The Sun’s front page story screamed that Mojo would sign for Rangers that very day. It was so bizarre that few believed it - although the phone started to ring. Well, The Sun had a coup to end all footballing coups.
Ibrox was bizarre that day. There were no mass demos, I wouldn’t even call it a crowd - a few punters passing by stopped to nosey about. The bloodshed and mass demos the media had always predicted if Rangers signed a Catholic failed to appear. For decades they had presented such a scenario - when D-Day came their myths disappeared without even a puff of smoke.
In the end one paper had to resort to buying a tracksuit from the Rangers Shop and paying a guy to burn it. They even screwed that up. Not wanting their rivals to get the money shot they took the guy to the corner of Broomloan Road and Edmiston Drive so they could get a picture with Ibrox in the background without giving the picture away to others. There were so few people about that of course this was spotted and a cavalry charge of photographers and journos ensued!
As the years have passed the tales have grown arms and legs - nowadays it’s not uncommon to find tales of ‘bonfires of scarves and season tickets outside the Ibrox front door.' Fantasy.
The whole media edifice of a club consumed by hatred of Catholics collapsed as the punters refused to play ball. Rangers place as a Protestant club in Scottish society was never predicated on a signing policy any more than Celtic’s as a Catholic club was. How commentators failed and continue to fail to see that is perhaps a question for another day.
When Mo made his debut in a pre-season friendly at Airdrie it was I believe the Sunday Post’s back page which screamed “WELCOMED!” It was almost as those they couldn’t believe that the punters welcomed him. I was there that day. The ground rang to chants of Mo, Mo Super Mo for at least half an hour before the game. Perhaps a mixture of taking the piss out of Celtic but also glorying in putting one over the press.
There were of course some punters who did not go back. In my own supporters club a few couldn’t stomach Mojo (and we’ll reprint an interview with one member Drew who stayed out almost until the end). Surprisingly only one of that minority was from a traditional Orange/loyalist background. The one member who did last the course was certainly anti-IRA and followed the Walk every year but I have to say I was really surprised at him being the one boycotter who lasted until Mo went - for him it was rivalry with Celtic.
Another pal still has his season ticket for that year with the match vouchers intact!
Follow Follow started as a fanzine primarily because we didn’t recognise the picture of Rangers fans painted in the media and in academic tomes. It simply didn’t match up with the reality of our experiences going to the match and living in Glasgow.
The cliche was to misrepresent Rangers connection with Protestantism and to link it solely to anti-Catholicism as symbolised by the signing policy. The same purveyors of that myth singularly chose to ignore Celtic’s ban on Protestants in the board room - they might choose to employ Prods but letting them have their hands on the levers of power was quite another issue!
The reality was and is that Glasgow is a mixed city. Considering Scotland and Ireland’s history the influx of Catholics from Ireland and the Highlands which means it’s roughly a third Catholic has happened with remarkably little trouble compared to other times and places. Since the end of the Second World War around half of Scotland’s Catholics marry non-Catholics - who do Spiers & Co imagine they are marrying? Such hard facts do match up to the cliche of the native Scots being consumed with fear, hatred and loathing of Catholics.
Before Mojo came Rangers had gotten themselves into a fankle on religion. Directors denied that there was a policy. Instead of embracing and promoting it a la Athletic Bilbao’s all-Basque policy, or Barcelona’s identification with Catalan nationalism they chose to lie. It was an intellectually unsustainable position to be in.
When Follow Follow arrived we started asking why if people got hot under the collar about a voluntary self-funded signing policy they didn’t get upset about no Protestant being Lord Provost of the city for 30 years? Try looking for a discussion of that bigotry in the Scottish press! Why, we asked, were these journalists and politicians who got so hot and bothered about 11 Protestant footballers casting a blind eye to the vast, multi-million pound, system of apartheid in Scotland’s schools? Why no cries about the discrimination in public schools on the basis of religion? Why no care for the employment opportunities denied to teachers and ancillary staff? For most Rangers fans the stench of hypocrisy by itself justified the singing policy.
Of course, 20 years on instituionalised bigotry in our educational system is even worse and has spread its tentacles into nursery schools and university departments without a titter of protest from the great and the good.
David Murray has always been sharp. He sussed right away that the level of opposition to singing a Catholic would be minimal. If Rangers fans lived in mixed streets, worked in mixed factories, lived in mixed relationships, had Catholic relatives, etc, - how likely were they to arrive with the much-prophesied burning crosses outside Ibrox?
Far from scaling the barricades of bigotry all Maurice Johnston did was walk through an open door.