Born Under a Union Flag sampler

colin armstrong is a former columnist for both Rangers News and the Rangers matchday
programme. He contributed to the book Ten Days that Shook Rangers (Fort, 2005) and
Follow We Will: The Fall and Rise of Rangers (Luath Press, 2013, and has written extensively
on the subject of Rangers for other media, including When Saturday Comes, The Rangers
Standard and WATP Magazine. Born in Glasgow, he now lives in Falkirk with his wife Shona
and their two children Connor & Sophie.
alan bissett is a novelist, playwright and performer. He was Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland
writer of the Year in 2011 and in 2012 was shortlisted for the Creative Scotland/Daily Record
Writer of the Year award. His most recent novel, Pack Men, about a trip by Rangers fans to
the uefa Cup Final in Manchester, was called by Irvine Welsh ‘a landmark in Scottish fiction’
and was shortlisted for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Novel of the Year. He is
active in the Yes Scotland campaign and is currently writing a play about Graeme Souness.
iain duff is an award-winning journalist with almost 20 years’ experience of writing for
publications in both England and Scotland. He joined Glasgow’s Evening Times as a news
reporter in 1995 and two years later became the paper’s chief reporter at the age of 25. The
same year he won the prestigious uk Press Gazette Scoop of the Year award and was nominated
as Scotland’s young journalist of the year. He later joined the Press Association, where he was
Scottish editor for six years. His books include Follow on: Fifty Years of Rangers in Europe
(Fort, 2006) and Temple of Dreams: The Changing Face of Ibrox (DB, 2008).
john dc gow is a freelance writer who is a regular contributor to espn on Scottish football
and Rangers fc, and has contributed to football magazines such as Away End. He is also a cofounder
of The Rangers Standard. Besides writing about football, he is particularly interested
in studying Rangers and their relation to sectarianism, both in ending the backward form of
hatred, but also how it relates to freedom of speech and belief.
alasdair mckillop is a co-founder of The Rangers Standard. He is the co-editor of Follow
We Will: The Fall and Rise of Rangers (Luath Press, 2013) and a contributor to Bigotry,
Football and Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2013). He is a regular contributor to the
online current affairs magazine Scottish Review, where he writes about sport and politics.
will mcleish was born in Glasgow and spent more than ten years playing semi-professional
football in Scotland. He is a former bbc Scotland sports broadcast journalist and was First
Minister Alex Salmond’s political spokesperson from 2007–2011 (Special Adviser).
eileen reid is Head of Widening Participation at the Glasgow School of Art. She was
formerly Lecturer in Philosophy and Politics at Langside College, and philosophy columnist
with the Glasgow Herald and Scottish Review. As a columnist and in her current role she
deals with a wide range of political, social and cultural issues, with particular emphasis
on education, poverty and under-representation in Scotland’s institutions. She is also the
eldest daughter of Jimmy Reid and works closely with researchers, biographers and others
interested in her father, and working-class culture generally.
harry reid is a former editor of The Herald and author of a number of books including
Outside Verdict: An Old Kirk in a New Scotland (Saint Andrew Press, 2002) and The Final
Whistle: Scottish Football – The Best and Worst of Times (Birlinn, 2005). He holds honorary
doctorates from the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow for his services to journalism.

