NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS- HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY. ........................................................................ PANORAMA SCOTLAND'S SECRET SHAME RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 27:02:05 ........................................................................ SAMANTHA POLING: This is the image the city of Glasgow wants to project to the outside world, a city full of energy, life and with ambitious plans for the 21st century. But Glasgow and indeed Scotland also have another image they desperately want to shed. Religious hatred. Now it's still quite early, it's 2 o'clock in the morning, how do you expect the evening to pan out? DR MARTIN WATT: We've got a list here from the computer. We know we've had 14 assaults in before midnight, that's a high number for a weekend. At the end of the day you could be talking about 40 patients have all come here as results of sectarian problems. [Bloody hospital scenes] POLING: This is a film about two communities, one Protestant, the other Catholic, and there's centuries old rivalry between them. It's also a film about two of the biggest football clubs in the world, and about violence where wearing the wrong colour could mark you out for attack, even death, and this in Britain in the 21st century. [Male choir singing] Hullo, hullo, we are the Billy Boys Hullo, hullo, we're here to make a noise We're up to our knees in Fenian blood Surrender or you'll die For we are the Bridgeton Derry Boys POLING: The Billy Boys, a song sung by generations of Protestants in Scotland. Secret Filming It refers to the murder of Irish Catholics in battles 400 years ago. Glasgow Rangers fans sing it to antagonise their rivals, Glasgow Celtic. This is no ordinary football rivalry, it's the result of deep religious division. Celtic's traditional support is Catholic and Rangers Protestants. We filmed with paramedics and hospital staff after last weekend's Rangers and Celtic game. Most of the injuries you see in this programme were filmed on just that one night. This man was attacked several hours after the match. I'm a regular at the Celtic and Rangers games, regular, I get a ticket usually every game. This week I decided not, watch the game at the pub with my pals. This is what happens. It makes you wonder, you know what I mean? Sectarian stuff and all, turned round and that was that. The next thing, my teeth kicked in, my hand jumped on. What's that all about? People getting put in hospital because of a team you support? What's going on in this country? POLING: Rangers and Celtic are known as the old firm. They're among the top 20 richest football clubs in the world. One city, two footballing giants, and a rivalry which stems historically from the religious conflicts between Protestant Ulster and Catholic Ireland. BRIAN QUINN Chairman, Celtic Football Club We've got a small.. very small section of the fan base that I think we would rather not have associated with the club, for sectarian attitudes, but I think you have to see that in context.. historical context in particular. I think we've made enormous strides in dealing with that, trying to prevent it in the first case and to eradicate it in the second case, so our policy is very clear. We discourage sectarian behaviour in any form. POLING: Do you believe that you do have a sectarian fan base? DAVID MURRAY Chairman, Rangers Football Club Very small and I think it would be wrong of me and crass of me to deny there is not some unacceptable fans who support our club, but I genuinely believe it's a minority, it's improving, but we should never be complacent and hopefully the one day it can be totally eradicated. POLING: This perception of the scale of the problem isn't shared by those who work in A&E. SHAUN McGRANAGHAN Paramedic People who don’t understand it, down South it's probably like if you had an all black team and an all white team, and the all black team were always supported by blacks, and all white team were always supported by whites and that's the only way you could really explain it, where there was that type of violence out in the street, that's what it's like up here, so it's not colour of skin, it's the religion. POLING: It's an analogy shared by one of the few journalists in Scotland to have openly criticised the club for failing to tackle the issue. GRAHAM SPIERS Sports Journalist, The Herald I've had this line out on some of the more bigoted members of the Rangers and Celtic support and they don’t get it. You say.. you know these phrases that you enjoy, these shouts and these chants you enjoy: 'Dirt orange bastard' 'dirty Fenian bastard', imagine if it was actually 'dirty black bastard', there's no doubt about it, if it was rank racism as opposed to rank bigotry I think it would have been cured long ago because we would never have accepted it, it would have been just too embarrassing. [supporters chanting] NEWS REPORT This is the sound of racism in football. 