The Cause by Tommy Burns
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(Part One)
Chapter 7
The Cause When anybody takes on Celtic, they're taking on something that is genuinely unique because it means confronting players, management and supporters who are held together by what I first heard described by the manager of Aberdeen, Alex Smith, as 'the cause'. I have yet to hear the emotional commitment to Celtic summed up in a 'more explicit way. To my mind, there is no room for misunderstanding. My interpretation of the term is that it is not 'politically biased and meant to signify an affiliation with old, sectarian conflicts. It has instead, everything to do with an appreciation of being the underdogs in our own country, a minority-group who are bound by a hereditary link with the tradition that brought Celtic into being for humanitarian reasons and therefore made them different from any other "football club. It is a feeling of common purpose that sustains the team and supporters alike and makes us as formidable as we are, particularly in times of adversity. The only way the cause can be taken to be politically orientated is that we the Celtic players and fans, have been formed into our own union in which unity is our strength. The night Alex Smith summed it up so perfectly was at Pittodrie, four days after we had suffered a 5-1 mauling from Rangers and tried to leave their ground with as much self-respect as possible under those circumstances. After going two goals behind to Aberdeen, the Celtic support, who had used up every ticket for the match regardless of what had gone before, were still behind the team every difficult step of the way and we came out of the game with an honourable draw.
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To those on the outside, all of this might sound like romantic nonsense, or even paranoia as 'Some people like to call it. However, Celtic supporters are also unlike any others in Scotland because they support only one team. They do not have two scarves of different colours and posses a split personality which enables them to follow the team of their choice – and whoever happens to be playing Celtic. As important as trying to define here what Celtic stand for is to declare my understanding that we are on our own and that the majority in this country would rather Celtic were not successful. Even in defeat, though, it ought to be essential that we conduct ourselves in a proper manner. I would. certainly like to believe that Celtic supporters unlike others, are not mean-spirited people who would want the team to win at all costs. That is the reason why our club can travel anywhere in Europe, or within Britain, and know that Celtic's good name will not be besmirched by bad behaviour. We must also accept whatever comes our way at home, on or off the park, with the same demonstrable show of togetherness.
99 When we lost the Scottish Cup Final of 1984 to Aberdeen in extra time, after playing with only ten men for most of the time: I remember sitting at home that night and taking telephone calls from friends who told me how proud they felt to be Celtic supporters because of the way the crowd had willed on the players and we had responded by playing like men who had additional reserves of energy. The team are very much aware, too, of the empathy that exists under the heading of 'the cause'… In 1983, Celtic lost the Premier League Championship on the last day of the season because of the two points won by Dundee United against Dundee at Dens Park. At Ibrox, meanwhile, we were two goals down to Rangers in a way that looked like adding insult to injury until they made the fatal mistake of delaying taking the field after the interval. As we stood out on the pitch waiting for them, the players got a chance to stop and look at the wave of support for us behind one goal. That is a breathing space you don't often get in an Old Firm match, and by looking at this mass of humanity singing, pointing and generally jumping up and down, it was possible to feel the fresh surge of energy run through the team. By the time the game kicked off again, Celtic had been sufficiently motivated by the cause to run Rangers into the ground, and the four goals that we scored could have been more. As Billy McNeill said afterwards, if you have to lose the title, that's the way to do it. Not for the first time that night I heard people say ‘never mind the result, what about the crowd.' These people are psychologically stimulated by being in each other's company, feeling that they are among kindred spirits and knowing that the power they can generate is tremendous. Celtic, let's be completely honest, are regarded as being the organisation that represents the Catholic community, but it is not only about the club remaining faithful to a past that started with the team being formed by the Irish immigrant population.
