Yesterday I spoke with a couple of very helpful men from Crumlin United in Dublin.
They weren’t surprised that a journalist was on the phone to them.
Their young goalkeeper had just made a little bit of history.Alan Smith, originally from Cork, had signed for the Rangers Under 19 team.
Celtic had the lad over two weeks before he signed for the Light Blues.
Crumlin could have claimed up to €450,000 in compensation for the lad, but that, of course, would have killed the deal.
I have a sense is that isn’t what the folks who run Crumlin United are about.
The club official told me that, as far as he was concerned, “Alan is the first Republic of Ireland player to sign for Rangers.”
Certainly in modern times this is correct.
Alan Kernaghan is a youth coach and the club did attempt to sign Alan Maybury some years back.
Now they have signed a young RoI player from a catholic background.
This is progress.
I’m sure that Rangers have signed Alan because he is a fine young footballer and not as an act of tokenism.
Rangers never had a written policy that no player from a Roman Catholic background would were their colours and play for the first team.
Discrimination is rarely written down. When it is it writes its own death warrant. Think Apartheid. It was indefensible. However it was out there and it could be tackled head on. There was no pretence that the regime valued or respected South Africans of all racial backgrounds. Nods, winks and glass ceilings are much harder to tackle.
A key to extinction of any species is habitat removal. It is no different with racists. For generations being a Rangers supporter has been a vehicle for Anti Irish Racism.
It is hard to thing of any other club in Britain whose supporters could think up something like the “Famine song.”
Moreover it is hard to conceive of another club issuing a statement warning their fans not to sing a racist song for fear they will be arrested, but failing, in the statement to condemn the song or the sentiments contained within it.
It is then that the club’s putative employment policies come into stark relief.
Of the 104 clubs who made up the English four leagues in 2009/2010 and the SPL in the same season, 103 have had either an ROI Full internationalist or under 21 internationalists since the year 2000, many of those clubs have had several ROI players.
In the summer of 2009 a dossier on the racism of Rangers supporters was compiled for Marian Harkin MEP. Ms.Harkin is the MEP for the Connaught Ulster European constituency. This huge electoral area includes Counties like Donegal with a large connection to Glasgow and Mayo, which, in many ways, is THE famine county. This dossier included a statement from the anti racist organisation Kick It Out and an Irish community organisation based in Glasgow. Ms. Harkin MEP sent this dossier with a covering letter to Michele Platini.
The import of this dossier, which I have seen, was to ask UEFA to make sure their match delegates were informed about the issues around Anti-Irish racism from Rangers supporters.
The dossier also included reference to the apparent failure of RFC to find ANY player from the RoI to play in their first team.
I got sight of the reply from UEFA to Ms.Harkin and it was the intention of the football authorities based in Nyon to seek clarification from Rangers on these matters.
This correspondence would have been taking place in June and July 2009.
In August 2009 I received a tip from a well-placed source inside the FAI that Rangers had registered a scout with the FAI.
It was an exclusive scoop. This was, I was told, the first time that RFC had every registered a scout with the FAI.
The natural tabloid thing to have done was to go to Clontarf and doorstep Ranger’s man in Dublin with a snapper at my side.
I decided, instead, to do nothing and let him get on with his job.
Although the Dublin based Scotsman has since become Everton’s scout he passed on more than a few names to Rangers.
A cynic could say that signing a lad for the U19 team, perhaps firth or sixth choice goalkeeper is an exercise in tokenism that will get UEFA off Ranger’s back on this issue.
Football fans will always tell you that it is only a minority of the club’s fans that will know or really care about happens in the youth team.
Everyone knows what is happening in the first team.
It could be argued that Rangers are moving, however slowly, from a “No Irish” policy to simply an “Anti-Irish” policy.
The clear analogy would be a workplace that had been back in the day male only.
If today that same workplace has a healthy gender balance then the history of that change would find that one day there was ONE woman.
The culture of that workplace may still have been hostile to female co-workers, but it was a start.
At some point critical mass was achieved and the workplace started to become tolerable for women.