18th November 2004 FIONA BRUCE: Football's world governing body FIFA has demanded an explanation from the Spanish authorities for the racist abuse directed at England's black players during last night's match in Madrid. POLING: It's only a few months since there was international condemnation of this behaviour, but no such condemnation for singing such as this. Rangers fans baiting their Celtic rivals only last week. In fact, as we travelled to games across Scotland this year we heard the same songs and chants over and over again. The Billy Boys clearly the Rangers fans favourite. But these fans could now be arrested for singing this song. Since June 2003 sectarianism in Scotland has been outlawed. If someone commits an offence such as an assault or uses abusive language and it's based on religious prejudice, it's now treated as a sectarian crime. 450 people have been arrested in the first 14 months of the law. The sectarianism goes well beyond what we see on the terraces. It's 11 o'clock on a cold Saturday morning in January. This is a republican march to commemorate Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972. MAN: Get you back to your country. MAN: We fucking hate ye. POLING: These are scenes you might expect to see on the streets of Belfast or Londonderry. But this is Glasgow 2005. MARCHERS: Get the Brits out. Get the Brits out. Get the Brits out now. MAN: Child killers! MARCHERS: P.I. P.I. P.I.R.A. Professor TOM DEVINE University of Aberdeen At about 1800 Scotland was overwhelming a Protestant nation, then the great migration started from Ireland and suddenly a quarter of a million first generation Irish in Scotland by the end of the 19th Century. The important point to remember is that this is not simply a movement of Catholic Irish because Scotland's Irish came from the North of Ireland. There was a substantial minority also of Protestant people. So to some extent the North of Ireland's traditional tribal divide, tribal conflict were, if you like transferred to Scotland. POLING: These deeply rooted religious divisions find particular expression in football. Many protestant immigrants from Northern Ireland adopted rangers as their club. They maintained their loyalties to Ulster and the Crown. The club itself didn't sign any Catholic players until 1989. Celtic football club was founded more than a hundred years ago by an Irish Catholic priest. Over the years it's maintained its links with the Irish Republic. [Flag: HAIL HAIL THE CELTS] DEVINE: I remember visibly the Irish Ambassador to the UK attending its first old firm match. He thought he was at an international game because on the one side of the park the Irish tricolour, the Republic of Ireland; on the other side, the red hand of Ulster. It was almost, if you like, a metaphor for the fact that Irish problems had been transferred onto Scottish soil. [Displaying deep and jagged slash to face of several inches] POLING: This Rangers fan was attacked in the street after last weekends Old Firm game by two men who he says were wearing Celtic tops. FRIEND: Didn’t have a chance to put you down or owt like that, the boy just took a swipe at me and he caught Chris. MOTHER: If it had been an inch under he'd have killed him. An inch below he'd have been dead. BROTHER: How would you feel if it was one of your sons or daughters or one of your mates? Archive News Reports A fan was shot and badly injured today with a crossbow bolt on the city's south….. … murdered his next door neighbour by stabbing 150 times for wearing a Celtic strip…. Detectives appeal for witnesses to the attack. Police insiders said there was little doubt it was a potentially murderous attack on the supporter. DEVINE: For generations Scotland has been in denial about this problem of sectarianism. For God's sake, it's 200 years old, it is actually embedded very strongly within the culture, particularly the culture of the West of Scotland, and so it's so familiar, it's so routine, that people don’t actually think, or have not thought until recently it's a big issue. It's a fact of life. It's part of the way of life of the