Passion play
With a great deal of authority, some claim 80,000 will be knocking around the Spanish city. Others are mentioning 100,000. By way of a little context, Glasgow Celtic FC received 17,000 tickets for tonight's final. It's not just Seville that will be decked in green and white tonight. In the smallest corners of this country, in pubs and clubs and living rooms, people will gather to live every moment, feel every tackle, kick every ball as animatedly as Martin O'Neill on the sideline. The European adventure of the grand old team reaches its crescendo this evening and this nation, almost as one, will be cheering them on.
What exactly is it with Celtic? Why do they arouse stronger passion in their supporters than any other club (bar possibly, Rangers), passion so powerful that one fan, John McQuillan, has already entered a mythical realm for a 10-flight, 62-hour and 48,000 journey to finish in Seville this afternoon. Naturally, he doesn't have a ticket.
Most don't. Almost everyone knows or knows someone who knows a Celtic fan flying from Dublin to Heathrow, Heathrow to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Lisbon, Lisbon to Madrid and then, taking the train. Or cutting some other meandering path to join the swarm that is filling Senor Monteseirin with barely-concealed fear.
No other football team's appearance in the final of Europe's secondary competition would unleash such tales. Micheal Spooner of the Liberties Supporters Club in Dublin reckons a few of their members have taken their family on a surprise holiday to a Spanish resort, with an extra grand in their back pocket just in case they take a wild notion to venture up to Seville.
And then there's the story of Rod Stewart which tickled Donegal last week, where he was reported as offering 80 grand to one supporters club in the county for 10 tickets. He was told where to go.
In the dressing-room this evening O'Neill will evoke the spirit of the Lisbon Lions, will drill into each and every head that they are playing for the tradition of Hughie Gallagher and Billy McNeill. And in some Irish pub, there will be a old head who saw Jock Stein's great side, all famously born within 15 miles of each other, and reckon the current is not a patch on the Lions.
But 37 years after Celtic became the first British (or Irish) winners of the European Cup, the country is about to stop again to cheer them on. So, what's the deal?
As Ireland dives head-first into an alcohol-drenched era of modernisation and as the Catholic virtues of yore fade, how can a team with roots in working-class Glasgow still inflame nationalistic feelings we thought buried with new money.
"For so many Irish people, Celtic are the all-consuming passion of life," says Frank Costello, head of the Galway branch of the Celtic Supporters Club. "Links between Scotland and the west of Ireland have been strong since the famine, 80% of people from around here emigrated to Scotland during some of the famine years. Celtic have always been strong in Galway. But, in the past four or five years, it has mushroomed. Increased television exposure and Martin O'Neill taking over probably being the two main reasons."
Irish pride in Celtic lay dormant until a few years ago. It wasn't long ago, that the club's ties with nationalism, left some uncomfortable about even wearing a shirt. The side's roots with Irish identity go back to the morning an Irish monk Brother Walfrid dreamt up the vision of a Glasgow football team to curb the corroding boredom and inferiority complex felt by working-class Catholics in 1880s Scotland.
Within a couple of years, the club provided a sense of identity for the thousands of Irish migrants. It became the leader of the Catholic community, particularly after Rangers were set up in response to it.
Of course, everyone knows about the unholy partnership of business and bigotry that is the Old Firm. In the early days, despite the protests of some of its founding priests, Celtic was as much a force of political will as a football club.
David Smith was the first non-Catholic director in the early 1990s and many of the players who will be carrying the hopes and dreams this evening, are not Catholic.
"One thing I would stress is that this association with sectarianism that Celtic have really annoys me," says Ger Hogan, involved with Limerick's supporters club. "There is a good, deep rivalry between ourselves and Rangers, but there is much more to the club than that. It is a family, people really look out for each other. The thing about Celtic is you can go over, on spec, without a ticket, end up in Bairds Bar and within ten or 15 minutes, you will find a ticket. It happened to myself and my brother a few years ago, we arrived over, got into a conversation with the barman. He left the bar and 10 minutes later came back with two season books. And told us to leave them back when the match was over.
"It is about trust, you would trust another Celtic fan like he is a member of your family, because in a way, they are."
Of the 41 Irish players who have worn the famous Hooped shirt through the years, only Neil Lennon will be on the field this evening. That O'Neill has continued to ignore Colin Healy is a sore point with many football fans. And yet, Didier Agathe and Henrik Larsson will be cheered on as if they are from the parish this evening.
"Since Tommy Burns took over, the Celtic thing has just exploded again," Frank Costello believes. "Since Sky started showing Scottish football and RTÉ screened live Celtic games, people can see Celtic a lot more. I think the Celts for Change movement re-awakened how much Celtic means in this country to a lot of Irish people."
Following Celtic was a depressing vocation in the early 1990s. Rangers, under Graeme Souness, swept all before them while Celtic bought one cut-price hacker after another. Supporters had always being proud of the family base the Whites and Kellys offered, but it was going nowhere.
