Football and Sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s

Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd

Football and Sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930sAuthor(s): Andrew DaviesSource: Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 35, No. 138 (Nov., 2006), pp. 200-219Published by: Irish Historical Studies Publications LtdStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20547429 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 20:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toIrish Historical Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 20:43:15 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ihsp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20547429?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


frisfc it 'f."!- ^ S^m?tn, Wv, RU ? 3* (NitV 20flbt

Football and sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s

Of all the cities of England and Scotland, Glasgow is most widely associated with sectarianism, As Bill Murray has remarked, the city is renowned for its

religion, violence and football, three elements which crystallise in the uniquely bitter encounters between the city's two major football clubs. Rangers and Celtic,1 The clubs are identified as 'Protestant* and /Catholic' respectively, although, as Tom Gallagher has commented, supporters' allegiances tend to be more tribal than doctrinal2 Religion is inextricably bound up with nationalism in these sporting contests. The two sets of supporters fiy Union Jacks and Irish tricolour^ clearly demonstrating that large numbers of people in Glasgow identity with die national causes at the heart of the Ulster conflict.3 He history of the 'Old Firm* of Rangers and Celtic has been sketched by a number of historians in the last two decades, and they have shown that the sectarian contours of football in Glasgow were firmly established before 1914/ ?lie Celtic Football Club was founded *for and by Catholics' in the city's East End in 1888.* The club was aligned with Irish nationalism and home rule politics from its inception and effectively served as the 'standard-bearer5 of the Irish Catholic community in Glasgow,6 Rangers assumed a similar mantle within the Protestant community during the 1890s, and Old Firm matches quickly acquired the backdrop of religious bigotry which has characterised encounters between the two teams ever since.7

1 Bill Murray, The Old Firm: $ectariamsmt sport and society in Scotland (Edinburgh,

1984), p K 2 Tom Gallagher, Glasgow: the uneasv peace: religious tension in modern Scotland

? Manchester, 1987 K p. L > ibid, 4 Murray, Old-Firm; Graham Walker,

* 'There's not a team like the Glasgow Rangers":

ftxrtball and religious identity in modem Scotland* in Tom Gallagher and Graham Walker <eds), Sermons and battle hymns: Protestant popular culture in modern Scotland {Edinburgh, 1990), pp 137-59; G. P. T. Finn,

* Racism? religion and social prejudice: Irish

Catholic clubs, soccer and Scottish society ? I: The historical roots of prejudice* in Internat. Jn. Hist. Sport, viii (1991), pp 72-95; idem, 'Sporting symbols, sporting identities: swcer and intcrgroup conflict in Scotland and Northern Ireland* in Ian S. Wood Ce&), Scotland and Ulster (Edinburgh, 1994), pp 33-55; Joseph M. Bradley, 'Football in Scotland: a history of political and ethnic identity' in Internat. Jn. Hist. Sport, xii (1995), pp 81-^8; idem, 'Sport and the contestation of cultural and ethnic identities in Scottish .society5 in Immigrants and Minorities, xvii ( 1998), pp 127-50, *

Murray, Old Firm, pp 60-61. h Ibid, pp-60-75; Walker, 'Glasgow Rangers', p. 138. ?

Walker, 'Glasgow Rangers*, p, 138; Murray, Old Firm, pp 165-7; Finn, 'Sporting symbols', p. 51).

200



Davies ? Football and sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s 201

Previous academic commentators on football in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s have tended to view the Old Firm rivalry as a social palliative, Murray is fiercely critical of the way in which Rangers and Celtic together exploited the city's ethnic and religious divisions for commercial gain, yet he nonetheless sees the Old Firm in the 1930s as offering 4a release for sectarian hatreds in the relatively harmless atmosphere of a football-match'.8 Gallagher has likewise depicted the Old Firm rivalry as a useful sporting outlet for Glasgow's ethnic and religious antagonisms. In his view, 'the soccer rivalry which emerged at the start of [the twentieth] century may have been a useful tension-releasing valve ? two rival working-class communities were able to assert their identity through sporting champions who had the fortunes of their own people on their shoulders'.9 Sean Darner has echoed Gallagher's claim, commenting that the 'ritual expression of hostility1 between supporters of Celtic and Rangers helped to ensure that Glasgow did not witness the larger-scale sectarian rioting seen in

Liverpool in the early twentieth century,10 This article makes the opposite case. My argument is that the Old Firm rivalry5

served to inflame sectarian hostilities in Glasgow throughout the inter-war decades. Matches between Rangers and Celtic mobilised tens of thousands of football supporters into bitterly opposed camps, with expressions of national and

religious allegiance inseparable from exchanges of sectarian abuse and violence. Like the annual *Orange walks', held to commemorate the victory of William of

Orange at the battle of the Boyne in 1690," Old Firm matches brought ethnic divisions to the forefront of civic life and turned religious affiliations into the source of intense antagonism. Hundreds and even thousands of people joined in the communal violence which marred meetings between Rangers and Celtic. Ou these occasions overarching Protestant and Catholic allegiances found expression in the sporting of blue (Rangers) and green (Celtic) colours and even

momentarily eclipsed the fierce territorial loyalties which underpinned Glasgow's thriving gang culture.12 Far from providing a safety-valve? football thus added another incendiary spark to Glasgow's fraught ethnic and religious divisions.13

Like the city's religious parades? football matches involved the movement-of tens of thousands of people across Glasgow in crowds that were clearly

8 Murray, Old Firm, p. 139. 9 Gallagher, Glasgow, p. 3. 10 Sean Darner, Glasgow: going for a song (London, 1990), p. 96.

"For an account of 'Orange walks' during the 1920s and 1930s see Murray? Old Firm, pp 154-6, 12 Andrew Davies, 'Sectarian violence and police violence in Glasgow during the 1930s* in Richard Bessel and Clive Emsley (eds), Patterns of provocation: police and public disorder (Oxford, 2000), pp 43-5, 13 It is worth noting here that sociologists have disagreed as to whether the Old Firm

rivalry should be understood as a cause of ongoing sectarianism in recent decades. In the

early 1980s H. F. Moorhouse argued that, following the decline of sectarianism in many other aspects of life in Glasgow (including in the labour market),'football is now one of the main vehicles of the ethnic antagonism it is supposed to represent*: see H. R

Moorhouse, 'Professional' football and working class culture; English theories and Scottish evidence' in Sociological Rev,, xxxii (1984), p, 311. More recently Steve Bruce and his colleagues have argued that the aggressive posturing and offensive chanting by present-day supporters of Rangers and Celtic should not be taken as evidence of a'wider



202 Irish Historical Studies

identifiable as Protestant or Catholic, Football, however, was played on a weekly basis for ten months of the year. By the 1920s, with supporters increasingly using motorised charabancs, it was common for followers of the Old Firm to travel to their team's home matches in groups forty- or fifty-strong. Any day when either

Rangers or Celtic played in Glasgow saw potential flashpoints across the city. Many Rangers supporters drove through districts of heavy Irish Catholic settlement en route to Ibrox Park, Rangers' stadium in Govan. Likewise, Celtic followers frequently passed through the East End Protestant stronghold of

Bridgeton Cross on their way to Celtic Park. Neither set of supporters moved

anonymously through the city. Quite the reverse; Rangers and Celtic supporters alike flaunted their teams' colours? sang 'party songs' and shouted abuse and threats at passers-by suspected of belonging to the rival faith. On days of matches between Rangers and Celtic the thoroughfares leading to Ibrox Park or Celtic Park were crammed with supporters of both teams, and Glasgow's sectarian

antagonisms were mobilised in full This article is divided into four main sections. The first briefly sketches the

development of sectarianism in Glasgow before 1914 and its nature and intensification during the 1920s and 1930s. The second examines violence

perpetrated by and against Old Firm supporters travelling by charabanc during the 1920s, both within Glasgow and on journeys to and from matches elsewhere in the west of Scotland. The third section offers a wider exploration of violence between supporters of the Old Firm, in riots outside the stadiums, in ambushes of

supporters travelling to matches on foot or by train, and in more spontaneous confrontations on non-match days. The fourth section presents a case study of the trial of John Traquair, a Rangers supporter sentenced to four years' penal servitude following an ambush upon Celtic supporters in March 1934. Traquair's trial exposed to harsh scrutiny in the Glasgow press the nature of confrontations between followers of the Old Firm, but a highly politicised campaign for the commutation of his sentence captured wide popular support across Scotland and Northern Ireland.