society. POLING: But now, for the first time in generations, there are moves on the political front to tackle sectarianism. Taking the initiative is Jack McConnell, Scotland's First Minister. He describes religious bigotry as Scotland's secret shame, upsetting a lot of people. [Crowds of football fans sing anti-Jack McConnell abuse] JACK McCONNELL First Minister If people think that it's wrong that I've got a wife who was brought up in a Catholic family, or they think it's wrong that I'm not a Catholic, then they're the ones that are wrong. We should be living in a kind of country where people have got freedom of expression and are understanding of each other, and these sort of attitudes just strengthen my resolve, they don’t diminish them. POLING: Two weeks ago Scotland held its first ever national summit on sectarianism. Cardinal O'Brien Roman Catholic Church Ian Wilson Grand Master, Orange Order POLING: More than 30 organisations, including the leaders of Scotland's main churches, schools, the Orange Order and both Rangers and Celtic, gathered together to debate tackling the issue of religious bigotry. Brian Quinn Chairman, Celtic Football Club Laurence Macintyre Head of Security, Rangers Football Club Jack McConnell First Minster, Scotland POLING: This unprecedented meeting of minds was chaired by Jack McConnell, the First Minister. McCONNELL: I don’t want people to be ashamed of their tradition but when that spills over into hatred of another religion, hatred of another community, then that is what is wrong, and it's the public expression of offensive behaviour, the public expression of offensive language, offensive marching, the public hatred of others, and the encouragement in younger generation to feel that way too, then I think it's most offensive in Scotland and that is what we have to change. 4th May 2002 [caught on camera youth hurls missile and blooded victims crumples to the floor] POLING: Another victim of the violence which so often occurs on the day of Old Firm matches. His injuries weren't serious, but over the last 10 years it's estimated there have been at least 10 sectarian murders linked to Old Firm rivalry, and in that time hundreds of assaults. Chief Superintendent KEVIN SMITH Strathclyde Police It's based on prejudice, it's based on ignorance, it's based on pure badness, but where it's because you wear a particular football top, or because if you're a particular faith, or because you're a particular colour, these sometimes for reasonable people like you and I and the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom is very, very difficult to understand. GRAHAM SPIERS Sports Journalist, The Herald If you were a Martian and you came upon the setting of Rangers or Celtic on a Saturday afternoon, if you were suddenly parachuted into the high box and you heard this going on and you heard the venom, you heard the rancid chanting, you heard the ignorant, uneducated prejudice sentiments that came from the terraces, you really would think oh this is a savage society. POLING: This is Polmont Young Offenders institution. It holds some of Scotland's most violent young men, many are from backgrounds where sectarian values are actively encouraged, among them a diehard Celtic and Rangers fan. BRIAN Celtic Supporter I started to understand maybe when I was about 10 what the bitter words meant for like the Catholics and Protestants divided that used obscene words against the Protestants. POLING: Such as? BRIAN: Protestant scum and dirty Orange bastards and all that, which drums that into your head and actually you begin to feel yourself. POLING: At the age of 10? BRIAN: At the age of 10, aye. ALEXANDER Rangers Supporter My first ever memory was going to visit my uncle in prison and getting a Ranger's top off him. That's the only memory I can remember and that's drumming into my head about Rangers, how to hate the Fenians, Fenian Celtic. BRIAN: Whether my team won, drew or lost. And I would come out and I would end up going and picking a fight with a Rangers' top on. POLING: Was that because they were Rangers or was that because they were Protestants? BRIAN: Rangers and Protestants. ALEXANDER: I didn't even know that Fenian meant anything but I took it on board anyway because you're going to take on board what your uncles and that are saying, you know what I mean, because it's like your elders. POLING: When you used to read about fans being attacked or murdered after games, and you read that it was maybe a Rangers fan it had happened to, what would you think? BRIAN: I used to think