"That campaign culminated in a massive meeting in Dundalk in 1994, there were supporters from all over Ireland. And it was the first time that Celtic fans had gathered in such huge numbers in Ireland for years. After that, the whole thing got more organised, there was more communication and the whole thing has just snowballed."
Of course, in certain parts of the island, support for Celtic has never waned.
"Celtic means everything to me, it means everything to so many people around here," says John Oakes, a rabid supporter from Belfast. "It is a matter of life and death for me. And for two months every year, I don't know what to do with my Saturdays. Celtic is wrapped up with the North. But, I travel with guys from Dublin, Donegal and Dundalk and Celtic means as much to them as it does to any fan from the north."
Oakes does agree that before Tommy Burns initially lit the torch to emerge from the dark days, before passing it on to O'Neill (supporters tend not to talk about the Barnes/Dalglish era), the tradition of the club was being neglected. And then, O'Neill stood on the steps of Paradise and pledged to bring the good times back.
"O'Neill seems to be able to get the best out of his players. He understands the whole tradition, the whole past of Celtic. Because of where he is from, he knows what it means to be a Celtic fans, knows how much the team means to the supporters and he is able to translate that to the player. Some of the foreign coaches didn't understand the whole Celtic thing."
Frazers at the top of O'Connell Street will be wedged as they will sing of their four-leaf clovers and grand old team. In Dublin, you need to be very lost not to find a Celtic shirt. The nationalistic fervour it can inflame is one reason, but the working-class roots is another.
"Celtic is about being Irish. But remember, this club started to help the poor working class of Glasgow and people connect with that," says Micheal Spooner.
"This is a culmination of 30 years of European hardship," Ken Slattery of the Association of the Irish Celtic Supporters Club said. "After years of getting nowhere, of people saying we are not good enough, beating Porto tonight would show everyone that we are. That is why it is so important."
IT'S half-time on FA Cup final day and the Angler's Sports Bar in Cork city is not as busy as it should be. With its walls covered in posters and soccer shirts blanketing the ceiling, this popular northside pub would normally be a magnet to fans eager to glimpse English football's showpiece occasion.
Not that it's empty; it's just not quite as full as it would normally be. But then this is not a normal week and the Angler's owner-managers Niall and Tony Burns are not too perturbed. Their pub is home to the Paradise 2000 Celtic Supporters Club, one of six official groups of Hoops fans in Cork, and they will be out in force tonight when pictures of their side's UEFA Cup final against Porto in Seville are beamed in.
"The FA Cup is normally one of the biggest games of the year. This place would be jumping normally," says Niall, "You wouldn't be able to move. But it's quiet, because everyone's waiting for Wednesday. They're all at home watching the FA Cup final on television and saving their money for Wednesday night. Everyone in Ireland loves Celtic and it will be the biggest night of sport in Ireland since the World Cup. Every pub is going to be jointed.
"They're all buying the new jerseys for Wednesday night my young fella's one of them and they're all psyched for this one. It's unbelievable. Even the man who delivers the papers here, he showed me he's bought the whole kit for Wednesday night and he's a Liverpool fan!"
They may not have found tickets for Seville, or have been able to pay the airfares set by opportunistic carriers but Celtic's first European final in 35 years means as much to those fans in Cork and elsewhere in Ireland as to any of the famous club dragged up within spitting distance of Parkhead.
Celtic belongs to them and to Ireland, as the 8,000 season tickets snapped up by Irish fans and the 10,000 making the pilgrimage to Paradise for every home game tells you.
As Niall's brother Tony puts it: "Different people follow Liverpool or Arsenal or United. Everyone supports Celtic."
Ask why it is this way, though, and you will hear a myriad of answers, all with tradition at the core of them.
"When you go over for matches," Paradise 2000 CSC member Mark Mahony says, "it's a home away from home. All the Irish songs are sung, you see the Irish flag and the Irish people themselves are there in their thousands. The tradition is there with Celtic and that will never change."
Niall Burns, whose Angler's Bar sports the Paradise 2000 Celtic regalia proudly next to its front door, throws in another perspective, originally offered by Paradise 2000 president Brendan Coughlan.
"Irish clubs never get that far in European competition so Celtic are our representatives in club football. It's green, white and gold. What more can you ask for?"
Mark, 24, began travelling to Glasgow for Celtic games five years ago.
"Everyone supports Celtic no matter what. It's in your blood. Winning the championship the first time after all that time without it was very important, and seeing the games on Sky Sports has helped.
"Martin O'Neill would have a lot to do with that too," adds Paradise 2000 member and PRO Henry Healy, "having an Irishman in charge has had a big effect on it."
And if that Irishman can deliver a European trophy tonight, his place in Celtic folklore is secured. Many would even sacrifice the league to Rangers for the experience. Others have more confidence. "We'll win the double," announces Henry.
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