If there is a strong tendency in Scottish culture to view everything through the prism of Glasgow, our largest city, there’s an even stronger tendency in Scottish football to view everything through the prism of the Old Firm, our two largest clubs.
This precipitates various problems, but one of the most common and tedious is the projection of the Celtic-Rangers rivalry and all its attendant baggage — its history, politics, symbols and rhetorical paraphernalia — onto rivalries outwith Scotland’s biggest city.
Glasgow’s footballing imperialists, displaying a remarkable arrogance and ignorance, view almost every other rivalry in Scotland as simply a replication, or mere extension, of their own. Every non-Old Firm club — you know, all the wee “diddy teams” — are in one camp or the other; you’re either with Us or you’re with Them.
You’ll have heard it all before — Hibs, for example, are a “Celtic team”, Hearts are a “Rangers team”; Hibs are “Irish” and “Catholic”, Hearts are “British” and “Protestant”. And so, voila, Edinburgh’s divide is just like Glasgow’s.
Now, there may be a slither of truth to the claim that there are some, very limited similarities between the Celtic-Rangers and Hibs-Hearts dynamics, although there is certainly not an equivalence. My concern here, however, as a supporter of Dundee United, is not with the great city of Edinburgh, but rather the great city of Dundee.
Many an Old Firm fan has insisted to me that Dundee United versus Dundee is also exactly — or, if they’re more reasonable, more or less — the same as Celtic versus Rangers (or, indeed, Hibs versus Hearts). United are a mini-Celtic — “Irish” and “Catholic”; Dundee are a mini-Rangers — “British” and “Protestant”.
This strikes me as utter bollocks.
I have always found it baffling, patronising and offensive. But it has become such a truism of discourse about Scottish football, endlessly recycled by pub intellectuals and water-cooler warriors, that disputing the claim is usually met with scornful guffaws. Ha ha, good one. Get real, mate.
A Rangers-supporting friend once told me that “of course” I preferred Celtic to the Light Blues. I insisted that I did not — frankly, I find both pillars of the duopoly which suffocates and degrades our national game equally obnoxious — but he remained unconvinced. Why? Well, he mused, I was a United fan — and, ergo, some kind of a Celtic fan, by proxy.
What was left unsaid but was heavily implied, was that I was a Catholic, with a very “Irish” surname at that — and, ergo, a Celtic fan, presumably by blood. Nobody in my immediate or extended family supports Celtic, or ever has, but to have pointed this out would probably have been impolite.
If the hawkers of this kind of narrative are asked to explain themselves, the first words out of their mouth are always the same. Inevitably, they incant the magic words “Dundee Hibernian” as though it were some infallible spell, before sitting back to bask in the warm glow of total argumentative victory.
Of course, the club we know today as Dundee United was indeed first formed as Dundee Hibernian in 1909. Hibernian does, indeed, refer to the island of Ireland. The club’s founders were largely Irish immigrants seeking to serve the city’s ever-expanding Irish immigrant community. Some see in this a very similar origin story to that of Celtic — Brother Walfrid and all that.
However, unlike Celtic, Dundee Hibernian’s founders were not in any way connected to or representative of the Catholic Church. Dundee Hibs had no foundational political-religious agenda — unlike Celtic, which Walfrid saw as a means of preventing hungry Catholic children from relying on Protestant handouts.
Celtic, of course, fielded Protestants from the beginning — unlike Rangers, notoriously — and so did Dundee Hibs/United, whose founders and original players were not all Irish, not all immigrants and certainly not all Catholic.
Dundee FC were formed in 1893 without any political or religious purpose or identity and, like United, played Catholics and Protestants from the beginning. In fact, one of Dundee Hibs’ very first signings was of Dundee player Thomas Flood, an Irish Catholic.
Both Dundee clubs were, therefore, from the very start, neither discriminatory nor exclusive. By contrast, it took Rangers 116 years to sign their first Catholic player — which still managed to cause absolute mayhem. In 1989. United’s most successful manager, Jim McLean, was a former Dundee player and Protestant who refused to move to Rangers when the Ibrox club came calling in 1983, because they would not guarantee his freedom to sign Catholics.
Indeed, the name change, in 1923, was explicitly explained and designed to ensure that the club’s appeal would not be limited to the city’s Irish community — the club only existed as Dundee Hibernian for 19 years. Neither Celtic nor Rangers have done anything remotely similar to change their image (or name) or reach out to the “other side”. Can you imagine Rangers deciding to ditch the Union Jack and give up red, white and blue for, say, yellow and black colours in a bid to court new Catholic fans? It is inconceivable in 2017, far less 1923 — or 1953 or 1983. Celtic and Rangers are inextricably linked to particular political-religious identities, ideologies and communities; United and Dundee are, quite simply, not.
