By Macaroon Bar 27 June 2022
“World, shut your mouth, shut your mouth”
Put your head back in the clouds and shut your mouth”
Another CSC memory was on 23 August 1986, again at home against Aberdeen. I reminisce getting a taxi into town before the match and it dropped me and another out-of-towner at the start of the precinct for Argyle Street. We saw similar groups of “casuals” and tried to suss out who they were. As we approach Olympus Sport there is a young crowd gathered. One of them is standing against the bin with the base of his foot resting behind on it, he then pushes his foot off the bin and walks towards me asking: “whit team are you”? in a broad Glaswegian accent. “Celtic” I tell him, they reply “no yer no, gees the Hail Mary then”?
After the first line is addressed we have a pass; although the crucifix hanging over my Next shirt could have been a giveaway as well. The interrogator has ended up a good friend of mine to this day.
Incidentally, with this interrogation to catch people out it must be added that around half of us in Celtic Soccer Crew were probably non-Catholic.
The group ask where we are heading, we tell them the Country Corner pub, this crew look younger and they inform us they are heading for Enterprise on Buchanan Street, so we walk along together. As they leave us at the bottom of Buchanan Street we head towards Jamaica Street we then notice over 200 casuals coming towards us. It’s Celtic and we knew right away, we recognise each other. We head for Queen Street and through George Square. We seem to have missed the ASC So we all head for the Barrowlands.
I am always crowd watching and picking up on styles. Rusty is one of Celtic’s main faces and is always well turned out and very game. He’s wearing a hooded denim and chinos. I approached him as I had got to befriend a few of the main faces. I recognise his girlfriend she’s well turned out also. It’s Nikki who went to school in my area. She has one of those cartoon jackets denim patch work jackets with wild horses on the back, a short denim dress and blue moccasins.
As we move into the Barras, Aberdeen have appeared at the London Road side and are standing waiting on us making a move. After some hesitation we charge at them it was quite sporadic but nobody budges. I recall there was always this front liner with Aberdeen with a moustache he reminded me of Barry McGuigan, he could certainly box as well and seemed to have a rubber face when you cracked it.
Holywell Street 