That will happen, in time, for Republic of Ireland players at Rangers.
One day it will be no big deal if another RoI player is signed for the Rangers first team squad.
We aren’t there yet, but it’s a start.
What we can now say with certainty is that in the coming season a young Rangers player from the Rebel County will stand to attention and face his flag. The Irish Tricolour and sing amhran na bhFiann.
When that can also be said of one or two regulars in the Rangers first team in years to come then the habitable space for anti-Irish racism among the Ibrox faithful will be less and less.
The racist in the Rangers shirt will be an endangered species.
These things take time. Perhaps we should, set an aspirational date for Rangers finally dealing with their Irish question.
Six years from now.
2016.
Perhaps it would be fitting if, in the 1916 centenary celebrations when we on this island and freedom loving people all over the world pay homage to the insurgents of Easter week, that a couple of members of the Rangers first team would feel the same gra for Pearse and Connolly.
That they could be fully Irish and it would be no bother, no big deal.
That the new project manager at the factory is called Paula not Paul.
No big deal.
Perhaps the last word should go to the fine men of Crumlin United who have reared and nurtured this lad to the young man he is.
A club spokesperson said this to me:
“On behalf of Crumlin United we would like to wish Alan Smith every success in his future. We hope that the media will leave him alone now. It is of no relevance which club Alan has signed for. He just wants to be a professional footballer.”
Andy
I don’t think that Rangers supporters would have a problem with the signing of a Roman Catholic, Republic of Ireland player for the first team, if he were good enough to play for Rangers.
When you constantly repeat these statistics regarding the signing of ROI players it gets a bit boring to be honest.
There’s more to the issue than meets the eye, and I think that you know this. Rangers will sign an ROI player when the right one comes along, and no sooner. Otherwise it would lead to such assertions as those made by yourself, that it’s all a publicity stunt.
The likes of Shay Given, Stephen Carr, Damien Duff and Robbie Keane, would increase the quality of the first team, and are available. But would they consider slashing their wages and signing for the “enemy”? I don’t think so.
The sad fact is that Rangers can’t afford ROI players, or any players for that matter, that ply their trade in the Premiership or even the Championship. We’ve been painfully reminded of that in our pursuit of Neil Danns and Craig Conway, we can’t compete with the Prem or Championship in terms of wages.
And ROI players, or any other players for that matter, that play at League One level will be not of a high enough standard for Rangers, or Celtic.
The only way we can really get ROI players, is to find them young, and develop them at the club. This is the case with Alan Smith.
I would also love to see the reaction from the East End of the city, to the signing of a high-profile ROI international for Rangers. I’m not saying this would be a reason for Rangers not pursuing the player, but it may be a significant deterrent to signing for Rangers.
It can be taken, from your comments, that you have an agenda against Rangers and feel that, due to their not having an ROI international in the team, they are endemically anti-Irish as a club.
I would reject that notion, the sad facts are that;
1) Rangers, or Celtic, can’t afford the top-end ROI players from the EPL or Championship, look at Kieran Westwood, signing for Sunderland.
2) The ROI players from League 1 or below, are not of a high enough standard to play for either of the Old Firm.
3) ROI internationals have seen and heard the abuse meted out to Rangers players on international duty in Dublin, simply because they are Rangers players, and may think it’s just not worth the bother.
But don’t let any of this get in the way of a good pot-stirring, let’s-have-a-pop-at-Rangers story.
July 5, 2011 at 11:47 pm
Phil Mac Giolla Bhain
Andy
The economic explanation maybe accurate now, but it doesn’t hold up when you think of the Advocaat years for example.
RFC were signing players for very large transfer fees and paying salaries to compete with top EPL clubs.
July 6, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Andy
My feeling is that you seem to think this is a one way street, with Rangers simply shutting the door to the remote possibility of signing an RC ROI player, is this correct?