Dundee, after all, the supposed “Rangers half” of the city, quite happily call one of the stands at Dens “the Derry”. Nobody insists on calling it the Londonderry End. And United, the “mini-Celtic” of Tayside, share their striking kit colour with, erm, the Orange Order.
Tangerine and black Union Jacks are not uncommon at Tannadice, a practically sacrilegious symbol at Parkhead. Wearing green at Dens — which, amazingly, is actually owned by a United fan and ex-Director of the Tangerines — would not be taking your life into your own hands.
The culture of football in the city of Dundee is, and always has been, wholly alien to the toxicity of Glasgow football culture. United and Dundee fans have for over a century maintained a peaceful co-existence at opposite ends of the same street. The rivalry is real and strong, but utterly benign. Can you imagine a world in which Dermot Desmond owns Ibrox? Exactly.
Before and after derbies, opposition fans mingle together in the same pubs and walk together down the same streets. There is no large, multi-million pound police presence. Fans are, of course, segregated inside the ground, as at even the most innocuous fixture, but there are no massed ranks of stewards and no segregation in the immediate environs.
The city does not shut down on derby day. People do not avoid going out or taking the bus. Shops do not pull down the barriers and close early. There is no spike in assaults or increase in reports of domestic violence. There are no fights in the street between rival fans or attacks on children. Kick-offs do not have to be scheduled for the earliest possible point in the day to avoid drunken trouble. Parcel bombs do not get sent to the Dundee manager and his lawyer. United players do not receive death threats.
There is no sectarian singing. Conversely, at Old Firm games tens of thousands join in, regaling the watching international audience with violent songs glorifying imperialism, terrorism, ethnic cleansing and genocide with impunity. Such things — political, religious or otherwise — have simply never been a part of the culture or consciousness of either club in Dundee.
At the Tannadice derby on New Year’s Day 2015, back when both halves of the city were in the same league, United triumphed 6–2.
The “visiting” support took it in remarkably good spirits. As the score hit 5–1, a number of Dundee fans began heading towards the exits, provoking a good-natured round of “we can see you sneaking out”. The home support, revelling in the moment at 6–1, began chanting “we want seven”. Without missing a beat, the remaining Dundee fans countered with “we want two” — which, in the end, they got and greeted with ironic cheers and “we want three”. This kind of self-mocking back-and-forth is unimaginable in the violent cauldron of hate which is an Old Firm match.
There is even a long and honourable tradition of Dundonians going to Dens one week to support Dundee and to Tannadice the next to cheer on United. It is much less common now in the era of expensive tickets and subscription telly, but for decades, while Celtic and Rangers fans were rioting on the Hampden turf, United and Dundee fans were supporting each other. Some attendees had a kind of dual identity and were equally fond of both sides; others had one which was their team, but still insisted on seeing the other and hoping they would do relatively well. (Needless to say, no such tradition exists between Celtic and Rangers.)
My Granddad was one of these men. A strong United man, and a Catholic, he would still regularly go to Dens. Another such man was my great-Granddad — a Protestant supporter of Dundee, but also a regular visitor to Tannadice. The marriage of my Gran and Granddad — Protestant and Catholic, Dundee and United — would perhaps have been revolutionary in some neighbourhoods in Glasgow — Protestant and Catholic, Rangers and Celtic — at that time, and even today.
The divide between United and Dundee is as often within families as between them. Of course, as with every club, the torch of misery/despair/occasional glory is usually passed down from one generation to the next. That’s certainly how I came to be an Arab. (Thanks, Dad.) But many more families than where the Old Firm is concerned contain supporters of both clubs.
As a further illustration, let’s take the example of legendary United striker Davie Dodds, hero of so many European nights under the Tannadice lights during the club’s glory years in the 1980s. Dodds was born into a Protestant family in the city. His father and brother supported Rangers. Dodds attended Dens Road Primary School within spitting distance of both stadia. As a young lad, he went one week to Dens and the next to Tannadice, slipping under turnstiles. He played for Celtic Boys Club and for the Boys Brigade, a quasi-Protestant organisation, before signing and starring for United. He then later played briefly for Rangers, among other clubs.
This kind of flitting between both sides of the divide between United and Dundee — and between Rangers and Celtic, Catholic and Protestant — in the city was quite typical and easy, at a time when doing the same thing in Glasgow was so problematic for Maurice Johnston, a man who no longer feels he can even live in Scotland. Only fifteen players have played for both Rangers and Celtic in the entire history of both clubs, but only three — Johnston, Alfie Conn and Kenny Miller — have done so at any time since 1918. The number of players who have turned out for both United and Dundee is at least 57.
So, no, Dundee United and Dundee are nothing like Celtic and Rangers. Anyone who claims otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