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The bulk of our support ranges from teenagers to those in their mid-twenties and I don't accept that they're exclusively Catholic either. What do they know about Ireland and all that? For them, supporting Celtic is something that has been handed down from generation to generation, their birthright, and it's something that is largely based on backing a philosophy about the way in which the game should be played. That is certainly the way it was in my family and once you're in the union it's a lifetime membership. In 1979 when Celtic won the league title in the now legendary 4-2 game at Celtic Park, I was out of the team because of my recurring ankle injury. The stand was full to the point of overflowing that night and I found myself seated in among the fans and totally absorbed in the atmosphere, singing along with, rather than being inspired by, the Celtic support. Any Rangers supporter looking over from his side would have had all his suspicions about Tommy Burns confirmed for him that night!
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The Celtic fans are special, even if people occasionally get the wrong idea about them. When the team has had to go out on to the patk at the end of games that have been lost at Tynecastle, Ibrox, Love Street or Pittodrie to wave to the crowd because they have refused to disperse, it is a gesture that is seen by those who are not Celtic-minded as a hollow act of defiance designed to disguise disappointment. That is not what it's all about, though. It is, in fact, a demonstraton of imperishable spirit. They are what they say they are: Celtic supporters, faithful through and through, and they have their reasons for being that way, too. The truth is that the support believe that in order for Celtic to be successful they have to beat more than Just" the other side. Where referees are concerned I think the supporters suspect that bias is occasionally shown against Celtic during matches. More questionable decisions go against us than any other club, according to them. Perhaps it doesn't happen as often as some of the more excitable fans think it does, but it does go on witH sufficient regularity to be disturbing for some others. They think there are other referees who, in order to prove that their particular background has not influenced them in favour of Celtic, bend over backwards to show their impartiality and end up being unnecessarily harsh on the club. There are plenty of examples to illustrate why there is room for saying all of these things too. When a referee by the name of Kevin O'Donnell handled a league match between ourselves and Hearts ,in 1987, for instance, there was ,widespread controversy over his decisions at Celtic Park. This concerned the fact that the referee did not award Hearts a penalty kick they felt they should have got in the first half of that game and also his decision to give Celtic a goal, scored by Mark McGhee, when the Hearts players claimed he had committed a foul before putting the ball in the net. The events of that night effectively ended, Kevin O'Donnell's career as a referee. After an official complaint was made by Hearts to the S.F.A. he was ultimately demoted to the rank of linesman and subsequently resigned from the governing body's list of officials.
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Later on, when two other referees, Kenny Hope and Louis Thow, were criticised for their handling of games involving Rangers and Aberdeen because they didn't send off two Pittodrie players, Neil Simpson and Willie Miller, they were immediately in trouble as well without the need…
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….for an official complaint. Both of them were banned by the S.F.A. from handling Scottish Cup ties, even though the Scottish League refused to have anything to do with sanctions being imposed. During Davie Hay's time as manager of Celtic, he was especially forthright in his comments whenever he felt the club had been unfairly treated in that way. Davie was only echoing the views that were held by the ordinary supporters of the club but he wasn't given the backing from within Celtic Park that he deserved. After one game at Easter Road Davie actually came right out with it and stated that he felt there was one rule for Celtic and another for the rest. He also drew attention on another occasion to what he felt was undue pressure being exerted on the referee, Bob Valentine, before the 1984 Scottish Cup final between Celtic and Aberdeen, the game in which Ray Aitken became only the second player in the history of that competition to be sent off at Hampden during the decisive match.
Davie continued to speak his mind, too, and after Celtic had lost to Rangers in the League Cup final two years later because of a disputed penalty kick six minutes from the end, he finally went for broke by saying that Celtic should have come out of Scotland and applied for membership of the English League if we wanted to get natural justice. The manager was condemned for expressing those sentiments, but I can only say that over the course of my career there have been times when I have felt that we were being treated harshly in many games. A prime example was a game against Rangers at Ibrox in 1977 when our centre forward that day, Joe Craig, was blatantly knocked to the ground inside the penalty area and the entire Celtic team froze on the spot waiting for the referee to do the correct thing. Instead of that, however, he waved play on as if nothing had happened and let Rangers run off, unchallenged, to the other end of the park and score the goal that brought the game to the brink of anarchy. How many times have Celtic been a goal in front, too, only to be denied what seemed to everyone like an obvious penalty kick?