gail richardson is a popular blogger and prominent member of the online Rangers
community. A lifelong Rangers fan, she attended her first game at Ibrox when she was six years
old. She is a socialist and a feminist.
john robertson has been Member of Parliament for Glasgow North West since 2000.
He worked for British Telecom for over 30 years, during which time he was active in the
Communications Workers Union and West of Scotland chairman of Connect union. He is the
chairman of the Westminster Rangers Supporters’ Club.
pamela thornton was born and raised in Glasgow, then lived and worked in Gloucestershire
for over 25 years. She returned to Scotland just as the new Scottish Parliament was born. Pamela’s
father and uncle were Rangers supporters and she learned to sing ‘Follow Follow’ as a toddler.
She is currently working on a novel. Pamela can be found on Twitter @pamelathornton.
adam tomkins has been a Professor of Law at the University of Glasgow since 2003. He
and two of his sons are season ticket holders at Ibrox. He blogs about Scottish politics at
notesfromnorthbritain.wordpress.com.
graham walker has published widely in the fields of Scottish and Irish history. He is coeditor
with Ronnie Esplin of It’s Rangers For Me? (Fort, 2007) and Rangers: Triumphs,
Troubles, Traditions (Fort, 2010). He is the co-author, also with Ronnie Esplin, of The
Official Biography of Rangers (Hachette Scotland, 2011).
allan wilson is from Glasgow. His short story collection Wasted in Love was shortlisted
for Scottish Book of the Year in 2012. He is a founding member of Scotland Writers fc and
is working on various novels, short stories and plays.
richard wilson is a Senior Broadcast Journalist at bbc Scotland, having previously written
for The Herald and the Sunday Times Scotland. He lives, works and is immersed in football
in Glasgow, a city that is also, captivatingly, full of contradictions.
alex wood is a retired headteacher. He was born in 1950, and spent his early years in Brechin,
Girvan and Paisley. He writes on education for the Times Educational Supplement Scotland
and other journals. He is now completing a book on his experiences over four decades at the
front line in Scottish schools. Throughout his life he has had an active interest in politics.
He was a member of the Labour Party from 1968 until 1986, was twice a parliamentary
candidate and for seven years a councillor on Edinburgh District Council. For the last 20
years he has been a member of the snp.

Born Under a Union Flag
Rangers, Britain and Scottish Independence
Edited by
ALAN BISSETT and ALASDAIR MCKILLOP

First published 2014
isbn: 978-1-910021-12-5
The authors’ right to be identified as authors of this book
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.
The paper used in this book is recyclable. It is made from low-chlorine pulps
produced in a low energy, low emissions manner from renewable forests.
Printed and bound by
Martins the Printers, Berwick upon Tweed
Typeset in 11 point Sabon
© the contributors 2014

Contents
Acknowledgements 7
Foreword by Professor Adam Tomkins 9
Foreword by Richard Wilson 13
Introduction by Alan Bissett and Alasdair McKillop 17
1 A Hand-Wringer’s Tale 21
gail richardson
2 From Darlings to Pariahs: Rangers and Scottish National Pride 31
graham walker
3 Losing Your Soul and Discovering Your Roots 41
harry reid
4 The Man’s for Turning: How a Unionist Became Pro-Independence 49
colin armstrong
5 Constitutional Dilemmas: The British Club in Scotland 61
alasdair mckillop
6 The Long Road From Ibrox to Brechin 71
alex wood
7 Two Rangers Fans Debate National Identity 85
alan bissett and john dc gow
8 Bluenose Not Blue Noes 105
pamela thornton
9 Things Don’t Look So Different From South of the Border 109
iain duff
10 A Labour of Love 117
john robertson
5

11 hmrc Miss the Target 125
will mcleish
12 A Tattoo of the St George’s Cross and Other Stories 137
allan wilson
13 Jimmy Reid’s Govan 143
eileen reid
6

Acknowledgements
during season 2013/14, Rangers accumulated points quickly as the club
strode to the League One title with ease. In putting together this book, we
stockpiled debts at a similar rate. First, we must thank the contributors for
producing a range of excellent chapters on a topic that didn’t necessarily
lend itself to clear editorial guidance. They worked efficiently and dealt with
requests with more patience than we as editors had a right to expect.
While it would not be proper to elevate any single chapter as being worthy
of special praise, Colin Armstrong was in with the bricks, as it were. He
helped knock the idea into shape and the project wouldn’t have come to
fruition without his sound advice in the early stages. Elsewhere, Kirsten Innes
and Rodge Glass looked over things from time to time.
Over the past couple of years, a number of people might have found
themselves discussing aspects of the book without really knowing it. Thanks
to Andrew Sanders, Ian S Wood, Peter Geoghegan and Tom Gallagher for a
number of things, not the least being the production of work to inspire and
aspire to. Encouragement and interest also go a long way. Gerry Braiden
at The Herald regularly produces copy that will be a vital source for future
historians interested in the places Scotland’s religious and political fault-lines
meet. There have been plenty of stimulating discussions on these issues and
more. For all things Rangers): Chris Graham, Stewart Franklin and Graham
Campbell.
Gavin MacDougall, Louise Hutcheson and the staff at Luath Press directed
the process with their usual expertise after greeting the proposal with support
and suggestions.
Finally, during preparation of the book, Lucy Carol McKillop was born.
A sense of much-needed perspective is the very least she offers. Her country
might change around her and the fortunes of football clubs ebb and flow, but
some things will always remain the same. This is for her, with love.
7

