A View From Over the Water: Interview with Scottish author Steven Porter

Steven Porter is a writer from Scotland who now lives in the Basque Country, which I'll say is in Spain, though the locals might not thank me for that.

Porter is a perceptive and sensitive writer whose novel 'Countries of the World' was released at the end of 2011. A treasure trove of period detail from the Scotland of the 1970s and 80s, the book (reviewed HERE), uses football as a vessel to reflect on matters as wide ranging as the Falklands War, Poles who support Rangers and childhood bereavement.

A sensitive meditation on growing up in Scotland, there are hints of a gentle Scottish Nationalism in the pages here. This is no tartan call to arms for a proud Jacobite Fianna to march south though. In contrast, Porter's nationalism is so gentle that you have to look twice to make sure it's there.

I spoke to Porter about his views on Scotland, Scottish football and other things, and found him as engaging in his answers as his work would suggest.

My first question to him regarded the term '90 minute patriots', a phrase coined in frustration by a member of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) at how many Scots seemed to be fierce patriots while the national football team was playing, and then not really care after the final whistle had gone.

A twist on the term came with '90 minute bigots', a phrase used to describe the sectarian elements which plague aspects of Scottish football.

"Was it Jim Sillars who first mentioned ‘90 minute patriots’?" Porter asked, rhetorically.

"It has been used as a rallying cry by some within the SNP although I haven’t heard it for a while. Sense of national identity, whether in Scotland or elsewhere, is obviously more complicated than that. 

"I think that most Scots think of themselves as Scottish first and foremost, whether or not they also feel British. But speaking for myself, I don’t think of myself as a patriot, even though I’m very open to the possibility of Scotland becoming an independent country again. 

"If you are for the status quo, does it make you a patriot or nationalist of the British variety? That’s the alternative, isn’t it? Seems to me that it comes down to you would like a defined area to be governed, whether it’s Scotland, UK or Europe we are talking about. 

"But national issues include things like defence and how taxes are spent and I think people do care about these things. And there are a lot of other aspects of national identity that go beyond political administration or constitutions. 

"Regarding the 90 minute bigots, I suppose you’re hinting at sectarianism which seems to go hand in hand with the word ‘bigotry’ in Scotland, although it should by no means be seen to have a monopoly on it. It’s interesting nowadays, because I feel things have gone almost full circle, where some fans of certain clubs (Celtic and Rangers especially) play up to the bigoted role. They are taking religious and political small-mindedness, which grew out of the society in the first place, and recycling it. 

"I’m not sure they would be so vocal or rabid in their prejudices if it didn’t suit their fan identity. That’s something I try to explore in 'Countries of the World':  football, politics and society frequently mix and there is no getting away from that, no matter how much one wants to see football as an innocent game.

"In reality, the view that football is just 22 players running around after a pig’s bladder or whatever is usually put forward by people who have no understanding or interest in the game, its widespread appeal and how it affects and mirrors society as a whole. Often, they have never even stepped inside a stadium to see the mechanism at work. 

"Although it’s fine not to like football or to fail to see the attraction, they are only saying that it doesn’t mean anything to them and are missing the point about the many outside factors surrounding the game."

Porter himself follows Hibernian, a club which was founded by Irish immigrants to Edinburgh. Unlike many football fans, but like more people than the game itself would care to admit, he has no born and bred allegiance to any particular team.  

 

"I was 20 when I started following Hibs, shortly after moving to Edinburgh," Porter explains.

"I’m lucky I didn’t become a Jambo (imagine!) as there had been a few Heart of Midlothian supporters on my Mum’s side of the family. I wasn’t sure which team to watch but I had a few mates who lived near Easter Road and we went along to a pretty forgettable game there.  I was still wavering about whether to watch Hibs or Hearts the next time, but opted for Easter Road in the end and a 5-0 Scottish Cup gubbing of East Fife. 

"The bug took hold and the rest is history. Of course I would never describe myself as a dyed-in-the-wool Hibby. 

