The Power, Psychology and Problems of Scottish Football
Gerry Hassan
January 17th 2010
Scottish football holds a place in the centrestage of Scotland, and even more it has a mythical power and importance over much of our culture: an importance which I believe has increased in the last thirty years as other vessels and phenomena we invested our hopes in: political and social bit the dust.
One of the paradoxes of this age has been this move towards a coercive sense of ‘collective joy’ about football as it has become more corporatised and in Scotland in a number of respects, a flawed, failing entity. Another is while football has taken on this greater sense of importance, the parameters of discussion, debate and understanding of our football have become even narrower, more ahistoric and part of an unreflective public debate.
I have written before that in the formative years of Scottish broadcasting we had Archie MacPherson, Bob Crampsey and Arthur Montford. These men were significant national figures, educated, cultured and thoughtful, and in Crampsey’s case, a wonderful polymath. Today the only person who could even be spoken of in remotely the same company is the impressive Graham Spiers of ‘The Times’. Instead the main discourse of Scottish football is of a dumbed down plastic proletarianism and vulgarity: from ‘Off the Ball’ to Jim Traynor, the ‘Daily Record’ and ‘Sun’.
It comes as a real pleasure to find James Hamilton’s essay on the state of the Scottish game, ‘Scotland’s National Team: Eleven Impossible Jobs, Plus Substitutes’ on the fascinating ‘More than Mind Games’ website (1). Hamilton who writes and covers football has produced an impressive contribution on the game, at once passionate, informative, reflective and challenging, written with a grace and nuanced understanding of football history, while bringing in psychology and culture.
Hamilton’s thesis is a complex one and he starts by addressing the transformation of the English national team under Capello. He states that Capello recognised at the outset ‘when an Englishman pulled on his international shirt, he lost all the confidence he felt at his club: he played in fear’. Hamilton believes tackling such a situation with the Scottish national team at the moment is beyond one manager or the players, and is about the psychology of football and our country.
Yes there is the problem of ‘Flower of Scotland’ and the small-mindedness it represents to anyone who thinks about it; but Hamilton rightly argues that this is only representative of a wider malaise, namely ‘the fan delusion’ which hitches onto a host of myths and delusions. Reflecting on the build up to the Scotland v. Italy qualifier in 2007 he comments:
I felt it coming before the game. Scottish commentator after Scottish commentator came forth to claim that Scottish passion! And Scottish weather! And the Hampden crowd! Would make life hard for Italy and sweep the Scots home. It betrayed football, that attitude: it betrayed Scottish footballers. It said, you aren’t good enough.
This is absolutely spot on and indeed Hamilton’s thesis could be taken further: the over-inflating (and desperate) over-emphasis on the Scottish game has led to a whole pile of problem attitudes about the game and society which point to an essentialising of the Scottish character: the pithy wee nation, the outsider with everything stacked against it using the elements, the rain etc, to get our just deserts.
One of the worrying trends is that you can see such a phenomenon across society: in the support for anyone playing the English at football, in the slow rise of a bigoted anti-Englishness, and related to it a kind of romantic, sentimental national feeling (I wouldn’t credit it with the intelligence of a nationalism) which mixes ‘Braveheart’ with ‘Whiskey Galore’.
He then develops a compelling argument, beautifully illustrated at every point, based around three obstacles. The first of these is the Scottish team’s two contradictory roles.
Scotland see themselves as underdogs argues Hamilton and herein lies part of the problem, for we are not real underdogs like say Iceland or Estonia, but underdogs who want to have our cake and eat it:
Scotland aren’t comfortable with the underdog idea, and end up wanting underdog-style victories at regular enough intervals to achieve non-underdog footballing goals.
His second obstacle is the Scottish false football history, a kind of false memory syndrome. Hamilton addresses an alternative interpretation of the national team, its near-misses of qualifying in 1966 and 1970, and its near-successes in the World Cups of 1974, 1978 and 1982. He says of the 1970s World Cup experience: ‘No one outside Scotland thought them humiliated’ and then goes on: ‘The self-flagellatingly harsh assessment of Scotland’s World Cup performances has had two powerful effects on subsequent events’.
