Don’t dilute the Hunger Games.

Today sees a crucial derby in Glasgow.

 

Celtic v Rangers is never just a football match.

It is rather a re-watch of the Reformation, something that has utterly defined the history of Great Britain and Ireland. From Mary Queen of Scots, to the Highland Clearances, Henry the Eighth, William of Orange, right up to the rules of today’s monarchy, forbidding entry to those who look to Rome for their faith. So much for “inclusion” on that one!

Indeed, the entire history of our little islands in the North Sea is soaked in the battle between Catholics and Protestants, and this game in Glasgow is a proxy war for 500 years of resentment. Feral to the max. Dangerous in the extreme. 

Today’s Column is not about which version of the Bible one should prefer, as there is neither the time nor the writing talent to do it justice. It’s not even about who is going to win the Scottish Premier League. Few care about that.

It’s about what actually makes sport compelling, and so it is Ally McCoist, one of Britain’s most loved and accomplished football pundits, who provokes the Sunday musings today.

Scotland and its Ikea-themed “Parliament” has just passed legislation on what they call hate crimes, which seems to put people who express any kind of punchy opinion, on anything, under risk of incarceration.

It is an absurdity, rightfully eviscerated below by Pie.

It has been universally slammed, most notably by JK Rowling, as something more suited to the Maoist cultural revolution. The author herself has already openly transgressed on purpose, daring the Scottish government/police to arrest her.

They didn’t.

 

The flesh-eating virus of dogma wears a kilt.

Today, deliciously, we shall see this new culture-war legislation tested in the centuries old battlefield of Celtic and Rangers, a place where smart people of common sense know exactly what this “hate” does and doesn’t mean. It isn’t binary.

McCoist nails it.

And I can guarantee you, next Sunday at Ibrox, I, along with 48,000, will be committing a breach of that hate bill.

 

Sporting abuse isn’t always real abuse.

Understanding this difference is a skill way beyond the clumsy drafting of this bill. And indeed beyond political correctness (applied to sport) in general. This is the core of today’s Column.

Ally McCoist is a true “Rangers man” having been both a club legend player, and the manager in its darkest days of liquidation. He even stayed to rebuild the club back from Division 4 in Scotland. Yes, he is a proper blue-nose.

But what does that mean, really?

Everyone familiar with his punditry knows McCoist as intelligent, of good heart, and blessed with a sharp sense of humour. For those who have met him, he is exactly as you would imagine. A lovely kind lad in my experience. But he is openly admitting that today his venacular at the Celtic game will be colourful, and likely tinged with copious anti-Catholic vocabulary falling within the definition of “hate crime”

So will mine…the other way. So what?

Do I spend my nights singing rebel songs? Am I in any way a bigot? Do I have issues with Rangers or Protestants outside of today?

No! I just want them to lose, and badly. More than I want us to win. The Hun need to feel pain, and that’s how it works. This is football in Glasgow, and elsewhere.

But there is always respect for the rival, often admiration, occasionally friendship.

The Celtic version of Ally McCoist would be a certain Tommy Burns, sadly now departed. He and McCoist were ages, on-field rivals, and became very close when they were both part of the Scottish national team set-up. Real friends.

 

Tommy Burns was the definitive Celtic man.

He is the best ambassador of the Celtic brand. Brought up in the poor East End of Glasgow, going to church every day, and wearing those Celtic hoops as if painted on by the Holy Spirit. His red hair gave clues to him being also a bit of the hot-head, coz you don’t take too many prisoners if brought up under the shadow of Celtic Park. His wit was sharp and biting.

I once played 5s with him at a charity thing, but that day I couldn’t trap a bag of sand. Playing with Tommy Burns just got to me, and he let me know I was shit rubbish. Of course he did! That’s part of the trash talk of our game. I wasn’t offended or triggered. Just devastated at choking.

McCoist recounts below how his intense friendship with Burns was littered with what today is called hate speech. In this case Burns called him an “orange bastard” at an anti-racism event. 😆.

Tommy Burns died tragically young, of cancer, and what a day that funeral was. Rangers scarves graced the gates of the church in respect for one of Celtic’s most favourite sons. McCoist in person carried the coffin, with Walter Smith (another Rangers legend), through endless tears for his “fenian” friend.

His face has got a “hate crime” look written all over it, hasn’t it?

Someone clever once noted that sometimes the law is indeed an ass.

 

Sport can learn from this tartan insanity.