' I

'

Sectarianism was embedded in many aspects of communal life in Glasgow by 1914. The city's Protestant community, which formed around three-quarters of the population, harboured longstanding anti-Catholic and anti-Irish prejudices,14

Moreover, the settlement of Ulster Protestants in Glasgow from the early

antagonism between the city's etao-religious communities. In their view, ritualised abuse is used to *wind up' rival supporters, but 'most of those people do not mean it' and lead lives largely untouched by sectarianism outside of the conf?nes of Old Firm matches. See Steve Bruce, Tqny Giendinning, Iain Paterson and Michael Rosie, Sectarianism in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2004), pp 130-32; Michael Rosie, The sectarian myth in Scotland: of.bitter memory and bigotry (London, 2004), pp 3-5, 10-1L 14

Gallagher, Glasgow, p, 16. There are no precise figures for the inter-war period, but Catholics were estimated to comprise one-quarter of the city's adult population during the 1950s: to John Highet, The churches' in J, Cunnison and J.-B. S. Gilfillan (eds), The third statistical mwunt of Scotland: Glasgow (Glasgow, 1958), p. 725 (? am grateful to Callum Brown for this reference).



Davies - Football and sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s 203

nineteenth century led to the forging of many cultural and political ties with Ulster loyalisrn.15 Ulster Protestant migrants brought with them their own social and cultural institutions. The most notable was the Orange Order, which established strongholds in many of the city's predominantly working-class residential districts from Govan and Partick in the west of the city, to Maryhili and Springburn in the north and Bridgeton and Shettleston in the East End.16 Protestant migration from Belfast to Glasgow was renewed from 1912 when the Belfast shipbuilders Harland & Wolff opened a shipyard in Govan. This led to a

growing two-way traffic of shipyard workers between the two cities, with a new wave of Ulster Protestant workers settling in Govan and surrounding districts. As H. F. Moorhouse has pointed out, their arrival from 1912 coincided with the

sharpening of ethnic divisions in Glasgow in the wake of the burgeoning home rule crisis.17

Glasgow's Catholic population, although largely Scottish-born by the turn of the twentieth century, was overwhelmingly of Irish descent and identified

strongly with Irish nationalism. Irish Catholics were treated with disdain by many Scottish Protestants on grounds of both religion and ethnicity and suffered

systematic discrimination in the labour market. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries membership of Masonic and Orange lodges was used by Protestants to regulate entry into skilled trades and thus to exclude

working-class Catholics from the better-paid and more secure manual

occupations in many branches of industry.18 The effects of labour market discrimination were cemented by the development of an 'introverted* Irish Catholic culture, in which a separate faith was augmented by a host of social and cultural institutions ranging from Catholic schools to the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Celtic Football Club.19

Sectarianism intensified in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s.20 During the War of Independence there was some I.R,A, activity in the city, leading to a violent Protestant backlash against the city's Irish Catholic population during the

early 1920s,21 The establishment of state support for separate Catholic schools under the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, led to prolonged protests from Protestants complaining of 'Rome on the rates*. According to Gallagher? 'the schools question breathed new life into the No Popery movement to an alarrning degree in the two subsequent decades and was responsible for giving it a

15 On Ulster Protestant settlement in Glasgow's East End see Walker, 'Glasgow

Rangers', p. 158. 16 Graham Walker, 'The Orange Order in Scotland between the wars* in Internat Rev.

Soc. Hist, xxxvii (1992), p. 187. 17 Moorhouse, 'Professional football*, p. 299; Walker, 'Glasgow Rangers', pp 140-41. 18 Gallagher, Glasgow, pp 99-100; Darner, Glasgow, pp 95, 129, See also James H,

Treble, 'The market for unskilled male labour in Glasgow, 1891-1914* in Ian MacBougall (ed.), Essays in Scottish labour history (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 122; Joan Smith, 'Labour tradition in Liverpool and Glasgow' in History Workshop Journal, no. 17 (1984), p. 48.

For a counter-claim see Rosie, Sectarian myth, p. 79. 19 Gallagher, Glasgow, pp 49-53; Darner, Glasgow, pp 57-8; Walker, 'Orange Order',

pp 198-9. 20 Moorhouse, 'Professional football \ p, 299,

2lAndrew O'Hagan, The missing (London, 1995), pp 22-8, On the extent ofT.RA.

activity in the city see Iain D. Patterson, 'The activities of Irish Republican physical force organisations in Scotland, 1919~2r in Scot Hist. Rev., Ixxii (1993)? pp 39-59.




legitimacy in Scotland which it had never previously enjoyed in modern times'.22

Sectarian antagonisms were stirred up further during the 1920s by the

vehemently anti-Catholic campaigns of the Church of Scotland, which railed

against the allegedly pernicious effects of Irish Catholic settlement on the racial

purity ma ecclesiastical integrity of the Scots,23 Protestant anxieties were

heightened by the growth of the Catholic church in Scotland during the inter-war decides? Increasing Catholic church attendances, and an associated programme of church-building, contrasted sharply with the slow, relative decline of the Church of Scotland, especially during the 1930s.24

In the early 1930s anti-Catholicism became a significant force in Glasgow's municipal politics. Mass unemployment eroded the privileged economic position of skilled Protestant manual workers, and the economic downturn of the early 1930s was exploited by the militant Scottish Protestant League (S.P.L.) under the

leadership of Alexander Ratcliffe. in Ratcliffe's propaganda, the local Irish Catholic population made a perfect scapegoat for the city's economic and social ?lhr5 The S.P.L, enjoyed a surge of support in Glasgow's municipal elections, taking two council seats in 1931 and another one the following year. In 1933, with adult male unemployment in Glasgow reaching 38 per cent, the S.PL, secured four more seats after polling 67,000 votes, 23 per cent of the total.26 The S,RL.'s initial successes were in working-class wards with strong Orange traditions.17 In the East End in particular, the S.P.L. appealed to Protestant manual

workers who had previously voted for the Unionist-led * Moderates'.28 The S.P.L.

ran populist campaigns in the East End in which anti-Catholicism was fused with attacks on *

wasteful' council expenditure and support for increased welfare

provision for the city's unemployed.2* In 1933, capitalising on wider disaffection with the Moderates, the S.P.L, won both middle-class and 'respectable' working class wards.50 However, the main beneficiary was the Labour Party, which wrestled control of the city council from the Moderates for the first time.31

The demise of the S.RL. was as rapid as its rise. By 1934 Ratcliffe's autocratic leadership style had alienated his fellow S.P.L. councillors, who began to defect amidst much rancour.32 In November of that year, following a botched electoral

?? Gallagher, Glasgow, p. 104. .

