The Point

Last updated: 27 June 2022.

Independence and the National Game

Here we go, here we go, here we go!

Sean Robertson examines the plethora of football fan groups for independence being set up, and the potential for building a Yes vote on the terraces

 

              

 

Scottish Football and its links to politics, have, in recent times, been presented as negative by the mainstream media and political parties, mainly due to the connections of the Old Firm to Irish culture and history.

However, despite inflated prices at turnstiles and a general fall in match day attendances, the football club is still the bastion of the working class male in Scotland and as such should be viewed as a vital vehicle for political and social change by groups such as Yes Scotland and the Independence Convention. This fact has begun to be realised by grass roots Yes Scotland activists who are also football fans and already Yes Scotland ‘fans for independence’ Facebook groups have been set up by Aberdeen, Hearts, Kilmarnock, Hibs, Livingston, Celtic, Rangers (some might say surprisingly) and Ross County, among others.

Currently these are basically message boards advertising general Yes Scotland activities in the area local to each club as well as acting as discussion group, but it doesn’t take much of a leap of the imagination to see how these could in the future be utilised to organise protests and organise the rank and file in a similar way to the student protests in recent years or even the revolutions in the middle east, which were instigated and organised through social media sites. The crowds inside grounds, for example, could be deployed to create pro-independence spectacles which would inevitably feature in the media in the run up to the poll in autumn 2014.

 

 

Historically, football and politics have often been linked. In the 1930’s and 40’s Neil Gunn, the celebrated Caithness novelist and staunch nationalist asserted that sporting traditions and nationalism are inextricably connected, stating that “the life and death of one was often linked to the life and death of the other”.

Past separatist movements have shown the importance of football to the national mood and its influence on the political zeitgeist, for example that in evidence prior to the 1979 home rule referendum. At the time many commentators, Willie McIlvanney perhaps the most prominent among them, suggested that had Scotland performed better at the Argentina ‘78 World Cup (or if expectations hadn’t been built up to unachievable levels by the ultimate man-motivator Ally McLeod) then the outcome of that vote could have been different. The suggestion that McIlvanney and others appear to be making is that if it wasn’t for a ‘we were pish’ hangover, Scotland could have secured devolution two decades earlier. Instead people surmised that if we cannae run a fitba team we cannae run a nation.

During the 1997 Scotland FORward campaign, it was proposed that Scotland’s success in the qualification campaign was an influential factor in securing a Yes-Yes vote in addition to other sports stars such as the sprinter Ian Mackie and Scottish International footballer and sometime-captain Gary McAllister coming out in support of Yes-Yes.

Following the general election in 1992 Scottish football fans were lambasted for being ‘ninety minute natinalists’ by the SNP leadership for not coming out to vote for their party. While there were other reasons for the bulk of the Scottish vote to go to Labour- not least to ensure the Tories were kept out following the poll tax battle, it is true that the football team had been doing well, qualifying for the European Championships in Sweden and the World Cup finals two years earlier. Perhaps counter intuitively, however, as the graph below  actually demonstrates, support for independence tends to flat line or even fall when the national team punches above its weight. During the Tartan Army’s most successful period, between 1974 and 1992 the SNP’s support (used here as an admittedly imperfect surrogate for support for independence) fell from 30.5% to a low of 11% and rarely rose above 25% in the same period. 

                     

With regard to FIFA world rankings, the reverse appears to be the case, with peaks and troughs in both graphs appearing to correspond: for example when Scotland was ranked 12^th the SNP’s vote soon jumped to 45% in the polls.

It may be possible to convince football fans of the need for independence for purely selfish footballing reasons if evidence from other countries is examined. Small, Relatively newly independent European nations have performed relatively well since their liberation. Slovenia has a population roughly half that of Scotland’s, but has qualified for two world cup finals and one European championship since independence in the early Nineties. Croatia managed to finish third at the France ’98 World Cup and has been virtually ever present at tournament since while Slovakia also qualified for the 2010 World Cup where they knocked out holders Italy.  

 

 

Small newly independent nations in Europe have enjoyed significant footballing success in recent years.

 

Of course previous utilisations of sport for political ends in Scotland have mainly had a nationalist slant, whereas in this independence campaign it is important that socialists stress both the immediate benefits of independence to working class Scots- more proportionate government giving a better chance of success for progressive political movements and parties and a larger, more equitable share of tax revenues for public spending being two of the main examples, but also promote our vision of a socialist Scotland as opposed to any ‘change the flag and everything will be okay’ mentality. Given the largely working class nature of the Scottish football fan, the terraces could well be fertile breeding grounds for both Yes and for socialism.

The potential unifying power of football has been in the spot light recently both in Scotland and further afield. At the Celtic versus Barcelona match, which coincided with the anniversary of the formation of the Glaswegian club when the fans as one turned the stadium into a work of live art with a Celtic cross as its centrepiece. Perhaps more relevantly, at the recent visit of Real Madrid for the El Classico match in Barcelona, when the match clock registered 17 minutes and 14 seconds (1714 was the year Catalonia was finally vanquished by Spanish forces) 95,000 Barcelona fans began to chant “in-inde-independencia” and the stadium was awash with a sea of red and yellow in the form of the Catalans flag.

These spectacles are exactly the kind of action that social media groups are perfect for organising and promoting. Messages on the discussion groups could co-ordinate the supporters so that Celtic Park or Ibrox could transform into a giant Saltire or the Yes Scotland emblem, (or even to placate some of our more extreme brothers-in-arms, a sea of red with a slogan which reads “revolution or death” and just a postage sized Saltire behind the away goal).

The Facebook message boards are also useful for more mundane campaigning, to organise leafleting before or after a match or to ensure the Yes campaign has a presence at every SPL match for instance. Fans could also ask for funding for or fundraise themselves for hoarding boards at grounds up and down the country.

The potential size of groups such as ‘Jambos for Independence’ are substantially larger than some conventional Yes Scotland groups which are to be set up in towns with lower populations than average attendances at many grounds and the fact that clubs like Rangers, who are traditionally perceived as staunchly pro-Unionist, already have a lively pro-independence group so early on in the campaign means that football’s part should not be underestimated.

What could be better than an Old Firm game, or a Cup Final, or even (and perhaps more do-able) a Scottish International, during which Hampden is shaking with pro-independence songs and the Tartan Army flying the flag of freedom to get the country behind the cause?