My worst ever (Scottish) neighbour/football rival fan...

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(I know most people on here are English or American but even so this is a decent story if you want to put yourself into another sort of culture for about 10 minutes or so... if you're Irish American/something like London Irish you might find this pretty interesting actually... and this guy hated all English people too so if you're English read on lol...)

My worst ever neighbour is this Rangers fan from another floor of our tenement who started out ok we just had banter over football but then he got more and more drunk.

He death threated me one night when I was 13 cos he thought I was a Catholic and he hated Catholics. I tried to tell people at school but nobody listened and they said I must have misheard or something. He said - not in a song just in talking so I wasn't overblowing this - I had to do whatever he said or he'd kill me and then he said what sort of night it would be when he killed me: a cold, wet, rainy Friday night. He said his first order was I worship Jesus Christ instead of Mary... I kept obsessing over what his next order would be and waiting around for him...

He used to shout in the garden about how he hated Irish people and English people and sing orange songs really loud. He never used my name, never asked me what it was. He used to just call me 'Celtic' or 'Celtic supporter' or whatever when he was sober (I'm not a fan of phonetic spelling but in a strong Glasgow accent which always sounded a tiny bit drunk because he had always drunk something alcoholic by 10AM). When he was sober he was ok and we could banter about football so long as I let him have the last word (it was around 2002 but I fed his delusions of grandeur) but it wasn't very often. When he was drunk the Fenian this and taig that was what he called me instead...

This other time he called me a criminal and said all Celtic fans and everyone from Irish backgrounds rob stuff from other people's flats and he double locked so I wouldn't rob the TV. He told his son that. His son was 5 and I was 13 and he was looking right at me, talking to the kid and saying it. I hadn't robbed anything, I didn't even like going up to his flat. I went up there once - not to his house but to a mate's. I didn't just dislike it cos of the fact he lived there but it was a really spiral staircase up there and I was scared to fall (bad depth perception)

The last time before I left he saw me he pushed me and held his hand at my chest and pushed down so I couldn't move and said I was always going to look up to Rangers fans. He had his hand on my chest and was pushing me down on the bench...

When I saw him again a decade later, right after Rangers got liquidated and 'started again' in Division three, I mouthed 'Sevco supporter' at him and his face went crazy as I rode past in a car... I wouldn't dare engage him if I was on foot... I was really happy for a while that I got the last word but it didn't cure me of my obsession with him. For some reason he was at a different pub, either he insisted on drinking at the local by then because it was nearer or the RSC barred him. I can't see the dive that served terrorists banning him though unless he was starting fights with other punters.

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this guy tbh. He fascinates me. He taught me to be tough but also taught me to be weak. I find him deeply serious but also funny. He gave me a fascination for Irish history and music beyond what would come naturally at a relatively young age like that. Ever since I've been really fascinated by Ireland actually so he gave me an education in a way.

He drank so much he's prob dead by now. He never uses the internet, I know cos I googled him and our town name and nothing came up. He has an incredibly common name and no it wasn't Mason Boyne, his first name wasn't even Billy.

I told my dad and dad just said 'he sounds like a right eejit' and carried on like it was nothing so I'm not sure if it's a big deal but it feels like one? Mum was poorly at the time (like she might have died sort of poorly) and she's from a very English background so I didn't bother her.

We come from a town that didn't use to have an Irish pub but had Orange Walks through it every year and a lodge and a pub where the cops found stockpiled weapons for the UVF or some other group like it.

He's why I think things like noisy neighbours who don't give a crap about you, which I have right now, aren't actually that big a deal. And some people on Celtic twitter say 'all Sevco fans are the same' or 'all Rangers fans are the same' etc, no, the vast majority don't threaten kids like that.

(I also had another guy, one of ours, who was also a criminal in same block of flats and should technically also count as a really bad neighbour but I didn't mind him tbch… and he never robbed anything off this guy, just off me ...)

I can just predict someone from Scotland will say 'all old firm fans are like this' but again, we're not. I've known enough on both sides to know this guy was an oddity.

Who's your worst ever neighbour? Any stories? I'd love to hear details if it's safe to do so but obviously leave town names and your name and their name out of it. What fascinates me is the stuff which is slightly confusing unless you live in a similar area because that way I get a real sense of politics/culture around the world etc.

