Celtic v Rangers

Sitting here at home in Ratchaburi watching Celtic -v- Rangers live from Glasgow. As we approach half time it is 0-0 and that is about right. My wife Luna, a devout Catholic, is rooting for Rangers, or rather The Huns. To give you an idea of her devotion Luna will not read The Da Vinci Code as she heard a priest denounce it in a sermon! My mother, God bless her soul, would approve but would take an extremely dim view about anything to do with supporting the Huns.

Funny thing is the other half are just the same! I remember being in The Dolphin Bar in Dunbar,East Lothian. My then brother-in-law, Norman, liked the crack in there. It was a true blue shop as they say and I remember being introduced to somebody called Davy, the archetypical Hun, who had followed Rangers everywhere and may well have been involved in the desecration of Catholic churches in Barcelona when the Huns had their great European adventure in the early 1970s. Davy revelled in telling me his wife only made one mistake in their married life. She wore a green suit when they were about to go on their honeymoon. Davy was proud of the fact that his wife duly obliged when he ordered her to get the green clothing off; he told me he wouldn't even eat garden peas.

This reminds me of meeting George at the Thai Food Festival in London a few years ago. George is a crane driver, a hulking brute of a man, in many respects typical south east London white,working class: raucous, gobby,prejudiced and a major piss head. What surprised me was his membership of the Orange Order! He married a Thai woman and they have two kids, Billy & Liz, called after monarchs because George and his wife ".....love the royal family." George called Billy over, a nice kid then of about 11 years, and told the boy to tell me where he had spent his holidays. This kid replied:"Drumcree" which you may recall was the scene of a protracted stand off about marching rights in Ulster. George then told Billy to tell me what he had learned and Billy replied: "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right". I can only describe this as a seriously surreal encounter! I learned as the beer flowed that George's dad was a Liverpool hair dresser who moved down to London and it was a tradition in the family for the men to join the Orange Order.

In my late teens I got heavily into Irish republicanism and it was a given with my Catholic Glasgow antecedents that I would be a Celtic fan.Personally I feel a serious amount of shame and regret about this period. It took me to the brink of psychosis by fanning my ample anger and hatred. Add in drink and drugs....say no more.

I'll never like Rangers but today I don't like sectarianism. All a load of rubbish. The match is nearly over, still 0-0. Luna has asked me to get her a Celtic top when I visit Glasgow next month!