Football and sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s

Irish Historical Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 138, 2006, Pages 200-219

  Davies, Andrew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60949622481     PISSN: 00211214     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021121400004892     Document Type: Review

References (65)

1. Bill Murray, The Old Firm: sectarianism, sport and society in Scotland(Edinburgh, 1984), p. 1.
2. Tom Gallagher, Glasgow: the uneasy peace: religious tension in modern Scotland (Manchester, 1987), p. 1.
3. Murray, Old Firm;
4. Graham Walker, ' "There's not a team like the Glasgow Rangers":football and religious identity in modern Scotland' in Tom Gallagher and Graham Walker (eds), Sermons and battle hymns: Protestant popular culture in modern Scotland (Edinburgh, 1990), pp 137-59;
5. G. P. T. Finn, 'Racism, religion and social prejudice: Irish Catholicclubs, soccer and Scottish society - I: The historical roots of prejudice' in Internat. Jn. Hist. Sport, viii (1991), pp 72-95;
6. idem, 'Sporting symbols, sporting identities: soccer and intergroupconflict in Scotland and Northern Ireland' in Ian S. Wood (ed.), Scotland and Ulster (Edinburgh, 1994), pp 33-55;
7. Joseph M. Bradley, 'Football in Scotland: a history of political andethnic identity' in Internat. Jn. Hist. Sport, xii (1995), pp 81-98;
8. idem, 'Sport and the contestation of cultural and ethnic identities in Scottish society' in Immigrants and Minorities, xvii (1998), pp 127-50.
9. Walker, 'Glasgow Rangers', p. 138.
10. Finn, 'Sporting symbols', p. 50.
11. Gallagher, Glasgow, p. 3.
12. Seán Damer, Glasgow: going for a song (London, 1990), p. 96.
13. Andrew Davies, 'Sectarian violence and police violence in Glasgow duringthe 1930s' in Richard Bessel and Clive Emsley (eds), Patterns of provocation:police and public disorder (Oxford, 2000), pp 43-5.
14. It is worth noting here that sociologists have disagreed as to whetherthe Old Firm rivalry should be understood as a cause of ongoing sectarianism inrecent decades. In the early 1980s H. F. Moorhouse argued that, following thedecline of sectarianism in many other aspects of life in Glasgow (including inthe labour market), ' football is now one of the main vehicles of the ethnicantagonism it is supposed to represent': see H. F. Moorhouse, 'Professionalfootball and working class culture: English theories and Scottish evidence' in Sociological Rev., xxxii (1984), p. 311. More recently Steve Bruce and hiscolleagues have argued that the aggressive posturing and offensive chanting bypresent-day supporters of Rangers and Celtic should not be taken as evidence ofa wider antagonism between the city's ethno-religious communities. In theirview, ritualised abuse is used to 'wind up' rival supporters, but 'most of thosepeople do not mean it' and lead lives largely untouched by sectarianism outsideof the confines of Old Firm matches.
15. See Steve Bruce, Tony Glendinning, Iain Paterson and Michael Rosie, Sectarianism in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2004), pp 130-32;
16. Michael Rosie, The sectarian myth in Scotland: of bitter memory andbigotry (London, 2004), pp 3-5, 10-11.
17. There are no precise figures for the inter-war period, but Catholics wereestimated to comprise one-quarter of the city's adult population during the1950s: see John Highet, "The churches' in J. Cunnison and J. B. S.Gilfillan (eds), The third statistical account of Scotland: Glasgow (Glasgow, 1958), p. 725 (I am grateful to Callum Brown for this reference).
18. Graham Walker, 'The Orange Order in Scotland between the wars' in Internat. Rev. Soc. Hist., xxxvii (1992), p. 187.
19. Moorhouse, 'Professional football', p. 299;
20. Darner, Glasgow, pp 95, 129.
21. See also James H. Treble, "The market for unskilled male labour in Glasgow, 1891-1914' in Ian Mac Dougall (ed.), Essays in Scottish labour history(Edinburgh, 1978), p. 122;
22. Joan Smith, 'Labour tradition in Liverpool and Glasgow' in History Workshop Journal, no. 17 (1984), p. 48.
23. For a counter-claim see Rosie, Sectarian myth, p. 79.
24. Damer, Glasgow, pp 57-8;
25. Andrew O'Hagan, The missing (London, 1995), pp 22-8.
26. On the extent of I.R.A. activity in the city see Iain D. Patterson, 'Theactivities of Irish Republican physical force organisations in Scotland, 1919-21' in Scot. Hist. Rev., lxxii (1993), pp 39-59.
27. Callum Brown, Religion and society in Scotland since 1707 (Edinburgh, 1997), pp 192-3.
28. Brown, Religion and society, pp 147-8.
29. Gallagher, Glasgow, pp 152-3. Unemployment rate calculated from Ministryof Labour, Local Unemployment Index, monthly returns (1933).
30. William S. Marshall, The Billy Boys: a concise history of Orangeism in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1996), p. 144.
31. Bruce et al., Sectarianism in Scotland, pp 48-50.
32. Smith, 'Labour tradition', p. 49;
33. T. M. Devine, The Scottish nation, 1700-2000 (London, 2000), p. 519.
34. Sunday Mail, 9 July 1933.
35. See the Glasgow Weekly Herald, 5 July 1884, for an account of the Protestant 'Blue Band' launching incursions into the Calton from Bridgeton Cross.
36. Davies, 'Sectarian violence', pp 45-7.
37. Sunday Mail, 10 July 1927;
38. Weekly Record, 20 Dec. 1930.
39. Glasgow Herald, 1 May 1934.
40. Sir Percy Sillitoe, Cloak without dagger (London, 1955), pp 130-31.
41. For a report on one such disturbance see Evening Citizen, 18 May 1931.
42. A. C. Hepburn, 'The Belfast riots of 1935' in Soc. Hist., xv (1990), p.80.
43. Sillitoe, Cloak without dagger, pp 129-30;
44. See, for example, Evening Citizen, 4, 6 Aug. 1930.
45. See, for example, Weekly Record, 21 Mar. 1931;
46. Evening Citizen, 10 Jan. 1955.
47. Andrew Davies, 'Street gangs, crime and policing in Glasgow during the1930s: the case of the Beehive Boys' in Soc. Hist., xxiii (1998), pp 254-5, 258.
48. Ralph Glasser, Growing up in the Gorbals (London, 1987), pp 2-3; Bob Sinfield, 'Gentleman of jazz' (http://georgechisholm.tripod.com) (6 Sept. 2004).
49. See, for example, Evening Citizen, 11 May 1928.
50. Sinfield, 'Gentleman of jazz'.
51. See, for example, Evening Times, 7 Sept. 1922;
52. Evening Citizen, 13, 14 Apr. 1925.
53. Evening Citizen, 6 Sept. 1922.
54. Evening Citizen, 7 Oct. 1925.
55. Sunday Mail, 10 Mar. 1935.
56. Evening Citizen, 7 Apr. 1937.
57. Sunday Mail, 6 Mar. 1938.
58. Evening Citizen, 17 Apr. 1930.
59. Evening Times, 1 Oct. 1934.
60. See, for example, Evening Times, 9 May 1930.
61. Sunday Mail, 28 Oct. 1934.
62. Bulletin, 31 May 1933.
63. 'Notes of evidence', pp 23, 46.
64. 'Charge to jury', pp 1-8.
65. Davies, 'Street gangs', p. 258.