8

Foreword
professor adam tomkins
a book about the relationship of a football club to a political decision? On
one level this is madness. But in Scotland it makes perfect sense.
It would not happen in England. If there were ever an English referendum
on the break-up of Britain it would occur to no one to compile a collection
of essays on what Manchester United, Arsenal or Nottingham Forest fans
had to say about it. No club in England – of any size – has a political identity
or a political presence similar to that which is enjoyed in Scotland by the
two great clubs of Glasgow. But while Rangers and Celtic may be unique in
Britain, there are comparators on the continent. Real Madrid and Barcelona
are the obvious examples, and there are others in Italy. Likewise, the role
played by Ajax in seeking to safeguard Dutch Jews from persecution at the
hands of the Nazis has given the Amsterdam club an important political
profile. I’ve been to the Amsterdam Arena only once but, as is sometimes also
the case at Ibrox, the Israeli flag was flying high, proud and defiant.
I was born in England, raised and educated there, and moved to Glasgow
11 years ago. In England I was an Arsenal fan with a season ticket at Highbury.
I rarely missed a home match and for years I travelled all over country and
continent alike in support of the Gunners. I moved to Scotland for work. It
was an opportunity that came knocking, not one that I had been seeking.
While we were flat-hunting we stayed with a friend who was a colleague and
a Bluenose. On the day we moved in to our new flat, Rangers hosted Arsenal
in a pre-season friendly: the champions of Scotland against the champions of
England. I bought tickets in the Main Stand and took my friend as a thank
you for having put us up while we were in transition. Arsenal won 3-0, with
a little help from the referee, as I recall. But there I was – at Ibrox – on the
very first night of my new life as a resident of Glasgow.
Years were to elapse before I would return. With no dog in the Old Firm
fight I declined to pick a side. During my time in London, Arsenal fans were
divided over which of the great Scottish teams they should root for. Those
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born under a union flag
who knew the club’s history tended to go for Rangers, but those who could
remember only as far back as the 1970s were dazzled by Liam Brady’s midfield
genius and knew that his association was with the green and white side
of the city. So I sat on the fence and took myself to Firhill from time to time,
pretending that I could somehow get used to a small club with a dreadful
ground despite more than a decade of having been spoilt (in terms of ground
and team) in London N5. I was kidding myself, but it was my oldest son who
saw through it. Aged six, he was dutifully sitting next to me at Firhill and,
bored in a quiet moment, starting singing, ‘We are the people!’ ‘Not here,
we’re not,’ came his father’s swift reply, although when asked ‘Why?’ no explanation
good enough for a six-year-old was forthcoming. On the way out
of that game, which was dismal, my boy looked at me and said, ‘Dad, that
was fun, but next time can we go to a proper match?’
I knew what he meant. His wee pal at school was a Rangers fan, as was
his dad. And a week or two later the boys were sitting together in the Family
Stand with their new Rangers scarves and grins as broad as you like. That was
the week before the club went into administration. Undeterred, we bought
season tickets in the Club Deck for the remainder of the season, went to the
Old Firm game at which Celtic could have won the league (it finished 3-2 but
all I remember is being 3-0 up) and, apart from moving our seats down the
Main Stand for the following season, we’ve never looked back.
Watching the lower leagues through the eyes of my sons has been fun. If
you’re only six or eight years old and your heroes are stuffing the opposition
8-0, it really doesn’t matter that it’s ‘only Stenhousemuir’. All that matters
is that we score when we want, we’re top of the league, and we’re going up.
But I’d be lying if I said that I went along to Ibrox only in order to take
my kids. It gives me a thrill to be the kind of dad that takes his boys to the
game, but there’s much more to it than that. I absolutely love it. Being in
a big crowd again. Belonging again. Singing again. Losing my mind with
frustration again. I’d missed it, and it is wonderful to be back. I didn’t really
choose Rangers just as a decade earlier I hadn’t chosen Glasgow. But when
the chance came knocking, I opened the door and embraced it. Serendipity
can be incredibly powerful, intoxicating even.
When, after the game, I return home a little hoarser and reflect on the day,
I wonder why it is that this particular coat fits me so well. Why Rangers?
Was it just luck? Or does it have anything to do with politics, with culture,
with sensibility? It’s not a difficult question: of course it has to do with these
things.
My 11 years in Scotland have changed me. Born and raised in England but
with a young family settled in Glasgow, I’m no longer the Englishman I was.
10