The first of these was that ‘the weight of perceived failure has led to defeats in important games that would otherwise have been won’ and the second is the ‘impact on Scottish players now’, asking: ‘How does it feel to fill the shoes of men you are constantly told were legends’ who you are ‘inferior soul(s)’ in comparison with?
The third obstacle is what Hamilton calls dances of death, by which he means ‘dances between the Scottish national team and Scottish national puissance and the Scottish national team and Scottish Premier League’. There is ‘nothing wrong … with a country choosing to use football to express itself on the international stage’ as for example Brazil did from the 1920s on. And yet, anyone with any intelligence as a footie fan in Scotland knows there is something seriously wrong doing so here:
But for now, it would be better if Scottish puissance were not seen as quite the function of Scottish footballing performance it is now. It’s too much for men to carry, not without the infrastructure, training and attitude necessary to bring it off. And when so few Scots actually play the game, it’s unfair on those who do. Choose literature; choose wave power; choose Edinburgh’s superb pubs. Choose something else until football can manage it.
In his concluding thoughts Hamilton moves on to how Scots don’t see how others see their culture. The constant going on about the frailty of everything Scottish, and how Scots culture, institutions and values are under threat, completely misses the point. What is the defining feature of Scotland is the strength (and over-obsession) with Scottish identity:
I’ve learned that not many Scots in Scotland realize just how secure as a country and as a nation they really are. It’s a shame: they can afford to relax into themselves much more than they do where England is concerned.
The search for the perfect Scots identity is not only an illusionary one; it is a harmful, painful and counter-productive one. We would really be better investing our time in something more tangible and productive such as our appalling child poverty or health or alcohol levels, the list is sadly nearly endless.
Football matters. It matters as a sport and activity, but in a place like Scotland it tells us a lot about us a society, nation, culture and how we see our history and future. We are one of the most football obsessed places on the earth – and that is statistically true not an urban myth.
The Scots ‘official story’ of their football history has become a lamentable one, both narrow and self-destructive. It seems to rest on positively only a few isolated incidents, the Jim Baxter keepie-up at Wembley 67, the Wembley invasion of 77 and Archie Gemmell’s famous goal. The rest is all about celebrating defeat, disgrace, humiliation and celebrating a sense of victimhood.
Hamilton is absolutely right that it doesn’t have to be this way. We could begin to tell another story. Scotland has actually for a small nation a proud and rich history football wise: eight World Cups, defeating Czechoslovakia twice to quality in the 1970s, once when they were reigning Euro Champions. And our domestic teams despite recent ignominies have a fabulous record in Europe: three trophies, while on nine occasions we have reached European finals, more I think than most nations, and well above for example the French.
The answer here is three fold. First, to put football in its proper context in an age which we are constantly told by IT gurus and new economy geeks is constantly filled with choice and diversity, and yet which in many respects has become narrower and more conformist. Is football used by (mostly) men as an anchor point in a culture of chaos and confusion, and why do we not want to talk about that?
Secondly, the Scots need to address some serious issues about their culture and society. Knowing a bit more history: both real and on the football field would be a good start.
Finally, it would be great to do something about our football, the sad awfulness that is the Scottish Premier League and the nature of ‘the Old Firm’. Maybe getting them to commit to the Scots domestic game for the next ten years and engage in a root and branch transformation, which would involve Celtic and Rangers seeing their successes as interlinked with the success of Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and Dundee United.
Or am I dreaming there and guilty of the very problem James Hamilton so thoughtfully mapped out?
Notes
Another very enjoyable, insightful piece Gerry.
I have one major difference of view, a pivotal one in some respects. You write that football, is “centrestage”, has “power and importance” in Scottish life and culture, almost to the point of “obsession”. (Hope that’s not too far off your mark)
I would agree with that analysis if you had stated that this is true of a proportion of Scottish people, and in certain areas of Scottish life and culture.