good, one less Rangers fan. POLING: One less Protestant. BRIAN: One less of them to go supporting at a ground. Whereas if I read if it was a Celtic fan I'd go dirty Protestant scum, you know what I mean, bastards, that's for doing it to one of us. POLING: The ingrained attitudes make life difficult for those who deal with the aftermath of an Old Firm match. Call outs to paramedics can increase by up to 66%. The vast majority violent or drunken assault between opposing fans. Staff often experience the sectarian hatred first hand. Dr MARTIN WATT A&E Consultant, Monklands Hospital Our nurses wear blue, our doctors wear green, some surgeons wear blue and this may not be the colour of choice of individuals being treated in a night, maybe an English ?? ?? ?? just have to treat them, so an injury takes 5 minutes to stitch, it's an hour and it's ?? ?? Dr RUDY CRAWFORD Consultant, Glasgow Royal Infirmary People do sometimes take great exception to inane little things like that and.. you know.. it's totally absurd. I think anyone outside the West of Scotland just wouldn't understand it at all, but it's been like that certainly the whole of my life that I can remember. POLING: Rangers and Celtic may just be football clubs, but like it or not, they've been put at the heart of this very public sectarian debate. Being in the media spotlight hasn't always been easy for them. 29th July 1995 – Reprimanded by club Paul Gascoigne celebrates a Rangers goal by imitating a Loyalist flute band. 29th May 1999 – apologised and resigned Donald Findlay, high profile barrister and vice chairman of Rangers leading sectarian singing. 11th October 2001 Celtic manager Martin O'Neill endorsing an anti-sectarian initiative. REPORTER: Do you personally think you can do anything at Celtic farm to stop the singing and the sectarian chanting from the stands? O'NEILL: Who? REPORTER: You, could you make an appeal to the people that do this to tell them to stop it? O'NEILL: Um… ah.. well… I know you… you're asking me could I make an appeal. Do you think that would be heard if we were three nil down at home in a game, eh? But.. you know.. that might be quite difficult, you know. I would say that the chanting would probably be levelled at me to be perfectly honest. REPORTER: You want to sidestep this issue, right? O'NEILL: Pardon? REPORTER: You want to sidestep it at the ground? I'm saying that there is sectarian chanting going on at the ground but you don’t want to address it yourself personally? O'NEILL: You're asking me that question? REPORTER: I'm asking you that question. O'NEILL: Are you. REPORTER: Do have an issue for you as a manager with fans chanting sectarian songs, do you think you should be addressing that problem? O'NEILL: Well you tell me. REPORTER: I'm asking the question. O'NEILL: No, no, but you've obviously got an answer to it so you let me know. REPORTER: I don’t have an answer… O'NEILL: Well neither do I, I don’t have an answer either. 23rd November 2004 [NEWS REPORT] Celtic manager Martin O'Neill's claim that his mid-field player Neil Lennon was a victim of racist and sectarian abuse during Saturday's Old Firm game. POLING: Three years later, for Mr O'Neill, things may seem a little clearer. O'NEILL: He was verbally abused in a racial and sectarian manner. REPORTER: And the Rangers manager's response today to the accusations? ALEX McLEISH: I'm here only to talk about the Austria game, so if there are any other questions I refuse to answer them. POLING: The dilemma is how to break the generational cycle of bigotry and violence. Both clubs invest in educational projects. These children are from Catholic and Protestant schools across the city. For them a tour around the stadiums and a chance to meet some of their heroes. For the clubs it's an opportunity for them to tackle attitudes on religious bigotry within the next generation of fans. TEACHER: Hands up if you're a football fan then. Okay, so lots of football fans are in. BOY: Children don’t really.. are not really into sectarianism because they usually just get on with their friends and that, even if they do support Rangers or Celtic, it's like probably teenagers and adults. POLING: The project ends with the children, a mix of Rangers and Celtic fans watching the Old Firm game together. TEACHER: The really important thing is that whatever else you do, when you're travelling to the match, nobody but nobody will wear the football colours. Your football colours you can bring with you, you have 'em in a bag that you cannot see through. Right? Now why do you think we do