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There was a time at Tannadice when just such a situation arose and a one-goal lead for Celtic turned into a defeat after we had been disrupted by not being given a penalty that was so clear-cut that only a blind man, or someone with tunnel vision, could have missed it. Whatever misguided notions anyone might have had about Davie Hay being a quiet man, incapable of angry outburuts, would have been shattered that afternoon. He was at the referee's door with that faraway look in his eye that was the signal to duck, and it took a fair bit of persuasion, I can tell you, to get him away again without making his feelings known in the sternest possible way. Whenever incidents like that arise, Celtic supporters feel that the press in Scotland are generally slow at coming forward in defence of the club, while being insatiable in pursuit of their vocation when it comes to having a go at us on other occasions.
This is not true of all journalists, of course, but some do seem to take a great delight in highlighting anything that they think shows up the club in a bad light, for example transfer stories without foundation which have, over the years, undoubtedly undermined morale at the club. For instance, some time ago there was a long-running controversy over the fact that some Celtic players make the Sign of the Cross at times during matches. The matter came to a head when we lost the League Cup final to Rangers in October 1986. Seven Celtic players were booked and Maurice Johnston, of all people, was sent off, blessing himself as he went to the tunnel. The match was so torrid, the refereeing decisions so contentious and Maurice's actions so controversial that Celtic's board of directors felt compelled to issue a statement on the affair the very next day. It said: "Some aspects of the Skol Cup final left us as a club feeling rather aggrieved, but there is nothing to be gained by going over them in detail. Most people who are interested in football either….
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…saw the game or watched it live on television and they know the reasons for our dismay. We want publicly to praise the behaviour of our fans throughout the game for the fantastic encouragement they gave the team and for exemplary conduct. Some Celtic players allowed their emotions to get the better of them, particularly in the closing moments of the game, and that is an area which the club will deal with internally and privately.
We will not, however, allow the club to suffer or be deflected by any amount of adversity from any source. The events at Hampden will strengthen the resolve of everyone at Celtic Park to create a team good enough to overcome all obstacles to our ambitions." The words were dramatic and far-reaching, but there was only a tacit reference to what Maurice Johnston had done and that was just as well because his Sign of the Cross could not possibly have been taken seriously. Here he was being sent of, with the massed choir of the Rangers support chanting,'Cheerio, Cheerio, Cheerio', and Maurice, by virtue of moving his right hand from his forehead to his Chest, and then from his left shoulder to his right, causes tens of thousands of people to splutter and change their tune to one about him being dirty Catholic and illegitimate into the bargain. With all due respect, I had to laugh. Apart from anything else, not least of which is his present playing address, Maurice may have his own privately held religious beliefs but in any word-association test Faith is not what you would automatically put after his name. I will accept, though, that gestures, religious or otherwise, are never clever in the context of an Old Firm game for fear of any irrational reaction they could inspire among an easily provoked crowd. That is why Ibrox is the one and only ground where I would not make the Sign of the Cross. Rangers ground, magnificent structure though….
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….it may be, is a citadel in the eyes of our supporters. It represents the home of a people who are everything they are not and an organisation of which they want no part. That is why Celtic supporters should not be inflamed beyond the state of high excitement they are in when they enter the stadium. Anywhere else, though, I reserve the right to conduct myself as I see fit. The making of the Sign of the Cross would not rate a mention in newspapers or any other form of the media if we were playing in any country outside Scotland, and I would not give a guarantee here that I would never bless myself on the park if I felt like doing so in the future. I would not be dictated to by anyone over this matter, either, because, for me, the practice of my religion is far more important than any football club. To make the Sign of the Cross is not to indulge in an act of provocation, it is a demonstration of faith, whether you happen to be Brazilian, Italian, Polish or Scottish. After the statement made in the wake of the League Cup final, there was no move made by the directors at Celtic Park to visit the dressing room and lay down hard and fast rules over players blessing themselves, and that was as it should have been.