2:* C&llum Brown, Religion and society in Scotland since 1707 (Edinburgh, 1997), pp 192-3.

24 Rosie, Sectarian myth, pp 75-6; Brown? Religion and society, pp 147-8. ** See, for example, the account of the Garngad district in the S.PJL's weekly

newspaper, Vanguard, 25 July 1934, 26

Gallagher, Glasgow, pp 152-3. Unemployment rate calculated from Ministry of labour, Id>cal Unemployment Index, monthly returns (1933), i1 William S. Marshall, The -Billy Boys: a concise history of Orangeism in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1996), p. 144.

' . ;

M R?sie, Sectarian myth, p. 133.

w Gallagher, Glasgow, pp 152-4; Bruce et al, Sectarianism in Scotland, pp 48-50, * Rosie characterises all four wards won by.the SJP.L. in 1933 as middle-class

{Sectarian myth, p. 136), However, of the four, Marshall describes Dennistoun as

*predi>minantly .artisan* (Billy Boys, p. 144), while Govanhill was characterised as a 'respectable' working-class district by Alexander McArthur and H. Kingsley Long, ?o mem: city (London* 1957 e&), pp 2:23-4. n

Bruce et ?t?..* Secmrktnlm in Scotland, pp 48-50, n Galiagh^ Glasgow, p 156; Rosie, Sectarian myth, p. 128.




pact with the Moderates, the S.P.L. 's share of the votes in the municipal elections fell to just 7 per cent.33 Labour's control of the city council for the remainder of the decade suggests that, within the realm of municipal politics, class loyalties ultimately triumphed over ethnic and religious divisions, Michael Rosie sees the demise of the S.P.L. as evidence of the shallowness of militant Protestantism as a political force in Glasgow.34 Nonetheless, Ratcliffe's brief spell of success

during the 1930s highlighted the political capital to be made from militant Protestantism in periods of economic decline,

Despite the persistence of labour market discrimination, there was only limited residential segregation between Catholics and Protestants in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s. As Darner has noted, many Glasgow neighbourhoods were

predominantly Catholic or Protestant and widely recognised as such, but

Glasgow never had near-exclusive religious ghettos on the scale of those in

Liverpool.35 Glasgow's Irish Catholic community tended to be clustered in the

impoverished neighbourhoods on the fringes of the city centre such as the Calton, the Garngad and the Gorbals, situated to the east, north-east and south of the centre respectively.36 Although renowned as Trish* districts, however, none was

exclusively so. The Gorbals, for example, housed both a substantial Protestant

population and a vibrant Jewish community during the inter-war decades, and an S.P.L. candidate received 25 per cent of votes cast in the Gorbals ward in the

Glasgow municipal elections of 1934.37 Bridgeton, renowned as the epicentre of militant Protestantism in the East End, likewise housed a sizeable Catholic

minority.38 In these ethnically mixed neighbourhoods religious parades tended to draw

large crowds of both supporters and opponents. Processions organised by the various churches, along with those mounted by the Orange Order and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, frequently spilled over into violence. The annual 'Orange walks', held on a Saturday around 12 July in a town or village outside Glasgow, drew as many as 50,000 people during the inter-war decades,39 Confrontations broke out across Glasgow on the Saturday evening as the returning processionists made their way home through the predominantly Irish Catholic districts that

ringed the city centre. Catholic residents hung Irish tricolours from tenement windows in gestures of defiance, and hostile crowds gathered at strategic points in principal thoroughfares such as the Gallowgate in the Calton. Violence

frequently erupted, sparked by the waving of orange or green colours or by the

shouting of sectarian abuse.40 In July 1933, for example, vicious street fighting broke out in Garscube Road in the Cowcaddens, in the Garngad, in the Calton and in Bridgeton, At Bridgeton Cross a 15,000-strong crowd paraded with

Orange flags and banners. Police flooded the immediate vicinity with officers to

33 Gallagher, Glasgow, pp 156-7; Rosie, Sectarian myth, p. 136.

34 Rosie, Sectarian myth, pp 142-3.

35 Darner, Glasgow, p. 95; Smith,

* Labour tradition', p. 49; Bruce et ak, Sectarianism in

Scotland, pp 94-5. 36

Darner, Glasgow, p. 95. 37

Vanguard, 29 Jan. 1936; T. M. Devine, The Scottish nation, 17?Q-2Q0? (London, 2000), p. 519/

38 Bruce et al., Sectarianism in Scotland, p. 95. m

Walker, 'Orange Order', p. 182; Murray, Old Firm, pp 154-6. 40 Murray, Old Firm, pp 154-6; Rosie, Sectarian myth, pp 81-2,




keep the peace, but sporadic faction fighting in nearby Baltic Street lasted for three hours.41

In the East End, feuding between rival street gangs frequently assumed sectarian overtones. Sectarianism among East End gangs stretched back into the late nineteenth century, partly as a result of the strong Orange tradition in

Bridgeton,42 The Bridgeton Billy Boys, whose name proclaimed their allegiance to King Billy as well as to the gang's leader Billy Fullerton, were widely recognised as the largest and most powerful of Glasgow's street gangs from the mid~!920s to the late 1930s,43 During the early 1930s the Billy Boys stewarded SJPJL election meetings in the East End.44 Their song, bellowed in the streets, at

Rangers matches and on Orange walks, was hugely inflammatory;

Hello, hello, we are the Billy Boys! Hello, hello, you'll know us by our noisei We're up to our knees in Fenian blood, Surrender or you'll die, For we are the Bridgeton Billy Boys.45

Following the Twelfth of July parades, the Billy Boys marched at the head of

Orange processions through the Calton back to Bridgeton. The gang claimed that their presence was a defensive response to Catholic assaults on Orange

marchers,46 However, the presence of this renowned group of Protestant street fighters demanded a response in turn from the Catholic gangs of the Calton such as the Kent Stars and the Calton Entry. Clashes between the Billy Boys and their Catholic rivals were eagerly anticipated on both sides, and some of these fights became the stuff of legend.47

The Billy Boys formed their own marching band so that they could process, in the guise of a religious parade, along thoroughfares where their Catholic rivals gathered. Violence duly ensued,4* In 1935 the band travelled to the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, where they were involved in a sectarian riot in which two people were shot dead and fifteen others suffered gunshot wounds.49 In Glasgow, by contrast, sectarian violence seldom led to fatalities,50 However, feuds between rival gangs in the city's East End provided an ongoing renewal of sectarian hostility among those aged in their teens, twenties and even thirties, Skirmishes between gangs were by no means confined to the traditional tension

4? Sunday Mail, 9 July 1933. ^ See the Glasgow Weekly Herald, 5 July 1884, for an account of the Protestant 'Blue

Bmdf launching incursions into the Calton from Bridgeton Cross. 4i Davies, Sectarian violence', pp 45-7. 44 See below, p. 217. 45 The song is still sung by Rangers supporters, to the tune of 'Marching through

Georgia": see Walker, 'Glasgow Rangers*, p. 143; Sunday Mail, .10 July 1927; Weekly Record, 20 Dec. 1930. *

Glasgow Herald,.1 May 1934. 47 See the interview with Larry Rankin (pseudonym) by Stephen Humphries, n.d. (B.L., National Sound Archive, C59?/?2/177-80). 4* Sir Percy Sillitoe, Cloak without dagger (London, 1955), pp 130-31. For a report on one such disturbance see Evening Citizen, 18 May 1931. m A. C; Hepburn, 'The Belfast riots of 1935' in Soc. Hist, xv (1990), p. 80. m