that? Okay, Charlie? CHARLIE: Fights? TEACHER: So there's no fights. Right. Whatever we've talked about, whatever we've covered in these two days, what is really clear is that the Old Firm match the atmosphere in the city is going to be quite high. POLING: Inevitably sectarianism has spawned its own language. Words and names used to antagonise and provoke. This alphabet was compiled by these 12 year olds. CHILD: A: aggression, B: bigotry and bitter, billion CHILD: C: Celtic, clueless. CHILD: D: discrimination. CHILD: E: envy. CHILD: F: Fenian POLING: An Irish Republican revolutionary, in Scotland though it's used as a derogatory term for a Catholic. CHILD: G: green with hate, hatred, Hun. POLING: A fourth century tribe of Asian warriors in the First World War, slang for Germans. In Scotland a disparaging term for a Protestant, a Ranger supporter. CHILD: R: religion, S: sectarianism, T: Tim. POLING: Tim wasn't in the Oxford dictionary but in Glasgow it's a Catholic, usually accompanied by an expletive, but would people find words like these offensive? I'm going to give you a list of words, you just tell me when you find some of them offensive and tell me why. Okay? Fenian? WOMAN1: Aye, that's offensive. Fenian? WOMAN2: That's not very nice. Tim? WOMAN2: That's not very nice either. Tim? WOMAN1: That would be offensive. Tim? YOUNG GIRL: To me that's just a Celtic supporter, I don’t know what it means. MAN: Tim well that doesn't really worry me. I mean Tim to my mind is an Irishman, the same as a Jock is a Scotsman. Hun? WOMAN2: Oh no… no. Hun? YOUNG GIRL: It's a Ranger supporter, I don’t know what it means. MAN: Oh no, I don’t like the word Hun. Why should you call.. why should you even call a German a Hun, it's not a very nice expression at all. POLING: But the provocation isn't confined to religious abuse. Celtic fans have a striking line in political songs, a particular favourite is the Boys of the Old Brigade. [Choir sings] Oh father, why are you so sad On this bright Easter mourn? When Irishmen are proud and glad Of the land where they were born Oh son, I see in mem'ries view A far off distant day When, being just a boy like you I joined the IRA BRIAN QUINN Chairman, Celtic Football Club When you come to games at Celtic Park now you will have to listen very hard to hear any songs sung which have got religious content which.. indications of religious bigotry and intolerances – it doesn't happen. Kilmarnock v Celtic 30th January 2005 [supporters singing 'Boys of the Old Brigade'] POLING: What about the songs with political overtones, Boys of the Old Brigade? QUINN: We don’t like that, we think it's got nothing to do with Celtic Football Club. We have no political affiliation of any kind at all. We think it's out of place at Celtic Park. REPORTING SCOTLAND Last week a number of fans were clearly heard on live television disrupting a minutes silence for victims of September 11th. Motherwell v Celtic 10th September 2002 IRA chants could be clearly heard. QUINN: And it was those songs that led the Chief Executive to send a letter saying this has no place in our club, we don’t want it. We will not defend them. We think they're doing the wrong thing and we want to discourage them from coming to Celtic Park. 22nd September 2002 POLING: Just a week after the strongly worded letter was sent to fans, the same political songs could be heard again. COMMENTATOR: The game is now 20 minutes old and Celtic have scored the first goal. The fans have barely stopped singing for the whole of the match and the words IRA could clearly be heard in the first five minutes sending a note of defiance to the Celtic Board. POLING: Those clubs argue, although they've some control over their home support, it's when their fans travel to away fixtures that it becomes more difficult. QUINN: People who go to the away games and who are more numerous and certainly noisier at the away games than the home games are not season ticket holders. Now you can withdraw a season ticket if a person owns one. If they don’t own a season ticket then there's limitations to what you can do. POLING: So what can you do? Nothing it seems. QUINN: You can work with the other clubs, you can try and assist them before the match day, you can set relationship with the local police, you can send stewards to the ground to try and make sure that there's good behaviour, but as I say, the responsibility for conduct inside the ground is ultimately that of the home team. POLING: Today the Irish rebels song still continues. This is Celtic's away support filmed by