In the last few days a new sportbiz community has started in the WhatsApp group of young Andy Marston. Andy has been on his Sport Pundit journey for a few years now, and he is perhaps the best example of the modern era “community-play”. I am of course biased, as I have taken Andy into two of my start-ups; there is some talent and drive you just have to be blind not to see. We are all proud of him for what he is doing for our industry.  

This group of his started a conversation on the amazing TV rating success of Iowa-LSU women’s college basketball, and what someone called “lightning in a bottle”. What lessons could be learned from this, by an industry struggling for find a direction through all the storm clouds on the horizon, looking for balance between changing revenue models and audience tastes?

Some said the success was down to a general rise in the appeal of women’s sport in general. Some offered that it was due to the Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese sizeable social media presence. Others argued on the talent side, saying that Clark was compelling in “playing a new game slinging 3s from the logo”. Others opined that it was the classic personal rivalry play upon which sport always thrives. Or maybe it was just a high jeopardy knock-out match. Scarcity perhaps, being potentially Clark’s last game?

 

Whatsapp group contributions.

It’s a combination of outsized talent doing things that haven’t been seen before, plus a recognisable girl-next- door connection to fans (as opposed to a 6ft 4’ freak).

 

It’s a one-off all around curiosity for Caitlin, a clear rising star, to see if she can go even higher, to see how good she really is. Everyone gathered to see what PT Barnum had behind that curtain.

 

It’s the essential old-fashioned simplicity of it all. Sport looking and feeling old school, not overthinking its product to pander to Gen Z. It felt right. 

A truly grown-up conversation.

For what happened next, your author needs to take whatever blame is attributed by anyone now reading the Column, and seeing a potential hate crime. Marston’s group is completely innocent.

Until people start asking about culture war explanations for this, we will never get the full answer. – Roger Mitchell

One could argue that Caitlin Clark is an archetypal mid-American white girl next door, a contemporary Doris Day, who perhaps appeals very much to one particular side in America’s current civil war of identity politics (being played out for real in Biden versus Trump).

🎶  When two tribes go to war…🎶

It’s funny how people speak up more easily once another goes through the wall. Like the first person to swear on a podcast, or tell an off-colour joke at a dinner party.

As if someone had passed around the truth pill.

 

Opinions became sharper.

There have been a number of female sports stars who have been unpalatable to a traditional demographic; lesbian footballers, BLM basketballers, overly liberal outspoken tennis players. Clark instead looks and sounds like the kind of girl a MAGA Republican can get behind.

 

It’s 1000% about the culture war. A big part of the ratings is because Reese is African American and so is 90% of her LSU team. Iowa is 90% white.

Someone then posts an article to the group. An earlier LA Times piece covering the game apparently hit a nerve, and lit the blue-touch paper in the States. The race card was played.

 

The Times article was retracted with this apology.

The original version of this commentary did not meet the standards of the LA Times. It has now been edited to remove language that was inappropriate and offensive. We apologise to LSU and our readers.

The Whatsapp conversations continued…

I take my teenagers and those of my partner to Luton Town and what engages them most, and more than anything else analogue or digital, is the tribalism, filthy language, smoke bombs, chanting, occasional fighting. All things with an element of risk.

Mic drop.

 

This is the truth about sport, certainly football.

Ally McCoist’s truth.

We, as an industry, can talk all we want about tradition or new snackable formats, about second screens or TikTok strategies, subs versus ad-driven, about Hollywood polarising from Arthouse. It all misses the main point.

The attraction of sport as a product, even in 2024, across ALL generations and demographics, is about the beef, the nastiness, the rivalry.

 

The “us and them”.

All the things those kids going to Luton with their dad don’t get elsewhere. A whiff of running with an edgy crowd where you feel you belong, and where you can be a different version of yourself. Having a go at the other tribe.

“Having a go” isn’t a hate crime in a football stadium. We are not at the Tunbridge Wells village green with cucumber sandwiches and Pimms.

It’s who we are. Like it or lump it.

But it’s even more than that when we need to talk about the business of sport, and the challenges our industry faces.

“Us and them” sells!!!!!

Especially if you can genuinely tune into, and market, intense dislike for the other side. Sainz winning the last Grand Prix is a massive finger in the air to those who replaced him. And that was the real interest of the day. Where was Hamilton?

The “edge” is what defines sport. The more acute, the better. I learned that young.

In Scottish football that first year of 1998, with the new Sky money, I experienced all kinds of these inconvenient truths. I was 34.

 

Celtic versus Rangers is the asset of value.