I don’t think that the likes of Robbie Keane, or Roy Keane from the time you mentioned, would have been too keen on joining Rangers, the other ROI first-teamers of the time, your Matt Hollands, your Kevin Kilbanes, would have been too big to play in Scotland, the likes of Gary Breen, he was linked with Inter after the WC in 2002, how can Rangers be expected to compete with that? These players would still choose the Premier League over the SPL. Do you honestly think that Dick Advocaat would accept being told he could not sign an ROI player? Advocaat would have signed an ROI player if the right one came along that would a) strengthen the team and b) want to play for Rangers, as all signings must want to do.
I would love to canvas the opinion of ROI squad players right now, to see which of them would consider signing for Rangers.
They have heard the dog’s abuse meted out to Rangers players on international duty playing in Dublin and are probably thinking it’s not worth the bother, look at the treatment dished out to the likes of Arveladze, Lovenkrands, Naismith etc. when playing for their countries in ROI. Can you imagine the backlash for somebody signing for Rangers from this background? It would be a major deterrent and coupled with the lack of wages, would put players off.
I also wonder how many ROI players would be interested in signing for Rangers, given the chance, we don’t know how many have been sounded out about a move to Ibrox, and turned it down flat?
I heard that Rangers had a strong interest in Adam Rooney before he eventually chose the dramatically increased wages of Birmingham. He would’ve been a great signing for us as he’s a young striker who could do a job for us in the SPL.
The fact is, he seems to have chosen the Championship, not just for money, but to avoid the hassle.
I would take any ROI player who’s good enough to play for Rangers, who wants to play for Rangers and who’s well-priced (as I want every transfer to be). Now, taking all these factors into consideration, who do you reckon fits the bill?
I reckon Maybury would’ve done a job for us, as he did for Hearts, it wasn’t to be, i think Rooney would’ve made a great striker for us, he chose Birmingham and more money. There will be others we go for, but they have to fit the three criteria set out above, as do any transfer targets for Rangers. We are not going to sign somebody from a certain country, just because you reckon we’re racist for not doing so, how many Welsh players have played for the club? Not many and not anybody I can remember, does this make us anti-Welsh too?
I await your reply with great interest, I only hope it can be in slightly more detail than your last paragraph and cover all points I make this time.
July 7, 2011 at 1:05 am
Mark
The “Famine” or the “Why don’t you go home” song as Rangers fans call it, is aimed at the West Coast Glaswegian (Celtic Fan) person that has more than likely never been to the north or south of Ireland but waves the Tri-colour and sings the native songs of the Repulic of Ireland (Some even containing sectarian addons). Those that seem to hate Britain and British people but happily stay in Britain and make a rather good living I expect. So bad is Britain to those people, they don’t seem too keen on moving to the ROI even though as above they’ll tell everyone how good it is. Strange that, no?
The song was a P**s take of those people. Certain other people would have everyone else think otherwise to make silly claims it’s aimed at the Irish people and it’s full of hate.
RUBBISH. If you want to be offended, then you will be. And boy do you love being offended.
Remember the Famine killed both Protestant, Catholic, Irish and Scottish people and anyone else in between.
But it wouldn’t fit your agenda or anyone else’s who uses the sectarian word ‘Hun’ when speaking about protestants.
May 3, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Ryan
Chris,
Your pathetic post is not even worthy of a dignified response. Away and crawl back under your revisionist rock.
August 3, 2010 at 5:43 am
Chris
Speak about taking a one-sided view of a situation that does not and has not ever existed.
I’ll summarise the best I can (without going in to lists and dates of Catholic players who have played for Rangers)
With Scotland’s Catholic populaton being 16% then at any given time 2 players out of our starting 11 should be RC. In the last 20 years Rangers have probably been running at that quota, most probably exceeding it – helped by foreign signings.
Now lets look a Celtic, I would suggest that historically they have always fielded well in excess of 2 RCs out of their starting 11 which actually means, statistically they are the team that sign based on religous precedence.
Just an observation that all is not always as it seems.
July 31, 2010 at 6:22 am
Ryan
This may appal the very worst of the perma-raging hordes, but I will simply reiterate the official words of Crumlin Utd in wishing the lad the best of luck. Hope he isn’t too good a keeper or we might be kicking ourselves for not getting there first!
July 26, 2010 at 8:22 am