us in the first two months of this year. Secret Filming Rangers' fans too have a way of using expressions of extreme political beliefs to provoke the other side. We filmed these fans repeatedly making Nazi salutes and singing sectarian songs. DAVID MURRAY Chairman, Rangers Football Club I think that we have some singing that is unacceptable, we have some actions that are unacceptable and we're working hard at all times to endeavour to eradicate that. POLING: Have you seen the salute that they make? MURRAY: No, not specifically, no. POLING: You haven't seen it? MURRAY: No. POLING: Every game I've been to… MURRAY: Maybe you're looking for it. POLING: … there's been hundreds of fans… MURRAY: I go to the football match to watch the football and if an incident is reported to me I can comment on it, but I don’t see these things, no. LAURENCE MACINTYRE Head of Security, Rangers Football Club They will tell you that they're not really doing a Nazi salute, it's somebody doing the red hand of Ulster which is another argument for another day about trying to keep the United Kingdom united and all sorts of problems with Northern Ireland but the vast majority of them are 90 minute bigots. I wouldn't believe for one minute that all the numbers that do that are real bigots or real racists. POLING: What would be the message to the fans who on Sunday's game stood on the terraces in their thousands and sang the most offensive, vile, hateful songs and chants, out and out religious hatred? What will you say to those fans? MURRAY: I will say sing your songs by all means, but if you put an anecdote of religion or bad language or stuff like that, I say it's totally unacceptable. POLING: Did you hear these fans? MURRAY: Of course I did. I'm not denying it. POLING: Are you not ashamed of them? MURRAY: No, what I've said is it's totally unacceptable. POLING: Are you not ashamed of them? MURRAY: I wouldn't use the word ashamed, I just say it's totally unacceptable. I think that there's no place for that in society today. Secret Filming [supporters chanting] You are a Fenian A Fenian bastard GRAHAM SPIERS Sports Journalist, The Herald There's a very phoney debate going on among some supporters who tried to justify their chanting. I met a member recently of the Rangers Supporter Trust, a supposedly progressive, modern, forward thinking fans movement. Well you know he said: "the Fenian word, you know, you have to understand its political context" I said: "Look, do not insult my intelligence and your intelligence by pretending that the vast ranks of the Rangers fans who are singing 'dirty Fenian bastard' are all mid 19th century political historians who are concerned with political dissent in Ireland." Of course they're not. By 'Fenian' they mean Catholic, and that's what they mean. [Young boy, bloodied, in ambulance] POLING: Another young victim caught up in the bloody aftermath of last week's Old Firm game. KARLENE COWAN Paramedic He'd been in a pub watching the game somewhere else, had walked along the street, come to another pub to meet his friend and a fight had broken out within the pub and he'd had a broken glass put in his eye. There's a lot of violence after an Old Firm game. You're lucky to get home, if you're wearing a particular colour, in tact, it's as simple as that. ALEXANDER Rangers Supporter In the games that I've been the best adrenalin buzz you could… not one drunkard experience, the adrenalin take, you know what I mean? You just get that much higher I think, there's that many murders and stabbings and all the rest of it because you're leaving the game on such a high. You're not really thinking about the consequences before you go and do something. POLING: Are you surprised by the level of violence after these football games? ALEXANDER: Not really, no, not at the stuff that gets shouted at you. BRIAN Celtic Supporter I hate it, I hate it. It gets us really mad. That's actually when people get hurt, actually people end up getting murdered, that's the cause of it. You come out of the grounds, the hate is building up in you, you're starting.. you're getting really, really mad and it gets to the stage where you're saying to yourself the first Rangers fan I see I'm just going to run up to them. POLING: Rangers is the only club in Scotland to have set up a Sectarianism and Racism Monitoring Group. We were invited to one of their fortnightly meetings. One of the items on the agenda was a debrief on the Old Firm game in January which we'd secretly filmed at. MAN: …policy of plain clothes stewards and broadly speaking