On gmg violence see Davies, 'Sectarian violence', p. 43. For a fatality arising out o? a dispute- between rival Old Firm supporters see the case of Alexander Craig West discussed below, p. 212.




points in the religious calendar. Quite the reverse: gangs sometimes fought on a

weekly, or even nightly, basis in seemingly endless cycles of retribution.51

Gang conflicts in Glasgow's South Side were less overtly sectarian. The largest and most notorious of the Gorbals gangs, the South Side Stickers, were often assumed to be a Catholic gang on account of the Gorbals* reputation as a district of heavy Irish Catholic settlement.52 However, the Stickers contained Catholic, Protestant and Jewish members, in stark contrast to the more avowedly sectarian

gangs of the East End.53 The lack of a strong Orange presence in the Gorbals

might help to account for the comparatively low level of sectarianism among the South Side gangs. Gorbals gangs appear to have pursued vendettas with equal vigour against each other, against their Catholic counterparts from the Calton, and against Protestant gangs from Bridgeton.54 Nonetheless, confrontations between the South Side Stickers and the Bridgeton Billy Boys were laced with sectarian bitterness and reinforced the popular perception of the Gorbals and

Bridgeton as 'Catholic' and 'Protestant' respectively.55 Throughout Glasgow's working-class districts, children emulated the

sectarianism displayed by their elders. Gangs of schoolboys roamed the streets of the South Side as well as the East End issuing the traditional challenge, *Wha' are yese? Billy or a Dan?' 'Billy' stood both for King Billy and the Billy Boys, 'Dan' stood for Catholic, The 'wrong' answer was grounds for an assault, as was refusal to respond to the challenge.56 Schoolboys usually fought with their fists or with sticks and stones. Occasionally, however, they resorted to the more

dangerous weapons carried by older street gangs.57 Moreover, the separate schools system paved the way for larger-scale confrontations between boys from

neighbouring Protestant and Catholic schools. In 1932 the Evening Citizen

reported that East End schoolboys were staging sectarian gang fights on Glasgow Green after school. Boys aged twelve and thirteen were arming themselves with bottles, sticks, stones and wooden batons,58 Like their adult counterparts, gangs of schoolboys followed the festive calendar, with gangs of Protestant boys seeking confrontations at the gates of Catholic schools on St Patrick's Day and Catholic boys seeking retribution on the Twelfth of July,59 Violent encounters

during childhood prepared Protestants and Catholics alike for the more

dangerous passions aroused by the senior gangs, the Orange walks and the Old

Firm, to whose adult supporters we now turn.

51 Sillitoe, Cloak without dagger, pp 129-30; Davies, 'Sectarian violence', pp 49-56,

52 See, for example, Evening Citizen, 4, 6 Aug. 1930.

5:t See, for example, Weekly Record, 21 Mar, 1931; Evening Citizen, 10 Jan. 1955, 54 Andrew Davies,

* Street gangs, crime and policing in Glasgow during the 1930s: the

case of the Beehive Boys' in Soc. Hist, xxiii (1998), pp 254-5, 258. 55 See the account of an attack upon a group of Billy Boys by the South Side Stickers following the Scottish Cup Final replay between Rangers and Partick Thisde at Hampden Park in April 1930, below, pp 211-12. 56

Ralph Glasser, Growing up in the Gorbals (London, 1987), pp 2-3; Bob Sinfieid, Gentleman of jazz/ (http://georgechisholm.tripod.com) (6 Sept. 2004). 57

See, for example, Evening Citizen, 11 May 1928. 58

Ibid., 4 Feb. 1932. 59

Sinfieid, 'Gentleman of jazz'.




II

During the early 1920s reports of rowdiness and violence among Old Firm

supporters centred on the rival Rangers and Celtic 'brake clubs'. The clubs were

first formed in the 1890s and were named after the horse-drawn carriages, or

brakes, hired by groups of supporters to travel to games at Ibrox Park and Celtic Park* As early as the 1900s it was alleged that brakes were being used to ferry rival sets of 'hooligans* around the city.61 Concern with the conduct of the brake clubs intensified during the early 1920s, by which time the supporters were hiring memorised charabancs capable of carrying fifty passengers to matches.02 Brakes were festooned with flags and banners proclaiming allegiance to the rival national causes of Britain and Ireland.63 Against the backdrop of the War of

independence and the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, these were an

incendiary presence on the streets of Glasgow. Rangers brakes drove through the city's predominantly Catholic residential

districts on their way to matches, just as Celtic brakes crossed through the Protestant heartlands of Bridgeton and Govan. The conduct of the 'brakists' was calculated to antagonise those of the rival faith. The waving of flags, singing of

4party songs', shouts of sectarian abuse and issuing of threats to passing pedestrians frequently met with violent ripostes, and many brakists armed themselves before setting off to matches.64 In October 1923 police arrested forty members of the Sally Boys? a Celtic brake club from Parkhead composed of lads

aged in their late teens. Their charabanc was witnessed driving through Govan

following an Old Firm match at Ibrox Park with the occupants waving flags and banners and shouting threats A store of stones and half-bricks was found in the charabanc, aSong with a hammer, a loaded stick and fourteen flagpoles.65

Brake clubs, however, were as much sinned against as sinning. In April 1925, for example, there was a series of attacks on charabancs carrying Celtic supporters home from the Scottish Cup Final between Celtic and Dundee at

Hampden Park. Eighteen members of a Celtic brake club were arrested following an incident in Bridgeton. Police told how the occupants of the charabanc had been waving banners, playing bugles and shaking rattles. They were also holding aloft an imitation cup trophy. They met a hostile response as they entered Bridgeton. According to one of die brakists, When they reached Dalraarnock Road a crowd of young men were lined up waiting for them, and bottles, stones, etc* were thrown at the occupants of the charabanc who jumped down to save themselves. At that the other men ran away,66

The ambush was carried out by a Bridgeton gang known as the Waverley Boys. The Waverley Boys made good their escape, but police apprehended the brakists? whose behaviour was deemed provocative and all of whom were subsequently fined for breaching the peace. Another Celtic brake club was attacked in the

m Murray, OU Firm, pp 26, 169. ? Ibid, p, 171. ? See, for example, Glasgow Herald, 31 Oct. 1923. w See, for example. Evening T?ntes, 7 Sept. 1922; Murray, Old Firm, p. 123.

"Homy, Old Firm* $115. ?S Glasgow Herald, 29-31 Oct. 1923, cited in Murray, Old Firm, p. 173, m Evening Citizen, 13,14 Apr. 1925.