(Not 100% sure I should be posting this but whatever, it gives me a change from talking about how awful it is that my current neighbour has a loud voice. And I'm not really posting for advice, I'm posting to vent and cos it makes for a good story. I also know this is probably of interest to nobody else but I wanted to post it)

What strikes me most is that you use the word "tenement" for apartment building.

The guy sounds interesting---but he was sort of dangerous, too----especially for a little kid.

Yeah. Once upon a time it was this really rich guy's house. He was single but he had servants. This is back in Victorian times so he also had imperial business and was away a lot. Then world war two happened and nobody lived like that so they split it into flats (apartments) in the 60s.

I think it's funny that my neighbour lived in a smaller flat than me. I don't know if it's clear but he had a massive superiority complex and would have been comfortable as some sort of imperial officer or something. Our flat was a whole floor. Not sure what he had but I think it was half a floor or even a quarter...

I suspect he would have resented that a lot esp as this wasn't actually when I got into Irish music - just when it switched from the Clancy Brothers and Dubliners to the Wolfetones. I forgot that cos I'm so used to calling rebs 'Irish music' in a sort of euphemistic way. We used to play stuff like the Dubliners and the Clancy brothers really loud but when I got rebel music, I played it at low volume on my personal stereo and only had access cos we went to Glasgow and Dublin and other big cities in Britain and Ireland where it was sold. (yeah I know Dubliners apparently went into making rebel music, I didn't grow up on that, before fast internet, I didn't know everything)

It brought me up very quick tbh. It was the most consistent but I got similar treatment around the town from about the age of 12. I left at about the age of 14 but whenever I go back, it's in the back of my mind and when I don't watch myself, stuff sometimes happens but usually just verbal.

The town's changing though, it's getting a lot more diverse lately which is nice. I see black people sometimes when I go back, English language classes for Poles (I bet that won't happen after Brexit), Catholic churches whose windows aren't smashed, an Irish pub. Even gay guys who are sort of not closeted. My friend whose dad left for London as soon as he turned 18 cos his dad and his dad's mates treated him like crap for being gay and camp. Before London he wasn't even proper camp, he was just an artistic kid.

Thanks for responding, I was scared it wouldn't make sense to someone in America. I specifically thought 'even if nobody in New York or London thinks this is interesting or relevant it's still my story' so it's nice it does make some sort of sense to someone in New York.

We have the New York Rangers in hockey.

In England, there's the Queens Park Rangers.

Do you ever incorporate football hysteria into your writing?

I’m not sure which Rangers it was but Rangers copied the name of a rugby club in England. That was back in 1872.

I don’t mind Rangers before 1920s and after their liquidation I just find the new company/new club confusing. It’s as if the fans in the terraces are supporting the old style Rangers of the 70s and 80s while the club is presenting a completely different face. So – I don’t mind the new company/club but I do mind it because of its fan base.

In fact, this neighbour was supporting a club which was no longer represented on the pitch in the way it was in his mind. Some of his heroes even back then were Catholics, and I’ve already explained the way he felt over Catholics.

Celtic were named for the same reason as the Boston Celtics. They’re both clubs set up outside of Ireland by Irish immigrants after the famine. At least that’s my understanding of Boston Celtics. They also both say seltic/s even though the culture is called the Celtic culture…

Mum went over to Boston and these Boston Celtics fans gave me a load of free stuff to try to get me into their club which is nice. All it’s done is given me a soft spot for them, it’s not that easy to follow American basketball in the UK.

The experiences of those years gave me a very strange sort of understanding and dichotomies in my head so I’ll explain in a way which makes sense to other people rather than the whole truth. I know that’s an NT, dishonest way of going about it but probably easiest way to explain things…

Yeah, I think if it hadn’t been for those years I’d write/do art with as much need to do it as I do. I sometimes put football fans into my work, or just write autobiography about those years. I tend to when writing autobiography use fictionalised names for people so it becomes more roman a clef than it is pure autobiography. I write that stuff in poetry and prose and draw pictures too. For fiction, I use my neighbours back then as archetypes for what one set of fans is like and what the other set is like – unlike most Celtic fans I wouldn’t say we’re perfect.

I find Glasgow one of the most interesting places for football as there’s genuine cultural divide between the fan bases. It’s more like Spanish football than English in this regard.

We also attract a wider fan base than we’re supposed to strictly on merit because of this, there are Celtic fans (Glasgow Celtic fans) I’ve spoken to from Irish American backgrounds over in the States.