"For the first couple of years I still felt a bit of a fraud, even though I was attending most home games. When Hibs won the League Cup in 1991 I felt part of it, but was aware that it meant much more to folk who’d been watching Hibs all their days. But was I any less of a fan at that point than those who only rarely go, except for cup finals and the like? 

"This was the club’s first trophy of note since 1972. I remember a guy encouraging people to sing and saying, 'Come on, it might be another 20 years before we’re in this position again'.. He wasn’t far off. 

"When I saw Hibs lift the 2007 League Cup, I felt more part of it, having endured some highs and many lows on the Easter Road terracing throughout the 90’s. I grew up watching Highland League Football and only saw big games or highlights from down south on the telly. My local team, Forres Mechanics, might have won the Highland League this year and narrowly lost out to Rangers in the Scottish Cup, but I’d be lying if I said their result has always been the first one I’ve looked out for on a Saturday. 

"So this view is reflected by the COTW narrator when he says: 'Clubs come and go in my life; the national team remains constant...'

"I’ve moved around a lot over the last 15 years and am lucky if I can attend a Hibs game once a season. Therefore the Scotland national team is the only way in which I can relate to being a born and bred fan. But I rarely attend their games either."




Hibernian are an interesting club. Formed before their fellow Irishmen Celtic FC, they never  acquired the huge and overtly Irish Catholic support of their Glasgow rivals. Celtic have become a focus of support for the worldwide Irish diaspora, yet Hibs remain very much more an Edinburgh, or even a Leith, team.

"Well, I have a couple of theories," Porter explains, when asked why this might have happened.

"When Celtic formed in 1888, they took a number of Hibs’ best players through from Edinburgh. The Hibees had just beaten English club Preston North End in a match billed as the ‘Championship of the World’ but went downhill from there. 

"Within a few years they actually went out of existence altogether for a time. Hibernian had to start life again in the newly formed Scottish Second Division. It was debatable if they were even the biggest or best club in the local community at this point because their league place had been taken by Leith Athletic. 

"When Hibs reformed, it was not as an exclusively Irish Catholic club. They had lost ground to Celtic and took a few years to work their way back towards the top of the Scottish game. 

"Edinburgh had a significant Irish community, but it would not have been on the same scale as the one in the Glasgow area. But in the years after WW2, there was no gulf between Celtic and Hibs. The Edinburgh side won the championship three times and finished runners up three times between 1947-53, as well as attracting over 65,000 to Easter Road for a new year’s derby against Hearts in 1950. 

"Celtic were in the doldrums by their standards at that time, but pulled away again after poaching Jock Stein away from Easter Road in the mid-60’s. Of course, the European Cup success and nine consecutive championships followed and they’ve been the more successful club pretty much ever since." 

Moving away from football, I was interested in what Porter had to say about his living in exile in Spain. Moving away from Scotland is a thing many Scots seem to have done over the years, often out of choice rather than any economic necessity, at least in recent times. Yet they tend to never quite shake the attachment to the homeland, and often pass it on to the next generation of their family who might be born elsewhere.

 I wondered how living away from Scotland had affected Porter's writing, and whether he feels differently about the country when he does return for visits.

"It’s a good time to ask that as I’ve been in Scotland for about a month," he said.

"I always get the same feeling now. I’ve been living in Spain so long that moving back to Scotland seems like starting from scratch, even though life here is still very familiar.

"I’ve said a few times recently that I couldn’t envisage myself moving back but I’ve ended up here for a while and didn’t expect it, so you never know what’s round the corner. 

"Does it change my writing? I just see it as part of life. Hopefully my writing evolves anyway."

Some of Porter's work is written in Scots, the Germanic language of much of Scotland (as opposed to Gaelic), which some state is a language in its own right, while others assert it is a dialect of English. Porter would be open to the possibility of writing a whole novel in what he considers his mother tongue.

"I wouldn’t rule it out," he said.

"One of the most important things is to write in a voice that I feel comfortable with and that sounds convincing. I did it for instance with Unlovable Jambo, which appears in Blurred Girl and Other Suggestive Stories. 