Dav?es ? Football and sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s 209

Plantation district, where their charabanc was bombarded with missiles by Rangers supporters returning from a match at Ibrox Park.67

Both Rangers and Celtic brake clubs were similarly involved in outbreaks of violence when they travelled to matches outside Glasgow.68 Supporters of both teams complained bitterly that their brakes were the target of widespread hostility.69 However, complaints of misbehaviour by the brakists themselves on their travels were legion. In effect, the brake clubs' return trips through the towns and villages of Lanarkshire, like their journeys through Glasgow, provided endless opportunities to antagonise those of the opposing faith. Some brake clubs

knowingly took routes through towns and villages where they were likely to encounter a hostile response and appear to have relished the violence that followed. In November 1922, for example, Rangers brakists were involved in a

spate of incidents in Broomhouse following a match at Hamilton. Police witnessed one brake stop as it entered the village to allow the passengers to

gather stones for use as missiles. They waved flags, sang 'party songs', yelled *Kick the pope!* and 'other such phrases' and threw bottles at the Catholic residents of the miners' cottages in Boghail Rows. Thirty-one brakists were arrested and subsequently fined ?5 each.70

Heightened efforts were made to combat the 'brake club menace' in the wake of incidents such as these. A special meeting of the Glasgow magistrates had been convened in September 1922, when it was noted that the police were only empowered to apprehend brakes when breaches of the peace took place,71 On the instruction of the Chief Constable, attempts were made to prohibit supporters taking flags and flagpoles, banners, rattles, bugles and whistles into stadiums.72 This was of limited effect, and in any case most of the disorder

sparked by the brake clubs took place outside the stadiums as supporters made their way to and from matches. In October 1925 Glasgow police chose the day of an Old Firm match at Ibrox Park to launch a campaign to combat 'brake club

rowdyism*. Police motor-cyclists tracked the brakes as they left the vicinity of the stadium, having issued warnings that rowdy conduct would not be tolerated. Three Celtic brakes were apprehended, along with one carrying Rangers supporters. Police made 128 arrests and roundly condemned the brake clubs when the prisoners appeared at Glasgow's Southern police court, pointing both to the brakists' practice of carrying weapons and missiles and the disorder

provoked by their 'bawling and shouting', obscene language, party tunes and banners. Fines of ?2 2s* were imposed with the option of twenty days* imprisonment after the police called for exemplary sentences. The conviction of such a large batch of offenders made front-page news in the local press.73 However, the concerted efforts of the police and magistrates posed no

immediate deterrent. Two weeks later police tracked a charabanc carrying Celtic

supporters from the Garngad on its way to Ibrox Park. Green and white flags were draped around the vehicle before it set oif. The occupants were waving

67 Ibid., 13? 14 Apr., 16 June 1925. 68 Moorhouse, Tmfessional football \ pp 298-9. m See, for example, Evening Times, 1 May 1922; Evening Citizen, 6 Sept 1922.

70 Evening Times, 8 Dec. 1922,

71 Ibid., 11 Sept 1922, 72 Ibid., 29 Sept 1922, 73 Evening Citizen, 1 Oct 1925,




banners and Celtic colours, shouting and singing as the charabanc wound its way

through the city centre and crossed the river Clyde. Their songs included 'My bonny, blue-eyed Irish boy' and an improvised verse in which Celtic's leading

players formed an alternative royal family: Paddy Gallagher became king of

Ireland, and Jimmy McGrory prince of Wales. Police apprehended the vehicle in the Gorbals and confiscated green and white banners, scarves, flags and painted bowler hats along with a concertina. Twenty-nine young men were arrested and

subsequently charged with disorderly conduct.74 Similar scenes were reported following brake club disturbances in Glasgow and beyond in the years that followed,15 However, during the second half of the 1920s concern with the conduct of brake clubs among the Glasgow police and press was eclipsed by the

growing anxieties surrounding the activities of the city's street gangs. Brake clubs more rarely captured headlines after 1925, but hostility between supporters of the Old Firm continued unabated.

Ill

During the late 1920s and 1930s violence continued to flare between

supporters of Rangers and Celtic, in riots outside the stadiums and in ambushes of supporters travelling to matches on foot, in brakes or by train. At Old Firm encounters rival supporters were segregated inside Ibrox Park and Celtic Park, but routinely clashed both before and after matches in the surrounding streets. Outbreaks of stone-throwing appear to have been a ritualised occurrence on these occasions.76 More spontaneous confrontations erupted on non-match days, both within the city's working-class residential districts and in the city centre. Sectarian hostility between Old Firm supporters was thus woven into the fabric of everyday life in the city. Members of sectarian street gangs often played a prominent role in violence

outside the stadiums. In October 1927 the Old Firm met at the neutral venue of Hampden Park on Glasgow's South Side for the final of the Glasgow Cup. A general m?l?e in which sticks, stones and other missiles were thrown caused a

'stampede* outside the stadium at the end of the match. The Bridgeton Billy Boys were reportedly at the heart of the affray. The disturbance was broken up by a detachment of thirty mounted and foot police, only for hostilities to resume when the Billy Boys spotted a Celtic supporter sporting a green handkerchief and scarf. The man was punched, knocked down and kicked by David Watson, an eighteen year-old warehouse porter, who was allegedly shouting 'Come away the Billy Boys/ Watson was fined ?2 2sr, for breaching the peace,77 The following season a riot broke out on Broomloan Road, one of the principal thoroughfares leading to Ibrox Park, Thousands of people were crossing a patch of vacant land following an Old Firm match when rival supporters began hurling stones at each other and at passing tram-cars. Mounted police were required to restore order.78

74 Ibid., 19, 21,22 Oct, 1925.

75 See, for example, ibid., 26 Sept. 1927. w See, for example, ibid:, 2 Jan. 1937. -7 Ibid., 10 Oct. 1927. n

Md., 3 Sept 1928.



DAVIES ? Football and sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s 211

Broomloan Road appears to have been a ritualised site of violence. Almost identical scenes on the same patch of open ground were reported eight years later. Police officers described a 'running fight', with missiles of all descriptions being thrown among a vast crowd of supporters.79

Supporters of both Rangers and Celtic were routinely at risk of assault as they made their way across the city to matches, whether by public transport or on foot. In March 1935 trains carrying Rangers supporters back from Motherwell were stoned as they reached Glasgow's East End. Railway officials told how this was a 'common practice'.80 More common still were assaults on Celtic supporters as

they made their way through Bridgeton before and after matches at Celtic Park. In September 1934 James Boyle, a twenty-year-old Celtic supporter from Bridgeton, was attacked as he walked to Celtic Park with two companions. He was stabbed in the leg and severely wounded.81 Celtic supporters were especially vulnerable as they passed the Billy Boys' gathering place at Bridgeton Cross. Pedestrians were assaulted and buses were stoned. In April 1937 four Celtic

supporters suffered head and facial wounds after their bus was ambushed and 'showered' from both sides with bottles and stones. Police had positioned officers at the Cross to safeguard supporters' buses, but to no avail, A twenty-eight-year old Billy Boy with five previous convictions was jailed for thirty days for his part in the stone-throwing.82 In the following year a full-scale gang fight involving two hundred men broke out as Celtic supporters entered Bridgeton. Police found

thirty-year-old Hugh Fanally from the Gorbals lying on the pavement with severe head injuries and an abandoned hatchet nearby.83

Even the Bridgeton Billy Boys came under attack if they ventured into rival districts such as the Gorbals, as they found to their cost in April 1930 following the replay of the Scottish Cup Final between Rangers and Partick Thistle at

Hampden Park. The match attracted 103,000 spectators. Only one-fifth of the crowd were able to fit into the trains, buses and trams back to the city centre after the match, leaving tens of thousands, most of whom were Rangers supporters, to walk.84 Their route took them through the Gorbals. A group of forty to fifty Billy Boys paraded through Crown Street, one of the main Gorbals thoroughfares, with

orange and blue banners and flags, Union Jacks and a cardboard replica of the Scottish Cup. Their conduct could hardly have been more provocative. As they reached Govan Street they entered the territory of the South Side Stickers, the

largest of the South Side gangs, many of whose members were Catholics. A fifty strong group of Stickers was waiting, led by eighteen-year-old Arthur Boyle. The Stickers launched an immediate attack on the Billy Boys, and in the ensuing m?l?e bottles, sticks, bricks and other weapons were used by both sides. The street was quickly filled with 'a seething mass of men fighting', halting traffic and forcing passers-by to rush into nearby shops? Robert Cotton, a Rangers supporter easily identified by his blue rosette, was hit on the back of the head, knocked to the ground, and kicked on the face, hands and legs. Cotton's

companion told how "fifteen or twenty' youths surrounded him as he lay on the

79 Glasgow Herald, 30 Sept 1936.

80 Sunday Mail, 10 Mar, 1935.

81 Ibid., 23 Sept 1934. nSunday Post,4 Apr. 1937;Evening a?fem,? Apr. 1937, 83

Sunday Mail, 6 Mar. 1938. u Evening Citizen, 17 Apr, 1930.