foreword by professor adam tomkins
I’m British. And one of the reasons I love Rangers fc is that it seems to me
to know how to be a British club in Scotland and a Scottish club in Britain.
The club’s multiple identities reflect my own. But, more than that, they have
helped me plant my feet more firmly in this city, no longer the Sassenach
outsider looking in or passing through, but someone who has come to cherish
Glasgow as his home.
Those of us who feel passionately about our Scottish or our British identities
are engaged in a political argument that will define both Scotland and
Britain for a generation or more. At Ibrox we see the Saltire and the Union
flag flying side by side. Defiantly and proudly British and Scottish at one and
the same time, what this says to me is that we don’t have to choose between
them. We can be both. In this, I sense, all but the most extreme Nationalists
and Unionists can agree. The argument is not ‘Scottish or British’, as if we
can be only one of these things, but ‘how do we best realise our mixed and
complex identities: together in Union or together simply as neighbours who
share the same island?’
The Union flag, of course, represents not only the Union of England and
Scotland but also the Union of Britain and Northern Ireland. One of the
fascinating and most important facets of the Scottish independence debate
is that the Irish question has (hitherto, at least) played no role in it. Whilst
there is a close relationship between Ulster and West Central Scotland, both
sides in the Scottish independence debate have sought to keep the politics of
Northern Ireland distinct and firmly at arm’s length. The argument between
Scottish Nationalists and Unionists does not map on to the much older, and
much more bitter, dispute over the relation of Britain to Ireland. There is
no evidence that Celtic supporters will vote en masse for independence: the
longstanding ties between working-class Catholics and the Scottish Labour
party have begun to loosen, but the snp’s attempts to lure this demographic
away from Labour have been only partially successful.
Likewise, as this book exemplifies, Rangers fans can be found on both
sides of the independence argument. Indeed, some of the banners displayed
in recent seasons by the Blue Order and the Green Brigade show that the two
sides of the Old Firm have something in common: a shared sense of injustice
at the snp’s so-called anti-sectarian legislation, the Offensive Behaviour at
Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 (whether
the injustice is real or based on a misperception I leave for another day).
Whether dislike of that legislation will influence the way supporters of the
Old Firm vote in the independence referendum remains to be seen.
No sane person could want Scottish politics to become more like Northern
Irish politics, but could it be too much to hope that the opposite may be true?
11

born under a union flag
Could something be learned in Ulster from the way we are doing our constitutional
politics here in Scotland? Passions will run high in the independence
debate. There is an awful lot at stake. But, like a great football match, when
the final whistle is blown, the players will shake hands and move on. If they
have any sense, the winners will be magnanimous in victory; the losers will
rue the day but accept the result nonetheless. I guess the one thing neither side
wants is a draw and a replay. But that’s up to the voters.
12