It would be fascinating to do a representative survey of interest in and attitudes towards football in Scotland. My sense is that a large proportion, maybe even a majority of men would admit to be uninterested in football most of the time, with the exception of major national games such as world cup deciders. Women’s negative or disinterested views of football would be of a much higher order.
So, if I’m right, we’re now talking about probably a minority of adults being engrossed in football. The media – or at least the sports pages and sections – make the most of this needy “market” and maybe that’s where the idea that we as a country are obsessed comes from.
Thus the media portrays the stereotype but inaccurate views about our football: underdogs, brave losers etc, but the media are portrayers of utterly inaccurate views of many aspects of reality in Scotland. To read, watch or listen to our national media, everything in football is a crisis, a tragedy or a night of glory, just as Scotland is described as a drug-crazed, alcohol-strewn place where old women are assaulted on a near-hourly basis making our streets all but a war zone that no one other than Judge Dredd would dare to walk even in daytime.
I don’t recognise that portrayal of Scotland, not even in the so-called deprived areas of Central Scotland that I know pretty well. And the image of football is just as inaccurate.
So where do I think we are in football in Scotland? The Old Firm will within ten (maybe five) years finally leave to go to a European League of sorts – most likely a version of the Atlantic League idea, with the great Dutch, Portuguese, Scandinavian, Belgian teams (the English, German, Italian and Spanish leagues top teams don’t need to change) thus logically progressing the globalisation of football’s most powerful teams, managers and players. The Scottish league will without the Old Firm eventually revert to a two division system of around 20 teams each, of a mediocre quality but interesting leagues of fairly equal (and equally impoverished) teams.
Most importantly for the game in Scotland I’d like to see a really professional strategy of enthusing kids in football, with indoor infrastructure and high level of training and coaching to match, and the development of more intelligent high quality coaching. For a small country we have more than our fair share of successful managers and coaches, but these mostly emigrate to the highest paid jobs – Ferguson, Moyes, etc – so we need more. Most football managers and coaches I’ve experienced were in a nutshell bullies whose idea of motivation was to tell you to fucking move faster and kick the bastard. Not exactly Signor Capello.
And I think that’s about all we need do – proper children’s football excitement and development, and nurture top notch coaches.
Cheers,
Martin
That’s a fascinating comment, Martin, and many thanks for it. I agree with nearly all that you say and in particular absolutely agree with you about the role, power and distortive voice of the media, in terms of football, our society and so much in life. However, I do think that whatever percentage it is of the Scots population, and however, the amplification of the media, football has this grip on large parts of the Scottish psyche and population; we know empirically that in terms proportionately of population Scottish football attendances are some of the highest in the world!
Where I am really less sure what you are stating is on the future of the Scottish game and the Old Firm leaving our shores for more a more competitive land. Lets suppose that could happen somewhere down the line, does it then suppose that we do nothing at the moment which is of a far-reaching nature. Given the Old Firm ain’t going anywhere in the near-distant future, why couldn’t we look at them agreeing to commit to the Scots game for the next ten years say, and agreeing to change their ways, such as only buying one player a year from their competitors. At the moment, we have the worst of all worlds, where Celtic and Rangers don’t really see their future as in the Scottish game, but strangle it to death!
If they agree for a period that their success was interwoven with that of the Hibs, Hearts, Dundee Uniteds of this world, and these teams successes with the Old Firm, that would be a big start. And I don’t accept the ahistoric point: it has always been thus, ‘cus since the Souness Revolution Scots football has been lopsided in the extreme. Any examination of the league tables under Celtic’s nine in a row versus the last twenty years shows that; then Aberdeen and Hibs nearly won the title, whereas in the recent past only Hearts have once split the Old Firm.
Of course, the whole Celtic and Rangers thing is only one part of the equation and there are many other issues. The wider and more powerful issue is the psychology and culture of our football, which is aided by the general malaise in the game which the Old Firm feed into, the powerlessness lots of football fans feel, mirroring that sentiment in large parts of modern life, and the way our politics and media aid this by the mass hysteria, black and white thinking you mention Martin, rather than developing a serious, considered public conversation. But I don’t just blame this on the Old Firm or the media, it is a wider predicament and something we all in a sense have a responsibility for.