"So I don’t see why not if it felt right and I had the inspiration and desire to try something much longer. Probably it would have to be a first person voice. The voices are more important than the language of the narrative."

Lastly, I wondered if Porter would prefer to have played for Hibernian or to enjoy the success of a bestselling book.

 "Even hypothetically speaking I’m a bit old to play for Hibs now!" he joked.

"In my early 20’s I still dreamed of being a footballer but there is much more to it than technical ability (which I was often told I didn’t lack). 

"You need a lot of physical and mental strength as well and I probably wasn’t aggressive or competitive enough. I could have done with putting on a couple of stone and might have needed a different personality as well.

"In terms of a bestselling book, I think I’d need to make a lot of concessions to the market in order to have any hope of achieving that. I can’t see that happening, but selling more books, earning some decent money and getting acclaim out of it would be nice.

"I don’t know if I’d be happier even as a professional author making inevitable compromises. I come at things from an artistic perspective, not a commercial one."

Steven Porter's novel 'Countries of the World' is available from Amazon and other retailers.

He was talking to Zack Wilson, the author of 'Stumbles and Half Slips' from Epic Rites Press. Also available from Amazon.com.

Getting Between the Lines: A Review of 'Countries of the World', by Steven Porter

Steven Porter's novel 'Countries of the World' (available from Amazon HERE) is the kind of book you immediately want to do well. Much like the charismatic midfielder with an attitude that drives his manager mad, or the striker who never trains but still bags 20 goals a season.

Players like that are rare in modern football. Books like this are rare too, which is probably why Porter had to go down the indie route of assisted self-publishing when it came to getting this quirky, sensitive and touchingly humorous account of growing up in Scotland.

This is a book which is hard to categorise after all. If it was a footballer, one senses that it would play 'in the hole', neither striker nor midfielder, neither winger nor central thruster, occupying space where no one else quite sees it. And keeping the crowd, rather than the vain venture capitalists in the directors' box, happy.

This is certainly a reader, rather than a publisher's kind of book. The bittersweet characteristics present in much of Porter's best prose are here in great numbers. Porter's respect and affection for his characters is also clear.

Tales of maniacs like Wilson Dodds, who in any context apart from football would be viewed as an anti-social nutcase, litter the book. There is no contempt for the characters at all, no sneering from a writer at his less than perfect creations. Instead, we understand them better because of the context in which Porter presents them. Dodds, a man who "put his love for his club above his own welfare at times", emerges as a loveable British eccentric when viewed through this lens.

Not that Porter would thank me for describing his creation as 'British'. There is much in the book about Scottish identity, and the reader gleans a clear sense of Scottish Nationalism throughout. The tone is never one of bagpipes, tartan and shortbread though. Again, it is subtle, pointing out Scotland's cultural differences with England in a way which is not always obvious unless you are reading carefully.

Scotland's rejection of the values of Margaret Thatcher is dealt with nicely in an encounter at a Scarborough caravan park, where the English owner hails the Iron Lady and indulges in some casual hatred of the Welsh. The great blue elephant in the room of Rangers fans' bigotry and idolising of 17th century Protestant heroes comes into focus during a coach trip to Northern Ireland, where an Orange march holds things up for a handy family discussion. The link made to the Freemasons would not be obvious to anyone with little awareness of how the Protestant Ascendancy is expressed in Scotland.

At times, the tone can perhaps become a little didactic, particularly when it comes to filling in the details about football history. But that is easy to say when you know all this football history. It is sometimes easy to forget that many, perhaps even most, do not have the same obsessive knowledge as this author, and the detail is often necessary to make an obscure point a little clearer.

Scottish Nationalism peeps through a few times, but it is subtle stuff. One interesting passage relates a classroom discussion in the early 1980s. All the students pose as English haters before realising that many of the things they most like, such as Liverpool FC, The Specials and Torvill and Dean, are from England. Porter himself sums it up perfectly with his description of his feelings when watching 'It's A Knockout'

Porter perhaps sums up his own brand of Scottish Nationalism best when viewing it through the lens provided by football. "For Scotland supporters, losing a few games or going a year or two without a trophy is not a crisis...Winning more often than losing is the best any Scotland fan can hope for, qualifying for a major tournament and then falling flat, to be mocked and patronised. But we can laugh at our neighbours when their expectations of glory don't materialise."

