football game

On Saturday, the 11th, me and 4 of my American friends went to a football game in Glasgow. The same 4 who helped at Thanksgiving. There are two teams in Glasgow, the Rangers and the Celtics. We saw the Celtics vs. Heart of Mid-Lothian ("hearts"). It was the only game that worked time wise with me and Elizabeth, and was not too far away or expensive. The other 3 decided to tag along.

On our 2.5 hour bus ride to Glasgow, we saw snow! and not just a few flakes like in St. Andrews.

Glasgow was a really nice city. I was excepting it to be very industrial, but it was not. I liked it better then Edinburgh and Aberdeen. There were this pedestrian streets everywhere. Note that it looks like lots of people walking toward you in the distance.

On the side of a mall.

The stadium. After about 2 hours in Glasgow, we took a 30 min. bus ride to the stadium. The closer and closer we got to the station, the more it looked like the part in between Shankill and Falls Roads in Belfast. Celtics are the Catholic team, and the Rangers are the Protestant team. When we got to the stadium, I understood why they chanted pro-IRA songs during the last game.

The stadium was really cool and nice. We bought tickets, 3 together then 2 together about 2 rows apart in the same section. But we were so far up, not everyone showed up. We sat all together. In fact, I bet we could have found a few seats together close to the field.

The Celtics are in white and green. (yellow goalie is the Hearts goalie).

An "injured" player. I thought he was actually injured. But as soon as the team doctor came over he got up, when to the sideline for 2 seconds and then went back into the game.

There were guys warming up to go into the game, the whole game, and never went in.

You can tell the Celtics are pro-IRA, look at this map. First of all, they fly no where in England, which is very common from the Edinburgh airport. Also, the correct name for Derry is Londonderry. But, the IRA call it Derry. Apparently if you want to be safe you say "the maiden city".

After half time.

The Celtic Song played, and everyone held up their scarves.

The Hearts section. Note the British flags! I am not sure if there is always this much security around the away visitors or not. Douglas, my flatmate, who likes Hearts, says that it is a rivalry, and it will be a rowdy game.

After Victory Wanyama, number 67, scored the only goal of the game (for the Celtics). He was my favorite player. Not only because he scored, but because he was a team player, and the only one that always hustled.

The section with the flags was the main Celtic cheering section. They were jumping and chanting and singing the whole game. Actually, I think we could have gotten seats there. But, I thought the corners were going to be bad seats, and wanted as close to the middle of the field as possible. However, with the pillars on our side of the field only, the corners would have been great. By the time we got tickets, there were only limited availability tickets, and some sold out parts.

Other teams ball after a penalty.

A penalty on us and the other team got a free kick. I did not think the refs did a good job. They called the game close,and then missed calls. But they were not favoring a team... weird. They were just bad.

A Celtic player pointing out that the ball was off the spot in must be. The goal, remarkably, blocked it, when he dove low to his left.

Wanyama, was the only player to switch jerseys after the game.

Crowd after the game. I wanted to get a pin or something but the pin place was closed when we left, and the others in the group were too worried about missing the bus that we had to get to the bus stop. I should have said I would get the next bus. The bus from Glasgow to St. Andrews runs every hour and we had 30 mins. to the next one. With all the traffic we were not going to make it. Plus, we got on the bus after 30 mins of waiting. But, whatever, I got a program at the game.

A cool slide at the Glasgow Christmas fair. Again, we went straight to the bus station. I thought we should have checked out the fair and took our time getting back, it is not like we had to get back at a certain time, and it was only 6:00pm. I should have gone to a Christmas fair while in Scotland, perhaps the Edinburgh one... On the way back the bus did not go direct to St. Andrews. We waited in Glenrothes for 40 mins. Everyone was very very cold waiting, but me. The other 4, at least 3, are from the Southern US...