Foreword
richard wilson
football tends to recoil whenever politics imposes itself. The game’s
governing bodies, out of a sense of self-preservation but also to prevent a
loosening of their control, actively discourage a crossover between the two.
Clubs are supposed to exist in isolation from their surroundings, as though
oblivious, but for some this is impossible, as well as unwelcome. Many
sporting institutions owe their size, reach, status – even much of their glory
and their despair – to the ties that bind them to a specific community. What,
after all, would have become of Barcelona if the club was not a representation
of the Catalan culture and identity?
In Scotland, Rangers and Celtic embrace their rich heritages, which are
a potent combination of social, cultural and political influences as much
as sporting prowess, while also trying to limit the extremist views that are
potentially contained within these identities. They are precarious relationships
at times, but then that is no reason to deny them. Football and politics do
mix, often they are an essential combination, in the same way that football
and culture, and football and society, are naturally entwined.
These connections ought to be properly understood, though. At this stage
in Rangers’ long history, this subject is perhaps more interesting and more
pertinent than it has ever been. A period of crisis reduced the relationship
between the club and its supporters to one single dynamic: loyalty, for its
own sake and for its ability to be nourishing and comforting. In the hour
of need, fans responded out of a sense of duty, to be an essential part of the
process of recovery. To not stand up for Rangers when the club was on its
knees was to not be a true Rangers fan.
There was a cause, and it was to be there when the club needed you. The
journey back to the top flight, to the former status and certainties, was a
profound renewal of the elements, old and new, of the Rangers identity. But
this has always been an ongoing process. It was, for instance, the 1970s when
politically overt songs began to be heard from the majority of both sets of Old
13

born under a union flag
Firm fans. The Rangers support, too, was deeply influenced by the influx of
shipyard workers from Northern Ireland during two migrations last century.
If the Rangers support could once be considered a loosely homogenous
group, at least up to the early 1980s, that is no longer the case. What makes
the fanbase so vibrant is that it spans across the social divisions of wealth,
education and class. So ask one Rangers fan now what they consider to be
their identity, at least in relation to the club, and their answer will differ from
another Rangers fan, and another, and another. It is a defunct stereotype
to pigeonhole the Ibrox support as mainly Conservative voting, actively
Protestant, Unionist and Royalist. Complexities abound that enrich the
notion of what it is to be a Rangers fan.
Yet at the same time, the celebration of Britishness – of a kinship with
the rest of the United Kingdom, but most specifically England – has become
more prominent in the past two decades. Rangers were once the national
club of Scotland, with supporters organisations spread across the length and
breadth of the country, and that remains broadly true. No team in Scotland
would have prompted such a vast migration across the border as Rangers did
when the team played in the 2008 uefa Cup final in Manchester. Yet that
essential Scottishness, which is most vividly reflected in the club’s heritage in
the Govan shipyards and its deep, unbending roots in Glasgow’s workingclass
and professional communities, coincides amicably with a celebration of
Rangers’ place in Britain.
If it remains the archetypal Scottish club, despite an ongoing wariness
of the Scottish Football Association and by extension (sadly but hopefully
briefly), the national team, then it is also classically British. Many football
supporters in England take sides when it comes to the Old Firm, and they
identify in Celtic the instincts of the underdog, of a rebellious nature, and in
Rangers the sense of being the establishment. These are limited and unhelpful
constructs in Scotland now, but still how the clubs are perceived in England
and further afield. Outside Scotland, it is only in Northern Ireland and Ireland
that regard for each team tends to strictly divide along religious lines.
Old Firm fans mostly celebrate their respective identities, because they are
essential to their prominence. Without them, they would be two ordinary
Scottish clubs, rather than emblems that the Scottish and Irish diaspora cling
to across the globe.
At a time when Scotland is wrestling, intellectually and politically, with
the prospect of independence, Rangers fans should eschew being limited by
old ideas of what they represent. Books like this one provide a critical service.
What does it mean to be a Rangers fan? What does it mean to be a football
fan? How does the club and the game interact with the world around it?
14

foreword by richard wilson
Supporters ought to be more self-aware, both to deepen the emotional ties
with their club and to restrict the lurches into stereotyping.
Rangers fans are not defined by being anti-Catholic, or anti-Irish. Nor are
they defined by being Unionist, despite the Union Jack flags and singing of
‘God Save the Queen’. Plenty of fans will, for instance, vote for independence.
Politics remains an influence on the identity of the club and its followers, but
only as one amongst several others. To be a Rangers fan is, at its most distilled,
to celebrate the team and its history, the successes and the failures. It is to
understand that Rangers as an institution once proudly stood for industry,
endeavour, propriety, the pursuit and celebration of hard-won triumphs and
of unashamed excellence and pre-eminence, and can do so again.
Discussions about football and politics, culture and society are more
important than ever because the Ibrox support cannot be considered a
homogenous group. It is mixed and divergent, full of contradictions, but
bound to the same single premise: loyalty to the club, an emotional, financial
and practical commitment to being part of the Rangers community, whatever
your politics, your place in society, your background. Books like this one are
important because it recognises, explores and asserts this diversity.
Football is, beautifully, both a simple and a complex sport. It is part of our
everyday existence and so overlaps, enhances and contributes to every other
aspect of our lives. We should embrace that.
15