The range of characters in the book is also great, and many of them have tics and nuances that require some knowledge of Scotland to fully appreciate. One highlight is the Roman Catholic Pole in the town of Breogan, who has become a full-on Rangers supporting Bluenose who makes sectarian remarks about Celtic fans.

When we find out that many of those Celtic fans are actually Protestants, a subtle point is made about how football shapes identity more than people's actual identity. Porter, typically, teases out the point, leaving it up to the reader to grasp it fully. This kind of writing is very appealing; it places the burden on the reader. If you want to really understand what he is saying, find out for yourself.

 The book can also be returned to time and again. Indeed, its quality becomes more apparent when picked up and dipped into. While the over-arching narrative of a young man coming of age is nothing particularly noteworthy, the way in which each piece functions as something which can be read entirely independently of the others is something special.

The references to pop culture will also strike a note with many readers of a certain age, with sweets, television programmes and chart hit records all given ample page time. This functions like a kind of literary archaeology, allowing the reader to date the events in accurate layers according to Subbuteo sets, Grifters, Commando comics and Russ Abbot on telly.

Difficult to market properly, skilful and neat, with maybe a touch of deliberate indiscipline around the edges: this is a book like all your favourite players. Sign it up for your bookshelf now.

Get yourself a copy of 'Countries of the World' at Amazon. Check out the Facebook page HERE.

Zack Wilson is the author of 'Stumbles and Half Slips' from Epic Rites Press. Also available from Amazon.com.

Savouring Succulent Lamb: Review of 'Downfall' by Phil Mac Giolla Bhain

Rangers FC are an abominable institution who deserved everything they got. Your response to that statement is a good gauge of how much you will enjoy this gripping, entertaining and informative piece of sports journalism from Phil Mac Giolla Bhain.

Mac Giolla Bhain is a Scottish-born Irishman who was educated in the West of Scotland. For those that do not know, Scotland's West is home to a peculiar religious divide which also afflicts the north east of Ireland. The division between Scottish Protestant and Irish Catholic continues to express itself, often over several generations, by football, with Rangers being the team of the Orange tendency and Celtic that of the Green. A particular kind of ethnic sectarianism has blighted many aspects of Scottish society, from Church of Scotland ministers writing overtly racist tracts against the presence of the Irish in Scotland in 1926, to the common question of "What school did you go to?" asked by a prospective employer.

It is in reference to this background that 'Downfall' must be understood. This is not a simple tale of a sports club going bust. The story of the so-called 'Famine Song', detailed in the book, also informs further understanding of both the mindset at Rangers and the author's own motivations for writing the book.

This book deals directly with the issue of Rangers going into liquidation, and how it was dealt with by Scottish media and society. The author's assessment often makes uncomfortable reading, especially for those of a Rangers persuasion.

The text consists of re-published articles from the author's own website, which was first with a number of scoops when it came to the saga unfolding at Rangers' Ibrox home. Organised into sections which deal with Finance, Media, Fans and the Scottish Football Association, the book provides a complete detailing of the story of how the most powerful club in Scottish football, one of the most influential institutions in Scottish society, fell dramatically from its perch.

This approach sometimes hampers the narrative flow of the story, with the ordering of the various articles often requiring a measure of mental rewind. On balance though, this approach does work well, allowing the themes of the whole episode to emerge more clearly.

The basic reason why Rangers got themselves into such a financial mess that they no longer technically exist, at least in their original form, is convoluted. It revolves around giving players two contracts, one which the game's governing body and HMRC knew about, the other that they did not. Without going into too many specifics here, it was a major, huge tax dodge.

Added to that was the excessive spending carried out by former chairman Sir David Murray. This spending made Rangers Scotland's premier club, but never brought them the European success that they so craved. Mac Giolla Bhain's assertion that much of this spending was driven by a deep need to match the single European Cup success of city rivals Celtic is an interesting one, in which one sense that there might well be some mileage.

