Galloway divests Arab links for day

His incontestable interest in Arab affairs will not go so far as seeing him support United over Celtic at Hampden Park today, even though Galloway is regularly portrayed, along with such other usual suspects as Ricky Ross and Lord Watson, as a tangerine sympathiser.

Well, actually he is. But not enough of one to cheer for his home-town club today having been stung into the kind of rear-guard action in which he excels by Celtic's two-minute title capitulation last week. "I would have been happy to support the underdog on the basis that Celtic had won the championship, but I am afraid I will have to be dragged back to the Celtic corner as a result of last weekend," says Galloway. "Celtic are my first love, so I have to hope they don't leave the season empty-handed."

An entertaining scourge of the Establishment, he isn't quite maverick enough to pin his colours to the United mast the way he once did in Dundee when, having used his influence to twin the city with Nablus, Galloway's home town became the first in the western world to hoist a Palestinian flag above its city chambers. At the time it was said the Dundee Labour Party had more interest in the left bank of the Jordan than in the right bank of the Tay. Focus will be on neither this afternoon. Attention will be fixed on the banks of Mount Florida, Galloway's famous come-hither stare included.

Although raised in Dundee, although he elected to follow the Tannadice club's fortunes rather than those of Dundee, Galloway has placed his X mark in the Celtic box since he was a boy growing up in Lochee.

He has met with Fergus McCann one less time than he met with Saddam Hussein. They took dinner together in the Churchill Room at Westminster, after the then Celtic owner had addressed a group of influential Celtic followers. "He didn't pay for it of course, he is famously parsimonious," the MP points out. Unlike Galloway, whose extravagant lifestyle and love of neatly-fitting threads earned him the tag "Gorgeous". He is equally generous with his footballing affections, admitting to a bipolar love affair with Celtic and United. Those of us exhausted by the strain of following the fortunes of just the one team can do little but salute his indefatigability.

It is the Parkhead club's bed he will leave tomorrow morning, driven to Celtic's side by their traumatic experience at Fir Park six days ago. He displays some anxiety about the future, even with a fellow firebrand at the helm. "Gordon Strachan I liked as a player, and I have met him socially and he is a very nice person," explains Galloway. "I'd just have preferred a manager with more European experience."

He will bid farewell to Martin O'Neill today after a lunch-time appointment with Radio Scotland's Off the Ball programme. This radio appearance presents him with another opportunity to show-case his much admired eloquence on a show which requires more quick-thought than a dozen stand-offs in front of Senator Norm Coleman.

He might need to prepare himself for another attack on his integrity, this time from presenter Tam Cowan, whom Galloway has hailed a "comic genius". It isn't hard to predict Cowan's response to a man who professes to support two teams in the same league. 'Get' and 'tae' might be two of the words he will choose to employ. Galloway, however, remains true to his claim, and this week travelled through his own back pages to reveal why.

"It is for probably tribal reasons, if I am being honest," he explains. "I come from the area of Lochee, which is Dundee's historical Irish quarter. It used to be known as Tipperary. Because I come from an Irish background I was obviously drawn to Celtic, even though I couldn't travel to see them.

"In any case, my father was a great Dundee United supporter, so I began supporting them when they were not long out of the Second Division and when they wore white strips with two black hoops. Of course, Dundee United were formerly known as Dundee Hibernian, so there were not many reasons to go for the other team."

This "other team" being Dundee FC. The Dens Park side were the eminent club in the city when Galloway was a boy, and his rejection of their appeal in favour of United was perhaps an early indication of his socialist tendencies. Dundee, historically, are the club of the jute barons, while United owed their existence to the tenacity of the jute workers, many of whom were Irish.

That said, it didn't prevent Galloway cheering for Dundee too. "I never took a sectarian attitude to these kind of things," he says. Galloway was there, aged just seven, when Dundee won the league at Muirton Park in 1962, and present during the European Cup run the following season. "I could tell you the team," he purrs. "Slater, Hamilton, Cox, Seith, Ure and Wishart, Smith, Penman, Cousin, Gilzean and Robertson. How about that? Forty years' recall, and I am not even a Dundee fan."

His powers of recollection are certainly more impressive than his talent for prophecy. In an online interview organised by the London Evening Standard last month he was asked which football team he supported. "Glasgow Celtic," Galloway replied, before adding in triumphant manner: "who effectively yesterday became champions again, four times in five seasons under Martin O'Neill." This admittedly came the day after Celtic's win at Ibrox had convinced all of the apparent destination of the championship. It was also in the week of the general election. Galloway was understandably distracted by his bid to wrestle the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency away from Labour's Oona King. It was a battle he won. Then came his blistering performance in Washington in front of American Senators, who had accused him of accepting oil allocations from deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Not bad for a boy from the Harris Academy. He is now reported to be worth 40,000 a pop on the US speech circuit.

Galloway could just about be considered the most famous Celtic fan on the planet. After Bono, and Billy Connolly. But what about United, deprived of his celebrity affections today? "They still have Ricky Ross," laughs Galloway. "And Mike Watson, though he's not such a celebrity these days."

He is not actively hoping United go down in flames, however.

"You can take the boy out of Dundee but you can't take Dundee out of the boy," he says, bristling at a recent report in the Times which described him as a Glaswegian. "I'll be very far from inconsolable if Dundee United win," he admits. "It's a very difficult situation for me. The political thing to do would be to stay away, but then I never do the right thing politically."

But, as for a prediction, Gorgeous George gives the only one possible. "Celtic to win," he says. "Handsomely."