If Pat Bonner, as he does from time to time, makes the Sign of the Cross to ask for God's protection in his goal, is that a bad thing to do? Chris Morris blesses himself when he runs on to the park, craving the same indulgence. Where is the harm in that? The first time I can remember doing it was against Sporting Lisbon in a European tie at Celtic Park in which we started two goals behind on aggregate. I scored the first of our five goals that night and it arrived so early in the match I knew we were going to be far too strong for the Portuguese. In my excitement, I ran towards the touchline and it seemed a natural thing for me to make the Sign of the Cross and offer up thanks for what had just happened. It may also have been the first time a player was ever criticised for blessing himself at Celtic Park after he had scored against the side wearing the green and white hoops!
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Sporting Lisbon of course, wore Celtic style jerseys, but it is the case that some former Celtic players when asked to give of their best against their old 'club, have difficulty in doing so, which also highlights the attitude of mind that shapes the cause. Frank McGarvey, for instance, has frequently worked himself to a standstill in games against us since he left Celtic Park in 1985. What is he to make of it all, though, when the crowd at Celtic Park are singing ',There's only one Frank McGarvey' and cheering him on to the park? I'm certain that, subconsciously, this causes th problem of being unable to perform as freely as he would in other surroundings. And this is a man, don't forget, who saved Celtic's bacon in 1985 by scoring the goal that won the one hundredth Cup final only to be told a matter of days later that he was being put up for sale.
In my opinion, Frank was treated abysmally by the club at that time. Celtic, though, is still an institution in the eyes of the supporters who attach an almost mystical significance to the team and all its works. That is why I have always felt that whenever Celtic win a major trophy the squad of players responsible should be presented with their medals on the park in front of the supporters. Any side who had, since 1915, won a total of eleven domestic honours would have been immortalised. In the post-Lisbon era, however, the impression has been given that those associated with the club take these achievements for granted. I don't believe the fans would see it that way now. Celtic is a fusion of the players' will and the crowd's resilience. If the day ever dawned when I had to face the prospect of playing against Celtic, I would do so willingly because it would mean that I could at least be back among those fan's once again. Whatever happens to me in the future, I will always be Tommy Burns of Celtic, both in the minds of the supporters and in my own. That is not something I have to live with, it is something I would not have any other way. I know that during whatever times of bad form or niggling injury I have had to endure the…..
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(109 photo page) supporters have stood by me because they appreciate having one of their own kind out on the pitch, and I don't mean that in any overtly religious way, either. In spite of anything I have said elsewhere about Celtic and the vexed question of money, there is one thing I can say with complete sincerity and that is that the club owes me nothing. They may have had me for less than they should have over a long number of years, but at the end of the day it was still my pleasure. I know, too, that my children will help form the next generation of Celtic supporters. It has never been my way, or my wife, Rosemary's, to go on to my family about what their daddy does for a living. They know all the words to all the songs just the same because Celtic is something that is passed on, like an heirloom, and if I don't tell them, their aunties and uncles will. The slightly frightening thing is that after 1992, and the proposed free movement of labour that will do away with transfer fees players may lose any sense of loyalty to one club or its ideals, simply moving around looking for the maximum return on the skills they have to offer. Unless the European parliament can be made to realise how damaging that legislation could turn out to be to the good of the game, the long-term future of some clubs could be in jeopardy. Footbal ought to be treated as a special case, otherwise we'll get to the stage where the individual with six months to go on his short-term agreement will suddenly stop trying too hard in case he gets hurt and spoils his chances of another move elsewhere.
There is only one place where the damage caused by an act of parliament would not be irreversible, and that is Celtic Park. Celtic is an institution as well as a football club. It is what represents the hopes and aspirations of a particular people, the team's self-esteem corresponding perfectly with theirs at any given moment. Every win is a blow against those 'forces' the directors at Celtic Park were talking about in their statement in 1986. Each trophy won is also tangible proof of having overcome the 'obstacles to our ambitions'. It will remain, therefore, the ambition of countless youngsters to grow up and wear the green and white hoops. Those not fortunate enough to do so will then support them in continuing the cause.
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