I'm pleased to say that the behaviour was very good. Secret Filming POLING: Well admittedly there was no violence but could this really have been the same game that we attended. We managed to catch on camera numerous rangers supporters giving Nazi salutes and singing sectarian songs. LORD MACINTYRE Head of Security, Rangers Football Club I have said on many, many occasions that I don’t think we really have a huge racist problem in the West of Scotland, I don’t think we have a huge sectarian problem, but we do sometimes have a problem of big mouth and that's what the 90 minute bigot tends to be is someone who's shouting something loud, but he doesn’t really mean it. Dr RUDY CRAWFORD A&E Consultant, Glasgow Royal Infirmary Well I think when a young man can have his throat cut and bleed to death just because of the colour of a scarf or a top he's wearing, that's not 90 minute bigotry, that's a lifetime of bigotry and several generations of bigotry just demonstrating itself, and it's certainly not just a 90 minute episode. DR WATT: That's it in a nutshell really. Archive News Reports The violent aftermath of the Old Firm match last week pushed crisis hit hospitals to the verge of… … that Sunday night, like any other Old Firm day was like a blood bath. … a spokesman said the incidents after Saturday's game were horrendous and show once again the desperate need for urgent action. POLING: What action would you take against a fan who's been deemed to be singing or chanting something which is unacceptable in the club's eyes, something sectarian? BRIAN QUINN Chairman, Celtic Football Club We pursue it as vigorously as the law permits. If that points us to a season ticket holder or a supporter who has been first of all charged with sectarian behaviour, we suspend his entry to the ground, take away his season ticket, and if he's convicted of sectarian behaviour we can take away the ticket and we do so and that's an indefinite suspension. POLING: How many people have you taken that action against? QUINN: This year one, because as I said, only one conviction has been achieved in the courts of sectarian behaviour. If you lived in Glasgow 20, 30, 40 years ago there were hundreds of arrests at games and fighting would break out on the terraces and bottles would be thrown. Now measured in historical context I think we've made very, very considerable strides and it's Celtics policy to continue with that effort to try and reduce and if possible eliminate sectarian behaviour at Celtic Park. POLING: For 7 years Rangers have been collecting data on their own offending fans. MURRAY: We've given 14 life bans, 110 told not to come back, and there's been over 1200 warnings. We're working at it. POLING: How many of those numbers were banned identified for sectarian behaviour? DAVID MURRAY Chairman, Rangers Football Club I cannot be specific on that because you'd have to ask Laurence that who I believe you've interviewed. POLING: I've asked him and he can't answer that question either. MURRAY: Well if you want us to go and find out before you put this programme we'll give you the exact number, but I'm sure there was a.. a vast majority would bear that. POLING: You think it would be worth for the club to actually try and find out the scale of the problem by trying to identify how many of these fans have committed… MURRAY: Well I think I've already said to you, we're working around the clock, we can only do so much. It's not just a problem with Rangers and Celtic or football in general, it's a social situation that has been in Scotland for years which I think has been overblown up. POLING: We asked again for the number of fans penalised by the club for sectarian behaviour. They couldn't establish this they said because of data protection. This 16 year old boy was attacked by Celtic fans as he stood at a bus stop near his home after last week's game. KARLENE COWAN Paramedic We've just had a chat with a young boy, 16, who to the outside world looked like a Rangers fan, he was wearing red, white and blue from top to toe and when we uncovered him to expose his arm and he's wearing a Celtic top underneath. Now that wouldn't have been seen by a passer by, but he's absolutely determined it's a supporters issue, he thinks he was attacked because of the colour he wears. POLING: Policing last weekend's Old Firm match was a major operation. With 60,000 fans expected to attend, it's treated as a category A major incident. There'll be more than 500 officers involved in policing it. Now they also have the added burden of having to