Ali Russel’s a firm believer in Glasgow rivalry

A TREASURE that is in danger of being buried under the dirt. That might be one way of describing Ali Russell’s take on the Old Firm derby. The Rangers director of operations took the unusual step last week of inviting Sunday journalists to discuss the forthcoming derby on 28 December. Unusual – in Scottish terms – in that all he wanted to do in the confab was be an unabashed cheerleader for the fixture.

It is time to stop blaming the occasion for Scottish society’s ills and start appreciating the benefits it brings to the country was the basic thrust of Russell’s ra-raing. He even went as far as making the extraordinary claim that Rangers and Celtic are responsible for “the greatest rivalry in world football”. “That is the tagline I want associated with it,” he said.

Even El Clasico, which pits Barcelona against Real Madrid is “not a patch on what we’ve got”, Russell ventured. When it was put to him that these confrontations place some of the globe’s most feted footballers in opposition, while there are no nationwide – never mind worldwide – household names among the combatants in Glasgow, he said that this merely supported his opinion.

There is something innate about the Old Firm fixture, the roots of which relate to their heritage and rivalry, that makes their get-togethers a spectacle he claimed was beamed into a billion homes across the planet irrespective of the playing cast list. Russell’s bid to reclaim the Glasgow derby as something to “celebrate” and proudly present to the world might easily be placed in the laudable but laughable category. It is only ten months since the “shame game”. The “World War III” headlines the ill-tempered Scottish Cup tie generated saw the entire establishment, led by police and politicians, ganging up to condemn what flows – in the form of alcohol-related violence – from the Old Firm fixture. A rise in domestic abuse was held up as an intolerable consequence of these confrontations.

Both clubs attended a hastily-organised summit and what was subsequently agreed in a joint action plan accounts for the fact they will meet on the night of a working day, Wednesday, after Christmas, instead of the traditional New Year holiday. Squeezing the drinking time to suit pub and home television watchers, rather than those in the stadium, is one means by which it is hoped to lessen the negative social impact of an encounter that Russell described as “our shop window; up there with the Grand National”.

Meanwhile, the fact that February’s infamous fixture came during a period when Celtic manager Neil Lennon and two other supporters of the club were sent letter bombs precipitated new laws – approved by the Scottish Parliament last week – that will place limits on how people can behave at these games that arguably run contrary to the concept of freedom of speech.

“We went willingly into the joint action group and we agreed to trial it. We have some significant reservations in terms of the fans’ travel [for 28 December],” Russell said. “If you read the papers you would believe every ill in society was down to the Old Firm. The converse view is it’s not all bad. There are a lot of community initiatives here.

“You get spikes in stats. When you get half the country watching one game, a minority will be involved in anti-social behaviour. We can’t have football dragged through the gutter and made responsible for all the ills in society.”

If suspending scepticism, it is possible to present a sound case to support Russell’s contention that the Old Firm fixture is “absolutely amazing”. And not simply down to it being watched in over 100 countries, with seven times the average audience for a televised SPL game, which meant that viewing figures for the final derby of last season topped one million. Or because the rivalry is one of the country’s most notable exports.

Rangers security chief David Martin attended last week’s drum-banging (if that doesn’t conjure up the wrong image) for the fixture. As a former policeman, he can vouch for the fact one of the most amazing aspects of the modern-day Old Firm game is the conduct of those attending. In part because, when they do so, they will not encounter law enforcers in riot gear. “‘The Game of Shame’, as it was called, was anything but that,” said Martin. “We had three players sent off and there was a wee spat on the sidelines. Thirty years ago that would have been enough to get fans over the wall battering each other. There was no instance of fan-on-fan violence at the game, either in the stadium or around it. It was a non-event to a large extent.

“I’ve got a lot of experience of policing football. I can remember the 1980 Old Firm Scottish Cup final. It used to be carnage in the streets. The frustration for me is we’ve given the fans absolutely no credit whatsoever. We continue to condemn that and we’re now going to criminalise them. It’s bizarre.

“I’m surprised people haven’t delved more deeply into the domestic abuse stats because I don’t think they will stand up to scrutiny.

“If you look at football down south and in continental Europe it’s policed in public order gear, batons, shields, all that kind of stuff. If you remember the Birmingham derby last season, all police had public order gear. We had the English FA who looked at how we police these games. The police down south are astonished we police them without public order gear. It’s cops in conventional uniform and they can’t believe we can achieve that: that speaks volumes.

“It’s bizarre. If you travel around Europe and see football fans’ behaviour [you will see that] football violence is still commonplace. We don’t have it [here] per se. If it exists it’s on the periphery, so minimal it doesn’t merit debate. What we’ve got up here is fans who sing songs at each other, that’s what we’ve got and that’s what we’re torturing ourselves over. That’s my personal view, not the club’s, but there’s not another country in the world that would be doing this.”

Martin’s comments might not have made him exactly on-message with Russell over a fixture the club’s commercial director admitted the club remained “open” to staging in the United States. But they aggregated into a compelling argument for the Glasgow derby being better than it is ever given credit for.

Exactly the notion Russell so desperately wants to promote.