, having dismissed fans as a loutish rabble to be herded away from polite society.

And yet the football thug exists, just as he did 20 years ago; less frequently to be found inside stadia, but still a persistent, influential presence. The accompanying, uncomfortable truth is that others are drawn to his seedy glamour. The dividing line between the “true” fans and the undesirable “minority” – so beloved by those in the public eye who find society’s shades of grey too complex to convey – is a fiction. But so long as it preserves the English football's squeaky-clean branding, it will continue to be peddled.