ground. Boyle and three other members of the South Side Stickers were

subsequently convicted of riot and assault. They were each jailed for nine months.85

Violence continued to break out when Rangers and Celtic played outside

Glasgow, as the presence of large travelling contingents of Old Firm supporters stirred up sectarian antagonisms elsewhere, especially in the industrial towns of the west of Scotland. In October 1934 Celtic supporters arriving in Motherwell were

besieged as soon as they emerged from the railway station. George Spiers, a local

youth? was charged with breaching the peace after police witnessed him chasing Celtic supporters with an iron bar and shouting 'Get after the Fenian-.m As in the brake clubs episodes the previous decade, travelling supporters were both victims and perpetrators of violence and disorder.87 More spontaneous violence broke out within Glasgow on non-match days,

Apparently trifling remarks about Rangers or Celtic quickly sparked confrontations among men who had been drinking heavily, and assaults, wouudings and occasional fatalities resulted. Fights broke out at the various locations where men congregated at pub closing-time: the streets, fish-and-chip shops, bus shelters and even urinals,88 In August 1934 Alexander Craig West, a

thirty-year-old Protestant from King's Park in Glasgow's South Side, died from

injuries sustained in a closing-time fracas outside a city-centre fish-and-chip shop. West and his companion? Thomas Lyons, exchanged heated words witii two

young Catholics, John Kerr and Thomas Mullen, which led Lyons to remark that *there would likely be a fight'.89 As the four men left the fish-and-chip shop together Kerr smashed a bottle in the doorway and put the neck in his pocket. In the ensuing fight West was stabbed in the neck, suffering a severed artery and fractured jaw-bone. He died four days later. Kerr, a married man aged twenty-one with a two-year-old child, was convicted of culpable homicide and sentenced to three years' penal servitude.90 As the evidence at the trial unfolded it became clear that the spark for the confrontation had been derogatory remarks about Celtic which led one of West's assailants to exclaim: T am a Roman Catholic and you are a Protestant-.'Threats were muttered about what would happen 'after the match tomorrow'.91 As Lord Blackburn remarked in his summing up at the trial, 'For some mysterious reason that [he] could not understand, football and religious prejudice seemed to be very much mixed up in the minds of the particular class of people with whom they were dealing,'92

Further disturbances were reported in theatres and cinemas when gangs of youths began shouting their Old Firm allegiances, thus issuing a challenge to any followers of the rival team who were present. In March 1928 the manager of the Picturedrome in Govan described one such incident in court: ... a picture was being shown, and the hall was in darkness, when a crowd of men started

85 Evening Citizen, 17 Apr., 11 July 1930; Glasgow Herald, 12 July 1930. * Evening Times, 1 Oct. 1934.

?7 See, for example, Sunday Mail, 20 Mar. 1938. m See, for example, Evening Times, 9 May 1930. s* Gtogow Herald, 25 Oct. 1934 90 Ibid., 25,26 Oct. 1934; Sunday Mail, 28 Oct. 1934. 91 Glasgow Herald, 26 Oct. 1934, * Ibid., 29 Oct. 1934.



DAVIES ? Football and sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s 213

to cause a disturbance, some of thern shouting 'Up Rangers,' others 'Up Celtic.'

Attendants attempted to stop the trouble but their efforts were useless.93

When the manager tried to remonstrate with the youths, he was punched and struck with a bottle.94 Matches between junior and amateur football teams in Glasgow witnessed

many scenes of violence between supporters during the 1920s and 1930s, much of it sectarian. The names adopted by such teams frequently proclaimed their national and religious loyalties, and localised versions of the Old Firm encounters were played out on the city's playing fields on a weekly basis during the football season. In July 1932 supporters of Townhead Hibernian clashed with those of Partick Glencairn.95 The following season a juvenile match in Yorkhill was abandoned after supporters fought with weapons.96 In May 1933 East End sectarian antagonisms spilled over into a gang fight which disrupted a match at Parkhead Junior Football Club.97 A spate of incidents involving followers of St

Mungo, an amateur team from the Garngad, during the early 1930s culminated in a fracas in which a police officer's skull was fractured with a hatchet, leading to a police 'comb-out' of the Garngad.98 It appears that the sectarian contours of football in Glasgow, established by the Old Firm during the 1890s, were so entrenched as to shape the sport at every level during the 1920s and 1930s.

IV

The mutual antipathy between followers of Rangers and Celtic was starkly highlighted at the trial of a Rangers supporter, John Traquair, convicted at

Glasgow High Court in April 1934 of mobbing and rioting and assault. An examination of the Traquair case sheds considerable light both on the nature of confrontations between Old Firm supporters and on their relationship to the wider culture of sectarianism in Glasgow during the inter-war decades. In

particular, the Traquair case highlighted the centrality of sectarianism to local electoral politics as well as popular culture. A populist campaign for the commutation of Traquair's sentence of four years' penal servitude provided fertile ground for the militant S.P.L., whose intervention mobilised a groundswell of opinion on Traquair's behalf.

On Saturday 3 March 1934 a crowd of five to six hundred Rangers supporters gathered in Bridgeton Cross station to wait for the 2.10 p.m. train to Ibrox Park.

Many were wearing blue rosettes and scarves. Some were carrying weapons." At around 1,50 p.m. a train carrying Celtic supporters to a game against St Mirren in Paisley pulled into the station.100 As the train came to a halt the rival supporters

93 Evening Citizen, 8 Mar. 1928.

94 Ibid, 8 Mar. 1928.

95 Ibid,, 4 July 1932. 96 Ibid., 28 Nov. 1932.

97B?//eiw,31Mayl933. 98 Evening Citizen, 23 June 1931,4 Apr. 1932. 99 'Application for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence by John Traquair\

notes of evidence, 30 Apr. 1934 (National Archives of Scotland (henceforth N.A.S.), JC34/1/179, pp 43, 45-7) (henceforth cited as 'Notes of evidence').