The game up there, incredibly with 42 professional teams, likes to tell itself a fable about value and interest. It’s delusional. Without the Glasgow Old Firm, the appeal of the product in Scotland is the same as indoor bowling from Coatbridge. Basically local park football. The TV numbers showed this without mercy.

One of the chairmen, from another club, whispered in my ear:

Young man, never forget that their bigotry, real or the 90m version, is what sells.

The above ITV video describes well a game between the Glasgow giants from May 2 1999, a date I personally cant ever forget. Never have I felt such a frisson of danger in the air pre-game, for a title-deciding match where Rangers could win the first SPL trophy at the home of their rivals. You could taste the antagonism and the fear.

The sense of impending doom, in my case. High high jeopardy in today’s sportsbiz lexicon.

I had no idea of how high.

The game had 3 sending-offs, a 0-3 humiliation for Celtic, a disputed penalty, a crowd invasion, a fan falling from the top tier and stretched away (still abusing the Rangers fans with V-signs). Oh, and a referee on his knees covered in blood.

 

The newspaper calls the match “feisty”.

That’s Glasgow for you!

I sat in the directors box aghast, amidst an entire main stand of Celtic’s well-heeled patrons screaming abuse in my face. They needed someone in authority to blame. Two policemen tapped my shoulder and asked that I accompanied them away.

It’s best for public order, and your own safety, if you come with us until the second half.

I was hosting Vic Wakeling and Trevor East from Sky. Not ideal.

With the half time bovril in the board room, the unflappable and magnificent Geordie, Vic Wakeling, calmly and professionally tells me that he and I will sort out the fallout the next day. I nod, likely not even hearing him.

Trevor East sees I’m in distress, puts an arm around my shoulder and delivers the immortal (and utterly correct) line.

Great TV, Rog! 

I laughed.

Trev’s quip brings us to a conclusion that is uncomfortable.

There has always been, and always will be, a simple formula for commercialising content. Sport and otherwise.

 

If it bleeds, it leads.

We know this goes entirely against today’s idea of safe spaces and trigger-free zones, but the Colosseum has always wanted its blood. We have always stopped to watch the playground fight. And we cant help but slow down to look at the car crash.

Unpalatable as it may be, what sells, and always has, is not the best or most commendable efforts of humanity. It’s hard hits, blood and sex, gossip and celebrity. How do we think Rupert Murdoch, Silvio Berlusconi, Dana White, Vince McMahon, and Kim Kardashian got rich?

 

The best sci-fi isn’t actually fiction. It’s our future.

Skynet is upon us now. We just don’t yet know the actual date, like Arnie did.

In 1975 the movie “Rollerball” was released, and described a corporate-dominated world of elites who use sport as control and distraction. Sounds familiar? The game, a version of basketball on roller-stakes and motor bikes, to remain efficient to its corporate goals, needed to become ever-more dangerous and bloody. So it did, delivering assassination and death on the track.

You know how the game serves us, Jonathan. It has a social purpose.

The “Hunger Games” is another such example. It shows the direction of travel, our future. The toothy perma-tanned host wittily describing rivals slaughtering each other, to canned applause.

Look at the success of UFC, or the return of Dwayne The Rock Johnston to the WWE.

It’s all around more tribal rivalry and trash talk. Around edge! That’s what people really want and are prepared to pay for.

Irony is often cruel, and it is here, this Sunday, for those who work in our industry.

 

Sport going woke is actually killing itself.

Our industry in recent years has tried everything to utterly remove any idea or semblance of edge or offence. No sledging, no trash talk. No terrace anger. All dirty and uncivilised things, now made illegal in Scotland, certain to be offending someone somewhere.

You’re killling the juice. Sport has always been a place to let off steam, where we can become the person we just can’t be anywhere else, to let out the dark side in the confines of control.

My generation grew up in a world of:

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.

And that worked out fine in the main. It’s even what parents used to do to educate us. They scolded us passionately.

In the days following May 2nd 1999, I must have had a million conversations of national import around the finances and future of the entire game. To a young idealistic romantic football fan, it was a hard shift. A cold shower.

A chief of police, an experienced match commander, said it best:

Roger, it’s better they behave like this in here, where we have them all together. We know how to control them, and we prefer they blow off steam here than in the city later in the night. It’s better they channel their bigotry in here, and not like in Belfast. Glasgow football perhaps saves us from that. 

 

Ally McCoist is the best sport commentator around, by a country mile. Once again he is calling it correctly.

There will be no “hate crimes” in Glasgow today. Just two tribes going to war.  And it will be magnificent.

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