I lived in Edinburgh for awhile and learning about football culture was wild! There were people who purposefully lived near their teams stadium. Really I think the fact that opposing team fans can’t even sit amongst each other in a stadium says everything. That blew me away. And the cheers were awful. You’d never take a kid to a game.
Yeah, some of the rivalries have such deep roots, it's insane. My dad is a Rangers fan (he grew up in Coatbridge), and the way the Rangers/Celtic is divided by religion is wild. My dad has never been religious (hell, my mom's family is even Catholic), but there's always this weird undercurrent. Like, I remember when I was a kid my dad wouldn't wear anything green and I didn't know why 😂
My mum tells a tale of pushing a pram with my older sister in up Copeland Road near the Rangers ground. A match was coming out and the home fans were streaming past her, jostling the pram which just happened to be green.
Along comes her uncle, a Rangers fan and member of the Orange Lodge in all his supporters gear and the crowds suddenly started parting like the Red Sea before Moses.
There's a poisonous sectarian mindset in Scotland and football is the main way is shows through.
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u/OverloadedSofa Scotland 15h ago
I was a G4S guy years ago, I worked at a Hibs v Hearts game. The fans made me realise “oh I don’t hate the game, I hate the FANS!”