100 Ibid., p. 45.




hurled insults at each other, Celtic supporters claimed that they were met with shouts of 'You Papish bastards' and 'Irish bastards', while the train's guard heard cries of 'To hell with the Celtic', 'Papists' and 'A lot of papish buggers'.101 A station porter heard shouts of 'Good old Celtic' from supporters on the train

interspersed with more aggressive cries ? laced with bad language

? 'running

down'Rangers.102 A group of Rangers supporters led by Traquair then burst into one of the

carriages, Traquair struck at John McVey, a twenty-one-year-old carter from Saracen Street, Glasgow, who raised his arm to ward off the blow. Traquair then

punched McVey's companion, Ranzo Buonaccorsi, in the face.103 The train's

guard ran into the carriage, grabbed Traquair and wrestled him off the train.104 The guard then promptly signalled for the train to depart, ahead of schedule, as he was afraid of the Celtic supporters spilling out of the carriages to confront their adversaries.105 Traquair 'disappeared' into the crowd on the platform,106 Following the disturbance, station porters saw a group of between twelve and

twenty men, some carrying weapons, run up the stairs from the platform and out of the station.107 As the train pulled out, McVey's fellow passengers noticed that he was bleeding from a cut on his left forearm. He got off the train at the next station and was taken to the Royal Infirmary, where his wound was stitched.108

John Traquair, a thirty-eight-year-old unemployed rivet heater from Bridgeton, was identified by one of McVey's fellow passengers.109 Traquair's description was circulated by the police, and he was taken into custody at 10.30 p.m. that

night. Police officers found him leaning against a wall in Main Street, Bridgeton, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. He was drunk, bleeding from several injuries and surrounded by broken glass. Traquair told the officers that he had fallen, but they were convinced that he had been fighting. Traquair was initially charged with being drunk and incapable.110 On Monday 5 March, however, he was charged, along with a fellow Billy Boy, John Phillips, in connexion with the incident at Bridgeton Cross station on the Saturday afternoon.111 Traquair alone was subsequently tried at Glasgow High Court on 30 April. He was charged with mobbing and rioting, assaulting John McVey with a knife or razor and his fists, and assaulting Ranzo Buonaccorsi with his fist. His membership of the Billy Boys was cited in the indictment.112 Traquair pleaded not guilty, although he admitted to assaulting John McVey with his fist.113

101 Ibid, pp 17,29,31,36,43. 102 Ibid., p. 50.

TOIbid,;pp 14-16,23-4,38. ?W Ibid, p. 44. m ibid,

m ?bid.s p. 50. 107 Ibid., pp 46,49-50. m Ibid., pp 18,25. m Ibid, pp 39-40, 110 Ibid, pp 52-4.

m Ibid., pp 54-5.

m *HM, Advocate v. John Traquain mobbing and rioting and assault and prev. cons',

30 Apr. 1934 (RA.S,, JC34/1/I79). 115 'Lord Mottcrieffs charge to jury', 30 Apr. 1934 (ibid., JC34/1/179, pp 4-5) (henceforth cited as 'Charge to jury').




The story that unfolded at the trial was that of an organised ambush on a train

carrying Celtic supporters, perpetrated by a gang of Billy Boys who exploited the cover provided by the larger group of Rangers supporters gathered at the station.114 There was no agreement as to the weapons wielded by the gang: knives, razors, hammers, 'tools', hatchets, bayonets, wooden batons, sticks and

stones were all mentioned by different witnesses.115 Accounts of the threats and insults exchanged by the rival supporters left no doubt that the violence was sectarian. Tapish' and 'Irish' were used interchangeably as terms of abuse by the

Rangers supporters, starkly capturing the fusion of national and religious conflicts embedded in the Old Firm rivalry.116 At the trial McVey, Buonaccorsi and a number of fellow passengers testified to

Traquair's central role in the fight in the carriage.117 Traquair's blow against McVey was described as being of a downward, sweeping motion, suggesting the use of a sharp instrument such as a knife or razor, rather than a punch with a fist.118 A resident house surgeon from the Glasgow Royal Infirmary testified that the wound on McVey's forearm, which had penetrated to the muscle, was consistent with injuries inflicted by a knife or razor.119 Police testimonies in court emphasised Traquair's involvement with the Billy

Boys. Lieutenant Paterson told the court that Traquair was frequently to be seen in the ranks of the gang at Bridgeton Cross, the Billy Boys' recognised 'headquarters'.120 Asked by the Advocate Depute to describe the nature of the

Billy Boys, Paterson responded;

They are a so-called Orange organisation. There is a crowd sometimes of them of about

100 strong. They are known as Rangers' supporters and follow the Rangers everywhere and one of their songs is 'We are the Billy Boys*. They hang about Bridgeton Cross and cause great trouble. When there are matches at Parkhead and Celtic [supporters] going there and anyone wearing a Celtic scarf, there is a disturbance. We have instructed special policemen to be there on Saturday afternoons to keep down disorder, Q,

- Caused by the

Billy Boys? A. - They do. They sing that song,121

In effect, the latter stages of the trial focused on the Billy Boys as a gang? with

Traquair liable to guilt by association. Pressed further by the Advocate Depute, Paterson was adamant that the Billy Boys formed 'a definite body', Their members were easily distinguished at football matches since they were ^usually dressed with orange colours and blue Rangers' colours'.122 In cross-examination,

Traquair's counsel asked Paterson: 'Don't you know that the chief reason for [the existence of the Billy Boys] is to protect the band at the Orange Walk?' Paterson

responded that he '[did] not think the Orange Lodge would admit that', and that in any case the Orangemen were well protected by the police,123 Asked where the

114'Notes of evidence', pp 23,46. lls Ibid,, pp 14, 16, 23,37,46,47, 58. 116 Ibid, pp 17, 29, 31, 36, 43. 117 Ibid, pp 14-16,24,30, 38, 118

Ibid, pp.24, 38. 119

Ibid, p. 58. 120

Ibid, pp 12, 56-7. 121 Ibid, pp 55-6. 122 Ibid, p. 56,

123 Ibid, p. 57.




gang got the name 'Billy Boys', Paterson replied simply: 'Followers of King Billy I would say.'124

Following a strong steer from the judge, Lord Moncrieff, the jury took just half an hour to find Traquair guilty on all three counts. Their verdict was

unanimous.125 Moving for sentence, the Advocate Depute highlighted Traquair's eleven previous convictions for crimes of violence. The most recent, in

September 1933, followed a ' stand-up fight' between two gangs in Bridgeton. On

that occasion Traquair had been jailed for three months for assault, having ftactured a man's skull with a hatchet.126 Traquair's counsel portrayed him as a

First World War veteran who had fallen on hard times and was now living in a

household bereft of a woman's nurturing presence: he had been unemployed for twelve months; he lived with his seventy-five-year-old father, 'without the assistance of any female in the house'; he had seen active service in the war,

having served twenty-one months in the Cameron Highlanders.127 Lord Moncrieff was not moved by any of this. He sentenced Traquair to four years' penal servitude, commenting that, in the light of Traquair's criminal record,

exemplary punishment was now required.128 Traquair appealed against both conviction and sentence on the grounds of

insufficient evidence and that, in any event, the sentence was excessive,129 Lord Moncrieff submitted a confidential report to the appeal judges in which he confirmed his own belief that Traquair was guilty on all three of the counts

against him. Moncrieff explained that the severity of the sentence reflected the evidence that Traquair had aimed a blow with a knife at McVey's face and thus

might have struck his neck. Moncrieff added that he had been influenced by Traquair's list of previous convictions and in particular the 'startling' sentence of a mere three months' imprisonment imposed in September 1933. He pointed out that 1 have subsequently been told that the case was tried summarily on that occasion because there was reason to distrust the courage of a jury, and because conviction was regarded as of more moment than sentence.'130 In Moncrieff's view, justice had been tempered on that occasion by the fear that juries were intimidated in gang cases.

