This week Celtic launched a fourth kit for the season.
What is worthy of comment is that it celebrates the club’s Irish origins with a tricolour trim on the colour and sleeves.
Moreover, the timing of the launch, in the run-up to Saint Patrick’s Day, is hardly coincidental.
Celtic is undeniably a part of the global Irish diaspora.
Victorian Scotland experienced irreversible demographic change when many thousands of Irish people left this island.
The reasons that they had to leave are well documented.
Now, any traveller to Fair Caledonia who didn’t know this undeniable historical truth might not grasp why Celtic has a unique place on Planet Fitba.
A few years before I first saw the light of day, the folks who run the national game in Scotland wanted the club formed by Irish immigrants to take down the Tricolour at Parkhead.
There was a standoff, and the SFA finally backed down. It was a personal defeat for SFA Secretary George Graham. However, he wasn’t the last of his kind to occupy positions of authority at the SFA. The same organisation employed the late Jim Farry.
In 1996 he deliberately delayed the registration of Portuguese player Jorge Cadete. This meant that he could not play in a cup tie against Rangers; the Hoops lost that game 2-1. There was no conspiracy. Farry was merely acting within the mores of his culture. He wanted, in any way possible, to hinder the club with Irish roots.
In the previous decade, the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to get to know the people of Scotland a bit better by attending the 1988 Scottish Cup Final.
I was a grateful to receive a call at very much the 11th hour from my late aunt Mary. A mighty woman, she had somehow magicked up a ticket for me!
Thanks to her, I had a brilliant view of Frank McAvennie’s two goals.
As the whole stadium showed that hateful fekker Thatcher the red card; she apparently asked an aide why all these Scots were waving the Irish flag.
Ah well…
One of the models for this new kit is Celtic’s midfield Impresario Matthew Sean O’Riley.
As we say here, there’s definitely a drop of Paddy in him!
The Hounslow lad is Danish on his mother’s side and plays his international football in Copenhagen.
He speaks the language and has stated that he “feels” Danish.
Consequently, his choice of national side was a no-brainer for him.
I’m sure that isn’t a problem in the country of his birth.
Aiden John McGeady, compare and contrast.
I sent details of the new kit to a buddy in Philadelphia.
He’s a patriotic American and a proud Irishman, and there is no problem with him being both there.
Unlike where Celtic were founded, it isn’t a cultural crime to be of Irish ethnicity in the city of brotherly love.
The first time I met him was in the foyer of the Hyatt Hotel in Philly in 2012.
It was a memorable time as the Hoops were in town to play Real Madrid, and Rangers had just died.
Himself was standing there, with the local Celtic crew, among them a member of the Pennsylvania state legislature.
They confidently stated to the Celtic CEO that there was massive commercial opportunity for Celtic in the USA if they emphasised the club’s Irish origins.
I have an excellent source for what was said in this conversation:
Myself.
I was there.
Since that time, I have, through various channels, tried to get the club to capitalise upon this almost unique selling proposition in the US sportswear market.
In the decade since that chat in Philly, the club has been, at best, slow to consider this market.
So this is a welcome development.
I’m sure that it has happened with a new CEO in place is entirely coincidental.
The choice and design of this kit did not happen recently and has probably been a year or so in the making.
It will be interesting to see if Celtic do something similar next year.
They really should.
Maith thú!
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Well here we go. Rangers season down to one game against Celtic in the Scottish Cup.
Can you imagine the pressure that willl build up over the next few weeks.
Will Beale and his squad handle it as anything less than a victory and winning the trophy will not be tolerated by the fan base.
Banks collapsing in the US….like 2007…if contagion spreads not only will sevco go under, Britain will too
Told you so
Into the last 3rd of the season. League Cup in the trophy room, league all but done, 2 Scottish cup games away from another treble.
Some of the football over the last few weeks has been exceptional. No sign of easing up in the league and, if anything, the team is on an upward curve.
I agree with the thesis of the article entirely: this is a transparently cynical commercial move and a smart cash cow for Celtic to exploit from time to time. Low hanging fruit that will die on the vine if you don’t grab it. If life gives you lemons, make money out of them, etc.
Lovely looking kit by the way. Basically last season’s away kit with a tricolour on the collar. Yes, obviously the club is exploiting the most credulous elements of its support base with four kits in one season. But, there’s nothing making anyone buy them all and buying all of them would be crazy. Grown ups can spend their money as they choose.