16

Introduction
alan bissett and alasdair mckillop
scotland is currently undertaking a thorough examination of itself,
intense even for a nation used to self-enquiry. The announcement of a
referendum on independence from the uk, after the Scottish National Party’s
majority win in the Holyrood elections of 2011, began a steadily growing
focus on the sort of country we have been, are, and could be. Conclusions
are multiple and contradictory – after all, where does Scottishness end and
Britishness begin? – and also heavily contingent upon the as yet unknown
result of the vote. ‘Stands Scotland where it did?’, as Shakespeare once wrote.
Well, we shall soon see.
Sensing that constitutional upheaval may be on the way, the rest of
the United Kingdom is starting to consider the implications. Chancellor
George Osborne, for example, intervened recently to warn Scotland that the
remainder of the uk would not be entering into a currency agreement, postindependence.
In this, he was backed by the other Westminster parties. Such
is the importance of the Union that the prospect of Scottish autonomy has
been the sole political issue of recent times to bond Conservatives, Labour
and Liberal Democrats in unqualified common cause. One would likely have
to go back to the Second World War to find such a precedent. Make of that
what you will.
The term ‘ruk’ (meaning ‘rest’ or ‘rump’ of the uk) has been commonly
used to describe a state that will carry on regardless, presumed to be a legally
continuing entity from which Scotland has merely absented itself. However,
it has also been posited that, given the uk was formed in 1707 by the union
of Scottish and English parliaments (which built on the 1603 Union of the
Crowns), both Scotland and ‘ruk’ will (or at least should) become new states,
whose place in Europe will be subject to renegotiation and whose assets and
liabilities would be contested. Such matters, touching as they do on history and
identity, state and individual, have the potential to excite great controversy.
What any of this means for a unifying ‘British’ identity – as opposed to
17

born under a union flag
separate Scottish, Welsh, English or Northern Irish ones – is entirely up in
the air. Some would argue that Scottish independence will cause a radical interruption,
indeed ending of British identity; others, including Alex Salmond,
claim there would be elements of continuity, based on shared geography,
language, traditions, institutions and history. The social union is a concept
that has been the subject of some debate and its expression following independence
would surely be scrutinised intensely.
As this discussion has been taking place, Rangers fc, a 142-year-old club,
has gone through one of the most traumatic periods in its history, following
the corporate and footballing consequences of financial collapse in 2012.
Rangers fans have in the past displayed banners describing their club as
‘quintessentially British’. How curious that ructions at this great institution
– captive to successive robber barons and subject to a dismantling – have
mimicked those of the nation-state from which the club draws its image. Pity
the Rangers fan: facing Ayr United and Brechin City in the lower leagues,
while Celtic sail unchallenged to domestic dominance and Scotland’s place
in the Union is fiercely contested. Is it mere coincidence that Rangers first
glimpsed their austere future in 2008, when Lloyds Banking Group demanded
a tighter say on the club’s finances, the same year that the financial crash
rocked world markets?
Indeed, over the last 30 years Rangers have served as a microcosm of
the uk’s fortunes. The arrival of Graeme Souness at Ibrox in 1986, with the
attendant wealth, glamour and success, mirrored an upsurge in the City of
London after Margaret Thatcher’s ‘Big Bang’ deregulation of the financial
sector. The ‘Nine-in-a-Row’ years in the ’90s, when Rangers dominated in
both the footballing and business sense, tracked a uk economy buoyed by
property, consumerism and retail. Rangers peaked with the high-spending
Dick Advocaat boom of the early ’00s, just as the uk’s credit market reached
immense proportions, before the chickens of reckless borrowing came home
to roost and it became clear that the fiscal ambitions of both Rangers and the
banks were not matching reality. For David Murray read Gordon Brown. For
suffering Rangers fans read ordinary Brits.
Just as the rise of the snp may prove to be a potential calling of time
on Britain, so too did Scotland – at least, its various footballing tribes and
organisations – turn a rancorous face towards Rangers at the club’s lowest
ebb. There has also been the controversial shadow of an snp policy targeted
at Old Firm fans, for better or worse: the Offensive Behaviour at Football and
Threatening Communications Act (Scotland) 2012. Some view this legislation
as a well-meaning attempt to limit sectarianism, others a blow to freedom of
speech.
18