Traquair's appeal was heard at the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh on 17 July, Lord Anderson pronounced that Traquair's conviction was 'well warranted' on the basis of the evidence presented. Commenting on the sentence of four years' penal servitude? Anderson declared that, in the light both of Traquair's previous convictions and the nature of the present offence, 'it was not a day too long. He thought it was a contribution to putting down the gang nuisance in Glasgow, which was a commendable act that had been done by Lord Moncrieff? Lord Hunter and Lord Murray concurred.131

in addition to Traquair's own appeal, two petitions were launched on his behalf

"*Ibid,p.S8. m 'Charge to jury*, pp l-B,

lu Ibid., pp 8-9,

BMbid.,p.9, ^ Ibid, pp 9-10. i2S *Note of application under S.l (b) for leave to appeal against a conviction and sentence, Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Act, 1926', 28 June 1934 (N.A.S., JC34/1/179). m 'Confidential report by Lord Moncrieff \ 19 May 1934 (ibid.), m

Glasgow Herald, 18 July 1934.




in the fortnight following his trial. The first, addressed to the Home Secretary, was highly libellous in the accusations it levelled at Lord Moncrieff.132 Alexander Ratcliffe, leader of the S.P.L. and councillor for the East End ward of Dennistoun, quickly launched a more judiciously worded alternative addressed to the Secretary of State for Scotland, Sir Godfrey Collins.133 Ratcliffe's petition pleaded for a reduction in Traquair's sentence and highlighted the disparity between the sentence of four years' penal servitude imposed on Traquair and those of twelve months' imprisonment passed on five Catholic gang members at the same sitting of the High Court.134 The Catholic youths, members of a Calton

gang, were convicted of mobbing and rioting following a fight in a Gorbals dance-hall in which a man died after being stabbed in the neck,135 Ratcliffe's

petition pointed out that 'so-called religious differences' had been the cause of both disturbances and added that the disparity in the sentences, especially in relation to the injuries sustained, had caused grave disquiet among sections of

Glasgow's Protestant community. The sentences had thus served not to defuse but to heighten the bitterness between rival factions in the East End,136 Ratcliffe clearly viewed the Traquair case as an opportunity to rally popular

support at a moment when he was losing control of the S.P.L, group in the city council,137 As Graham Walker has pointed out, Protestant youths convicted in the wake of sectarian street fights may well have felt a generalised resentment, seeing themselves as enduring punishment for 'standing up for Protestantism and

loyalty to the Crown and constitution'.138 The perception of judicial bias in the

Traquair case therefore probably fed upon an already existing $ms^ of grievance. In any case, Ratcliffe no doubt felt a more tangible obligation to the Bridgeton Billy Boys, whose members acted as stewards at S.P.L. election meetings in the East End to ward off disruption by local Catholic street gangs.139

Under the auspices of the S,RL., Ratcliffe organised meetings in support of

Traquair across Glasgow over a period of three weeks.140 The petition was submitted in June with 40,000 signatures gathered throughout Scotland and Northern Ireland and a promise of support from James Maxton, Independent Labour M.P, for Bridgeton,141 The sheer scale of popular support for Traquair indicated that he was no pariah among militant Protestants, whatever his previous record of violence, However, the petition received short shrift from the Secretary of State, who saw no grounds to commute Traquair *s sentence.142 Despite the failure of the criminal appeal and petition alike, for a brief period in the summer

132 Vanguard, 16 May 1934,

133 Ibid, 134

Ibid. 135

Glasgow Herald, 28 Apr. 1934. 136

Vanguard, 16 May 1934, 137

On the fragmentation of the S.P.L. group see Rosie, Sectarian myth, p. 128. 138 Walker, Grange Order', pp 204-5.

m Evening Citizen, 31 Oct. 1931, 26 Jan, 1932; Bruce et ah, Sectarianism in Scotland,

p. 49; Rosie, Sectarian myth, pp 136, 138. 140

Vanguard, 23 May, 13 June 1934. 141 Ibid., 27 June 1934, It would be interesting to know how signatures were collected

in Northern Ireland, given the fractious relationship between the S.P.L, and its counterpart, the Ulster Protestant League. See Graham Walker,

* "Protestantism before party!": the

Ulster Protestant League in the 1930s' in Hist. Jn., xxviii (1985), pp 961-2. 142 Glasgow Herald, 20 Aug. 1934,




of 1934 John Traquair was championed as a martyr among militant Protestants both in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. The campaign on his behalf highlighted the active links between Protestant street gangs and the S.P.L. in Glasgow's East End, where 'unjust' sentences on members of sectarian gangs sparked widespread resentment.

V

The Old Firm rivalry was not the root cause of the sectarian antagonisms that scarred communal life in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s. The origins of inter-war sectarianism lay deeper in the fabric of Scottish society and, in

Glasgow, stretched back into the nineteenth century at least. However, the sectarian contours of football in Glasgow served to inflame hostilities between the city's Irish Catholic community and its Protestant majority. Old Firm

matches* like the processions organised by the various churches, served to fuse ethnic and religious divisions, splitting many parts of the city into two opposing factions,

Tellingly, even territorial gang loyalties were momentarily eclipsed on the days of Old Firm matches, Larry Rankin was a member of the Beehive Boys, a Gorbals street gang, during the late 1920s and 1930s. Like their rivals, the South Side Stickers, the Beehive Boys had both Catholic and Protestant members, although the leading figures in the Beehive Boys were Catholics.143 Rankin was

fiercely proud of his standing as a Beehive Boy. Nonetheless, he was also a proud Protestant, and when Rangers played Celtic he would make his way to Bridgeton, where he joined up with the Billy Boys. In Rankings own account,

When it came to the Rangers and Celtic game, I always went over to Bridgeton and mixed with the Billy Boys, and became one of the Billy Boys for the day ... you were always getting involved ,.? it was usually bottles that they were throwing, and you didn't know who was hit with them anyway so you didn't care so much .,,144

Rankin must have known that his own friends and neighbours, including fellow Beehive Boys, were among the crowds of Celtic supporters that he was

bombarding, Yet this form of violence was relatively impersonal and meant that his identity as a Beehive Boy could be reconciled with his sectarian allegiance to

Rangers. '

Encounters between the Old Firm drew football supporters from across Glasgow into conflicts in which sport, nationality and religion provided, in Murray's words,

* an explosive mixture'.145 Members of gangs such as the Bridgeton Billy Boys were prominent in the disturbances, but contemporary commentators were adamant that others who were generally law-abiding frequently entered into the affrays. As Sheriff Robertson commented when sentencing five youths from "good* homes in 1934, 'The spirit of faction ...

frequently carries away people who are otherwise respectable/146 Far from

M3 Davies, 'Street gangs', p. 258. 144 Interview with Larry Rankin (pseudonym) by Stephen Humphries, n.d. (BJL, National Sound Archive, C590/02/177-^80). 14ii Murray, Old Firm, p. 59,

146 Evening Times, 4 June 1934; see also Murray, Old Firm, p. 177.



Davies - Football and sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s 219

providing a safety-valve for the release of sectarian tensions, football mobilised ethnic and religious antagonisms. The movement of large crowds of supporters wearing 'party' colours across the ethnically mixed districts of Glasgow led to furious exchanges of abuse and to frequent outbreaks of violence. Larger-scale disorder, sometimes spontaneous but often planned, erupted when groups of rival supporters confronted each other at train stations and in the streets surrounding the stadiums. The parades of the various churches and the feuding of the East End street gangs generated untold sectarian bitterness in Glasgow, but it was the Old Firm rivalry more than any other factor which incessantly divided large swathes of the city into two mutually hostile ethnic and religious camps.147

Andrew Davies School of History, University of Liverpool

?471 wish to thank Matt Houibrook, Sean O'Connell and Sdlm Todd for their comments on a previous version of this article.



Football and Sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s

Documents

Transcript of Football and Sectarianism in Glasgow during the 1920s and 1930s