The only annoying thing is that it would have been ideal for an away match in Paisley, as opposed to THREE registered kits which clearly clash with a domestic opponent. I hope someone at the club has been made to answer for this.
I also agree that the country of Matt O’Reily’s birth is unlikely to have any issue with him playing for Denmark, given that there was no chance of him getting a game for England at senior level (having played for them at a couple of youth levels).
I’m not sure it’s a like-for-like comparison with McGeady. Indeed, I can’t think of a like-for-like comparison with McGeady: unquestionably good enough to play for the country he was born and brought up in, never overlooked, and chose to play for the country where one (two?) of his grandparents was born (and which, obviously he had and has a great affection for an connection to).
I’m not sure how Republic of Ireland fans would treat Rice or Grealish? But, again, not like-for-like, given that they chose to play for the country of their births (and an obviously superior team, as well).
For all that, obviously the treatment of McGeady was appalling. Obviously. But, I’m not aware of any other strict comparisons, and I can’t easily imagine many national teams’ supporters reacting terribly differently once groupthink kicks in.
Can anyone help me out? Another example of a player where:
1. He chose not to play for the country of his birth,
2. He chose to play for the country where one or two grandparents had come from.
3. He was clearly good enough to have played for the country of his birth and would have walked into the team from a young age.
4. The two national teams were of a similar standard (there wasn’t an obvious footballing benefit to making one choice or the other, at the time).
5. He lived and played club football in the country of his birth.
It genuinely strikes me as a pretty unique case. There must be some other example somewhere? Diego Costa? I don’t remember the Brazilians being famously tolerant of him choosing to play for one of the old European imperialist nations? The reaction was pretty similar to the Scottish reaction to McGeady (even though not all of the criteria above held in that case).
Perhaps it’s reassuring to McGeady, back playing in Scotland, that an old primary and secondary school classmate like Don Robertson is now an insider?
Honouring your roots is cynical and that’s what the author is saying.
Seriously?
The like for like comparison for Aiden McGeady is any other player playing for his heritage country where this is different to the country of his birth.
To try to obscure this is to Follow Follow a particularly unsavoury agenda.
Aye. Sure it is.
It was Rangers who voted in support of our right to fly the Tricolour, was that the start of the “old firm”. I am sure the new Rangers would never give us any support if it was still an issue today.
No, the Old Firm was in place, at least, 50 years before that.
History, matters, facts, matter.
Re Marketing the USA.Many years ago the Lions stopped off in Chicago on their way to Las Vegas, I was part of the Chicago supporters club that sponsored a night with the boys in the Abbey pub in the north side of town. It was to say the least a fantastic night and a chance for many of us to meet and greet our hero,s.
During the evening I had the opportunity to speak to David Lowe , knowing he was close to Fergus at the time I suggested that I would like to start a business in Chicago selling Celtic products, I would use my own money to begin with and Celtic would eventually take over as the business .From previous Vegas trips I knew how large the NAFCSC was I also knew how large the Irish connection was nation wide.
Mr Lowe said in his opinion it would never work and shot down the idea flat!
I still regret that I never pushed the idea more.
Dennis, I had a similar conversation in Vegas with McLeod when he was Celtic’s CEO. The main point I made to him was that if the Midwest University of Notre Dame founded by French priests, wearing blue and gold colors could call themselves “The Fighting Irish” and have a coast to coast following largely due to that, what could Celtic do with our Irish heritage? I also pointed out that their were approximately 40 million people in the US of Irish decent and if you only got 10 % of them supporting Celtic, we’ll do the math! His reply was short and negative.
Celtic also did this a about a decade ago with a banger of a black Nike away kit, trimmed with the tricolour, albeit on the inside of the sleeves (nothing a quick roll of the sleeve couldn’t fix though) and in a hoop around the mid-shin area of the socks. I still have mine.
I also recall the outraged wailing and gnashing of teeth it caused amongst people, who spend an inordinate amount of their time mouth-foamingly castigating other teams for not adorning their shirts with poppies, but who were happy to support a club that cheated their beloved armed forces (as well as their beloved monarch) out of millions in tax funding. Before it died. Irony is something that is clearly lost on your average Ibrox knuckle dragger.