The Green Brigade is a Celtic Ultras group and we were formed in 2006. The original members of the group had left the Jungle Bhoys - the official singing section at Celtic Park - because of concerns over the Jungle Bhoys' independence from the club (under pressure from Celtic they did a joint display with The Blue Order, the group from rangers' club-backed singing section). We realised we had a different mentality from others in the singing section: the Ultra mentality of going 'beyond' to support the team come what may with passion, colour and noise and bowing to no-one. The singing section in itself started because the atmosphere at Celtic Park had become progressively worse: partly due to the 'modern football' curses of all-seated stadia and high ticket prices pricing out some of our traditional fanbase, but also because our home support had become spoiled by the success we enjoyed under Martin O'Neill after years in the wilderness
For those who know little of the history of Celtic, we were formed in 1888 in the east end of Glasgow by an Irish priest called Brother Walfrid. The east end of Glasgow - like many other impoverished areas of the west of Scotland - was home to tens of thousands of poor Irish immigrants who had fled Ireland during An Gorta Mor, the Great Famine. Walfrid's dream - that "a football club will be formed for the maintenance of dinner tables for the children and unemployed" - came true, with the local community coming together to build our first ground, close to the site of the current Celtic Park. The name Celtic came from a desire to bring the Irish and native Scots together in unity but as you would expect, the support originated primarily from within the same immigrant community that formed the club. Celtic soon became the outlet for Irish Catholic migrants to escape their miserable existence in the teeming slums of an alien city where they faced daily discrimination. Within a few short years we had become one of the top sides in the country and part of the so-called 'Old Firm' (a reference to the financial benefits the clubs gained from high attendances when Celtic and rangers met). In contrast to Celtic, rangers began life as an affluent sporting club in the south side of the city and had a sectarian signing policy - no Catholics were allowed to play for them. One of the first patrons of Celtic was Michael Davitt, a hero of the Fenian and Land League movements, who fought both British occupation and landlordism in Ireland. Our fans broadly retain this left-wing, pro-united Ireland political identity and when the group was formed we decided to embrace this, rather than hide it as Celtic plc would like the fans to do. From the outset we have been proudly anti-fascist and our actions display not just our support for our team but also nail our colours firmly to our political mast - from displaying an Easter Lily banner commemorating the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin to banners showing solidarity with players who have been the victims of racist abuse and banners honouring veterans of the International Brigades who fought against Franco and Fascism in the Spanish Civil War when they have died. From the start of our second season (2007-8) we have had our group banner upside down (as is Ultra custom) in protest at the appointment of John Reid - an anti-immigrant war criminal who is a former direct ruler of Ireland - as chairman of our club. We've also protested against high ticket prices and Celtic's ticket touting arrangement with Thomas Cook for big matches. Off the park we have a strong relationship with the asylum seeker/refugee communities in Glasgow and regularly arrange football matches with them and have taken groups of asylum seekers to games with us and have a large presence at anti-racist demonstrations and the like.
We now have an unofficial section within Celtic Park, which sings for 90 minutes and often leads any communal singing. We regularly do displays in support of the team, particularly on European nights and against rangers - where we usually pull out all the stops - and Aberdeen, whose Red Ultras group is the only other really established Ultras group in Scotland. Some of the highlights of our displays in our short history is taking over Peterborough at a pre-season friendly (some of the scenes with pyrotechnics are among the best you'll ever see in British football) and at our last match away to rangers at Ibrox we organised a confetti display that wouldn't have looked out of place in Argentina '78. Ahead of the same game our own Sherlock Holmes had got his hands on the design for the afore-mentioned Blue Order group's banner and we copied it with our very own 'bus-ted' banner, whipping it out as it was being surfed around Ibrox to the horror of the huns and the joy of the entire away end who taunted them with chants of 'Ha Ha', to the tune of their own sectarian 'Hello Hello' song.
The Ultra scene is fairly new to these shores and as you will know, our luminous friends (club security, stewards and police) aren't too keen on anyone who doesn't subscribe to the 'sit down, shut up' way of supporting. Throw in our fairly radical politics and you can imagine how popular we have been with the powers-that-be. Despite experiencing repression from the club we have overcome all the obstacles thrown at us and are going strong nearly three years down the line, without compromising any of our principles. We've grown as a group and built a decent reputation within the Celtic support and get lots of goodwill and backing from other fans, which has probably prevented the club taking more drastic action against us. We have a fair influence within the support as a whole, which has incorporated some of our European-style Ultras chants into its songbook and is perhaps beginning to find its collective voice a little more. There has also been a great increase in the amount of banners and flags taken to games, with our support getting ever more colourful.
The relative success of the Green Brigade shows that supporters can come together and fight back against the soulless nature of modern football and the clubs who'd rather silence the more boisterous element of the support. Speaking personally I've never had as much fun at the football as when standing, singing and supporting the team with the group and would encourage everyone to back the efforts to reclaim your club and its identity and to get over to the Eastend and get standing and singing for Bristol City.
If you are looking for more information on the Green Brigade our website (which is a work in progress) is
Editorial note: In the interest of impartiality Glasgow Rangers Union Bears as well as Aberdeen's Red Ultras also contacted for an article …