introduction
While the rise and fall of the Light Blues in the last 30 years can be traced to
economic and political patterns beyond the game, Rangers are, nonetheless,
still a football club. Their symbolism can only be inferred and interpreted. It
is true that Rangers fc make no attempts to hide their Britishness – a picture
of the Queen, after all, hangs in the Ibrox dressing room – but they are also
a Glaswegian entity, with strong historical links to the Govan shipyards, as
prominent on the Scottish cultural landscape as whisky, golf or Billy Connolly.
Indeed, this tension (reconciliation?) between Scottishness and Britishness in
the form of Ibrox Stadium is one of the dominant themes of this book.
It is often taken for granted, by combatants on both sides of the independence
debate, that a Rangers fan will or should be a dyed-in-the-wool
Unionist, whose No vote is a foregone conclusion. No doubt there are many
such Rangers fans. But there are also many who intend to vote Yes, just as
there are supporters of Celtic, Aberdeen, Hibs, Dundee United and Hearts
who intend to vote No. While no one would wish to portray Rangers supporters
as paragons of virtue, lazy stereotypes can also surround the club.
Are Rangers fans not as capable of free thought as their fellow Scots? Won’t
the pragmatic and practical implications of independence or the Union win
out over a loyalty to either flag? The mutual suspicion with which the Tartan
Army and Rangers fans have viewed each other in recent decades may suggest
some irreconcilable difference between overt displays of Scottishness and
Britishness, but which Rangers fan does not cheer on Scotland? And which
Scotland fan was not impressed by Danny Boyle’s spectacular opening ceremony
at the London Olympics of 2012?
The overlap between Rangers and Scotland, or between Rangers and
Britain, is the difficult terrain this book wishes to explore. Our line-up alone
scotches (if you will) the idea that Rangers are a solely Unionist club: a
number of our contributors are Yes-voting Bears who believe independence
will bring about a better future for Scots. The fact that they couldn’t care
less about the Union in no way diminishes their love for the team. Others in
our line-up are pro-Union, and they have marshalled intellectual and moral
arguments which defy the caricature of the knuckle-dragging Loyalist, an
image which continues to be relied upon, even by those who should be rising
above it.
We even have an Aberdeen fan reflecting on his conflicting feelings for the
Glasgow club.
Each contributor brings a unique perspective on the independence issue,
on national identity – whether Scottish or British – and on what Rangers fc
represent. Personal histories are offered up as illustration, political narratives
are questioned and tested. The stakes of this debate are high indeed and
19

born under a union flag
countless influences will determine where people stand in relation to the
major issues.
For the record, our editors do not share a viewpoint on politics or Rangers.
One of us is a Yes activist, the other a Unionist. One of us is a regular at Ibrox,
the other has a connection based on nostalgia. One of us has written about
Rangers through the lens of fiction, the other in a more journalistic capacity.
Both of us have a desire to explore the complexity of this most inspiring,
maddening and fascinating club, especially at such a significant crossroads in
its own and Scotland’s history. In short, we wanted to ask: what do Rangers
mean to Scotland and what does Scotland mean to Rangers? What do Rangers
mean to Britain and what does Britain mean to Rangers? These essays are
the results of that enquiry.
Sport is part of society and the idea that wider society is not affected by
the reverberations from the coliseum is contested. As a ritualised form of
combat, football can become a cauldron of symbols and themes. This year,
the uk in general and Scotland in particular are going through a period of
febrile, internal strife. As the referendum approaches, there’s the increasing
feel of a nation being cleaved in two. Rangers fans are used to being one half
of a binary division, just not this binary division.
What will emerge at the other side of the referendum – what kind of
Scotland, Britain or Rangers – none of us yet know. But this book hopes to
make a useful contribution to the most important national conversation in
our recent, shared history.
20

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