| Match Pictures Match Page| Matches: 1955 – 1956 | 1955-56 pictures |
The game was crucial. The teams were committed and violent incidents certainly occurred both on and off the pitch. The media furore was loud and long and it is worth examining the articles.
The first article is from the Glasgow Herald of September 5th, 1955.
“Not having been present….” really starts to say it all. The Herald Football Correspondent then proceeds to tread into territory which is inflammatory, but in the realm of media everywhere…which is ‘to sell more chipwrappers’ and to give vent to his somewhat cynical view in which the ‘football correspondent’, despite not being there, becomes the moral repository for the whole of the west of Scotland.
The guts of the article are the guts of a lack of understanding of what football was and to a certain extent still is about and what being a football supporter is about whilst at the same time acknowledging that events on the field gave an impetus to what might or might not have happened off the field. And we are talking here about a journalist that was paid to cover football with seemingly no insight into the people that went to football matches or what football represented to the vast majority of people that went to games in the mid-50’s through to the mid-70’s.
Our correspondent soon moves from moral outrage to righteous middle class indignation and the invocation of The Law whilst pointing a finger at the club in a bad parental tone.
The club took their responsibilities towards the supporters seriously. Not two weeks before Jimmy McGrory was given space in the Evening Times, at that time a right bluenose supporting paper, to explain how the club believed in and supported the fans, the ordinary 2s 6d supporters who turned up on the terraces, and were going about making the match day experience more pleasant by providing covered terracing at Parkhead.
The article is not only inflammatory but it shows a classic lack of insight prevalent in a class split society which was still rife at that time in the West of Scotland – where the supporters came from a minority underclass and were still meant to feel it, where the institiutions still supported their biggest rivals, and where the media were run by the institutional and aspirational classes which, by and large, were not football supporters.
The second article (above) is by Gair Henderson of the Evening Times of 5th September, 1955.
At least this was a journalist that went to football and had an idea about what the game was and what it meant to people. And he makes a clear distinction between those that cannot restrain themselves and the Celtic supporters that followed the team everywhere and acknowledges the efforts that have been made to control the unruly element of the support.
Henderson offers two options, which are not necessarily his, but have already passed into word-of-mouth opinion. Those are playing games behind closed doors denying access to miscreants and supporters alike, and the second, which is somewhat facetious, is to stop buses short and make supporters walk a sizeable distance to the ground.
He then calls for postponement of the away league fixture which was the next game on the calendar.
Evening Times 5/9/55 (above)
Evening Times, 6/9/55 (below)
Evening Times 10/9/55 (below)
The Evening Times were prepared to give space to a different view which was illuminating given the mild furore breaking out elsewhere. Below is a good representation of the CSA’s view
The SFA Referees Committe met on 19th September 1955 to consider the referee’s report of the game, to dish out punishments and review the game. This report from the Glasgow Herald of 20th September 1955
“The committee reiterate the responsibility of the Celtic club for the conduct of their supporters at home and away. The committee realise the difficulty of the Celtic club in eliminating those rowdy elements who are bringing disgrace on the club and have instructed the Celtic club to continue to take all the steps possible to identify the offenders and take police action in any cases that can be prosecuted.”
“In this particular match the committee feel that the Falkirk club should have taken steps to ensure that the spectator who was arrested by the police should have been prosecuted in the courts”
A brief follow up was printed under Alan Breck’s byeline in the Evening Times the next day which sums up what might be considered a real fudge of the issue by the bureaucrats at the SFA. At no time was a back reference made to the decisions made following the Ne’erday game of ’53 when the magistrates had been involved and questions had been asked in the House of Commons. Nor is there any mention of inadequate or shoddy policing or the poor pursuit of hooligans by the police, which had been the findings of the previous committees.
Evening Times 20/9/55
