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Photograph by Islay McLeod
The limits of democracy are exposed by events, suggesting our powerlessness to change things. History will judge this context to be of major significance when considering the recent farce that reveals the Scottish football establishment as a circus without bread.
It’s often said that football is the last trace of community; it’s also been observed that communities stand in contrast to players whose salaries give them more in common with gods from other galaxies than with ordinary supporters. However, at all levels, sport functions as a metaphor for fair play; although as adults we are aware that much of life is unjust, we expect to see fairness in sport. This accounts in no small measure for sport’s social and cultural significance; it’s a means by which children are socialised into living by the rules.
And yet, what we’ve seen recently is an establishment bent on breaking those rules. We’ve heard scaremongering about ‘social unrest’ and ‘dire consequences for Scottish society’ if the rules are followed. An ex-first minister, deciding things will improve if he gets involved, observes that ‘unless or until we put our house in order, a lot of people will be looking at us and saying we are not fit for purpose’. So far so good, you might think, but apparently our ex-first minister sees this as an argument against applying the rules.
We’ve also seen, recently, an alignment of people who pay to get into games, against the people who get paid to attend those games. We’ve seen a rejection of our rulers’ assumption of market forces for the poor, socialism for the rich. The common folk, the taxpayers, the fans, those who pay, sensed greater potential that their voices may be heard in the debate on Rangers’ immediate future than in any constitutional abstraction. And they were right, and it’s a cause for optimism that the views expressed appeared to transcend club allegiances. It’s been refreshing, too, to see clubs make a moral choice, or at least prioritise the feelings of their own customers.
We’ve seen how power operates, or flails about, when it’s scared. And this was not confined to the governing elite. We’ve had a case study in modern media. The traditionally-constituted news outlets didn’t report Rangers’ financial troubles when the world and his dug knew of their existence. Now that they’ve seen which way the wind blows, journalists are willing to criticise, but for long enough it was left to bloggers to educate and inform. In this regard, rangerstaxcase.com, winner of the 2012 Orwell Prize for political writing, stands out but any number of websites are playing a part in the devolution of importance away from conventional outlets. What we’re seeing is no less than a democratisation of the media.
Football journalists and pundits belong to the get-paid-to-go-to-games brigade, assuming themselves possessed of specialist technical knowledge, conferred only on the inner circle. Certainly, such knowledge may have existed in the pre-satellite past when maybe three or four games were televised live every year. Now, however, the wall-to-wall TV coverage, paid for at no small expense by ordinary supporters, has expanded fans’ technical knowledge, moving it closer to that of ‘experts’ who become little more than gossip columnists. Their dumbed-down coverage is symptomatic of the symbiotic relationship between media and game. Is it any coincidence that RTE, with (no offence) a poor level of national league, manages to provide cuttingly articulate and insightful football analysis, light years ahead of that provided by any UK-based broadcaster?
The traditional media pride themselves in their disdain for the quality of football in Scotland, as if they themselves write like Shakespeare. In particular, they scorn supporters’ attraction to the off-field cultural dimensions of the game, ignoring the fact that this attraction affords them a good living. In its absence, fewer folk would be interested in Scottish football, a fact that journalists (who, as has become increasingly apparent, often have covert agendas and allegiances) would do well to remember. In recent decades, social science has come to accept that ‘neutrality’ is little more than an unattainable aspiration; it’s far more honest to declare interest and let your public judge. This is the approach adopted by web media; print and television are being left behind.
There has been no little conjecture about the effect of Scotland’s failure in the 1978 World Cup on the cautiously indecisive result in the devolution referendum nine months later. Few observers would deny the existence of some sort of connection, and it would be unwise to discount the significance of people power in the recent Scottish football circus. History is not short of examples of strange things happening when ordinary folk get a wee glimpse of their collective strength.
The danger to the Scots game is present and real, and we’ll hear a lot about coats and cutting cloth in the near future. But no one in Scotland seriously believes our football is much good anyway; debate addresses the question of whether it’s second-rate or third-rate. If you want top quality, you buy yourself a Sky subscription (or go to the pub) and watch the Spanish or English leagues. The game in Scotland functions more as a vehicle for identities, sometimes tribal, sometimes familial, sometimes individualistic. Of course there is a threat, but the biggest danger is not to the fans, but to the freeloaders.
There will always be football in Scotland, but the parasitical administrators and media figures who constitute much of ‘Scottish football’ are clearly frightened. And with reason.
Dominic Brown is from Glasgow and works in
post-school education