Another theme is the hubris of the Ibrox club, first under the chairmanship of Sir David Murray, and then under the control of Craig Whyte. Many involved with Rangers simply seemed to see things like tax bills as something that the little clubs paid. Rangers could do what they liked, how they liked; as Scotland's Establishment Club they were simply too big to fail, a bit like a bank.

The fact that they did fail, and then the plan by the game's governing bodies to shoehorn them back into the Scottish Premier League and the the Scottish First Division, rather than forcing them to start at the bottom of the league, is testament, as the author states, to fans of other clubs.

The book goes into some detail about how ordinary fans of those other clubs, sick to the back teeth of Rangers and their behaviour, organised protests so that every club chairman in Scotland was in doubt about what would happen if Rangers were allowed to get away with it, yet again.

What is particularly entertaining is when the author lets himself off the leash of journalistic neutrality, a stance he is fastidious about in much of the book, and indulges his clear dislike for Rangers and everything that it stands for.

Many people, inside and outside Scotland and Ireland, will have their own views on Rangers. In the experience of this reviewer and many other people, it often seems that there is not much they stand for beyond an overriding hatred of anything remotely Irish and Catholic. Songs about 'wading in Fenian blood' which also commemorate members of the British Union of Fascists like the odious Billy Fullerton testify adequately to this mindset.

The mindset at the club is one of entitlement, exemplified by the way in which the game's governing body in Scotland often features figures like Campbell Ogilivie, also simultaneously a Rangers director. Anyone who is not for the predominant position of the club is clearly against them, and not just against them but probably has an agenda. It is a mentality that sees fans play the man rather than the ball when it comes to breaking bad news about their club. Mac Giolla Bhain makes great play of his Irish ethnicity, and it was this ethnicity which prevented many at Ibrox from listening when he first started digging into the facts of the story.

The fact that this mindset seeps into Scotland's media, to the extent where most of the press corps seem to be 'Rangers men with typewriters', is something that 'Downfall' deals with admirably. Mac Giolla Bhain details how Scottish sports hacks fed on 'Succulent Lamb' from the Ibrox table. Rangers were Scotland's establishment club, in every way. From the 20th century policy of signing no Catholics, to Sir David Murray's use of his establishment contacts and the club's status to spin never ending lines of credit, Mac Giolla Bhain documents in clear detail the hubris of a club which thought it was invulnerable.

Mac Giolla Bhain's analysis of why no massed fans' group emerged to protest about the way things were being done at Ibrox is also interesting. His opinion is that the blue hordes are basically supine in their deference to authority and bovine in the way that that authority can herd them where it chooses.

The fans chose to believe the stories told by an aggressive Ibrox PR department about men such as Craig Whyte, and they were helped in it by a Scottish media pack who were so in the pocket of the Ibrox hierarchy that no serious investigation at all was conducted by any of them into any of the claims made by the club. This is the story that Mac Giolla Bhain tells, and it will be interesting to see if any alternative narratives from the blue side of Glasgow make it into print to contradict him, especially when it comes to his assertions that there is a widespread acceptance and encouragement of a culture of institutional sectarianism in the Scottish mainstream media.

Scottish football is not the only sporting arena where this kind of journalism flourishes. Other sports clearly have a culture of accept anything we are told, make friends with players and management and never write anything negative. English football's media coverage is better, but certain personalities still wield ridiculous levels of control over what can be written and by whom. The 'Succulent Lamb' savoured by Scottish football journalists has its equivalents elsewhere.

That is perhaps the key strength of 'Downfall'. It lifts the rock in terms of media practise in Scotland and will hopefully provide the inspiration for other working journalists to take more serious interest in what goes on in their sports. It also shows the value of new media such as blogs in holding the powerful to account, when more established media is more concerned about potential sales rather than digging out uncomfortable truths.

Zack Wilson is the author of novel 'Stumbles and Half Slips', published by Epic Rites Press, available from Amazon.com.