enforce the new law on bigotry. Chief Superintendent KEVIN SMITH Strathclyde Police People often refer to the 90 minute bigot. Well whether you’re a 90 minute bigot or a bigot 24 hours a day if you come and commit a religious prejudice crime at a football match our view.. my view is that you should be arrested and that’s the stance we’ve taken. We cannot just simply say: "Too many people are doing it. It’s too hard, I’m going to turn a blind eye.” We have to go in and take some form of action, and I suppose perhaps go for those who are the worst offenders, those who are the most obvious, those who are the most outrageous, those who are the ringleaders and that type of thing. POLING: One group of football fans who wont see any of this are the 30 youngsters from the Sense over Sectarianism Project. They change into their team strips after they arrive at the stadium because it's too dangerous for them to travel in their colours. They're also segregated from the crowd for their own safety, and watch the game in one of the club's canteens. SMITH: It's been a very typical morning for an Old Firm match, there's been two arrests so far. POLING: And what were they arrested for? SMITH: For a breach of the peace alleged injuries attached to that. POLING: And that was already this morning? SMITH: Yes, just in the stadium just before kick off, yeah. POLING: And do you anticipate there'll be many more? SMITH: Well I hope not. I hope that'll be a lesson to what the clubs have told them. POLING: In total there were 30 arrests after the game, 12 for sectarian offences, one for racism. JACK McCONNELL First Minister You can either sit on your backside and do nothing about it and accept that nothing will ever change, or you can try and change attitude but encourage in the next generation, because that's the real focus here, the next generation a different set of attitudes, far more tolerant and understanding and therefore reduce the amount of violence and intimidation that takes place. POLING: The political will is there, so too is the law. But what of the clubs? How they exercise their considerable influence over their support could be a major factor in determining when Scotland will finally be rid of its secret shame. GRAHAM SPIERS Sports Journalist, The Herald You have the drama of the game itself and the atmosphere, and yes, if you ignore the specific sentiment, if you ignore the bigoted vocabulary, yes it's an exciting environment, but my point is, down the nexus chain there is death at the end of it. You have the passion, you have the tribalism, you have the aggro out in the streets, you have the policing, you have the fighting and down the line you have tragedy. POLING: What kind of assaults have you seen this evening? Dr MARTIN WATT A&E Consultant, Monklands Hospital At least 1, 2, 3 people got slashed in the face, a barmaid who was injured, got caught in the crossfire. So there are a mixture of people who've been picked out because they're an obvious sectarian target and other people are just innocent bystanders, people who are just at their work being injured. POLING: Now it's still quite early, it's 2 o'clock in the morning and you've obviously been on shift for a number of hours but you've got the rest of the night. How do you expect the evening to turn out? WATT: Well it's difficult to give precise figures. We've got a list here from the computer and we know we've had 14 assaults before midnight and that's a high number of a weekend. There are also 21 other injuries, once again that's a profile of 20-40 year old males, so there could be assaults that have been hidden. At the end of the day you could be talking about 40 patients who've all come here as results of sectarian problem. _________ Next week on Panorama the Dollar a Day Dress. We visit three continents to make an outfit which shows how unfair trade keeps millions in poverty and we model it on a London catwalk. If you want to comment on this week's programme visit our website at bbc.co.uk/panorama. CREDITS Reporter SAMANTHA POLING Film Camera JIM GALBREATH Sound DENNIS KEARSLEY Online Editor BOYD NAGLE Dubbing Mixer ANDREW SEARS Web Producer ALEX MURRAY Film Research EAMONN WALSH Production Manager CAROLE REID Film Editor FOLKO CAMERON Assistant Producer MICK MORTON Producer MURDOCH RODGERS Executive Producer For BBC Scotland NEIL McDONALD Deputy Editors ANDREW BELL FRANK SIMMONDS Editor MIKE ROBINSON 17 _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Transcribed by 1-Stop Express, 3 Southwick Mews, London W2 1JG Email: panorama@bbc.co.uk