Good piece Gerry
I agree with Martin Stepeks points about the over-inflation of the importance of football in Scotland (and in fact the majority of this is an obsession on the Old Firm and the hidden tribalism therein)and the so-called ‘coaching’ of kids.
The broader point the article makes about the alternative reading of history is compelling. If you factor in the appearances by Scottish clubs in semi-finals as well as finals, a very different picture emerges of a nation and clubs punching well above its weight in terms of its population and fan base. Compare this with the clubs of the other nations of all the UK for example. If you take Liverpool, Man Utd, Notts Forest and Spurs out then the English story of success is much more sporadic.
Domestically, this was all forgotten about by the Souness-Murray ‘revolution’ and that event is still casting its baleful shadow over the game. Souness’s basic point was that the Scottish game was inferior to the English and European in every way and this has been maintained in both overt and covert language ever since. Everyone has a role in challenging Souness’s and Murrays narrow parochial views, but it is difficult since to criticise Souness/Murray is to criticise the Old Firm and the only result of that is the shouting down ’show us your trophies’ closure of any dialogue.
STV’s recent ‘Football years’ programme on 1967 was an example – 3 Scottish clubs were involved in the final stages of European trophies that year but only two (guess who) had their campaigns covered in any depth. The “forgotten story” of Scottish football in Europe might feature clubs like Hibs, Dundee, Kilmarnock, Dundee Utd, Aberdeen and would also look at the teams they knocked out as some major European sides were defeated. So it was a lot more than just Inter Milan…
What is very interesting is that Scottish football appears to extend this amnesia about the one appearance by a Scottish club (Celtic) in the World Club Championship final in 1967 which again barely featured in the programme – yet this was a world final and the Scottish leg was played at the national stadium. There was far more time spent on Celtic defeating Real Madrid in a testimonial for Di Stefano. This appearance does not even rate a mention on the clubs website brief club history although a club historian wrote an unofficial book on this in 2006.
The world cup story is in the shadow of the English victory in 1966 and yet, if that event is taken out of English football, then their own world cup record for a country their size is not great – as more thoughtful English commentators and writers note. Yet few Scots writers note this and there is, as you say, an obsession with 1966 which is talked about through the distancing mechanism of the Wembley 3-2 game of 1967.
My view is that the focus on the Old Firm is a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and we need to acknowledge this as a nation.
We need to challenge the Souness/Murray story and see it as fundamentally defeatist and ignorant of Scottish footballs history and pedigree. Its the football version of “poor wee ignorant backward Scotland” being ’saved’ by the Act of Union that used to be told in Scottish history. An act of remembering the ‘forgotten story’ outlined above and a focus on the story of the development of the women’s game in Scotland would be a great counterpoint for starters.
As for the Old Firm getting into European leagues and/or entry to the Premiership, I remain sceptical as their respective fan bases show little enthusiasm for the distinct possibility of seasons with no guaranteed trophies.
Given Scottish footballs relative success story in both European and world cup terms for a small nation, maybe what really worries the Scots is how good they’ve been and not the other way around? So the question is why the Scots are not so good at celebrating their successes?
Theres two crucial factors of change here.
First since 1989 the growth in the number of half-decent football nations after the break up of the USSR and Yugoslavia. Count up how many of ‘em have qualified for a World Cup or a Euro, making it more competitive for Scotland and other ’smaller’ (apols) nations.
Second the introduction of seeding. This makes it so much harder to reverse any cycle of decline. Before a bad performance in one campaign could be made up the next time around. Now that is much less likely to be case unless you are very, very lucky in the draw.
Scotland qualifying for Euro 96 n France ‘98 with this in mind was a huge achievement. 96 and 98 are more the surprise in point of fact rather than the subsequent failures.
Mark P
Interesting post. I’ve responded (in depth) here:
http://tinyurl.com/yevgnzq
Incidentally, Mark P… why does a country like Croatia produce so many talented, gifted and technically proficient players and, well, Scotland doesn’t?
RCM