As someone who has enjoyed the best part of fifty years promoting social and community enterprise – I was thrilled by last week’s public rejection of that proposed football super league. In Germany, football clubs are not allowed to play in the Bundesliga, if commercial investors have more than a 49% stake. This ‘50+1’ rule, means in effect, that German clubs are not-for-profit organisations, run by fan membership associations – which protect low ticket prices and a great fan culture,
Like most football clubs, Hibernian FC was founded as a social enterprise, to help its struggling community. Not unusually it was captured over the years for private profit, and forgot its origins. By 1990 finances were a mess, and a hostile takeover was only averted by the grassroots ‘Hands off Hibs’ campaign. This was when the Proclaimers ‘Sunshine on Leith’ was adopted by fans as our ‘Hibs song’. It’s a sentimental love song, but one of renewal and devotion: some days, the sun is behind clouds – but singing together, we have faith that it will soon reappear. The song is a great ‘terrace anthem’, associated with saving our club.
Humans are social beings with the impulse to join groups and sing together; football clubs, large and small, meet this need – which is probably about our search for identity and belonging. The German Bundesliga was wise enough to see that this is a social phenomenon, beyond the understanding of commerce – and that its value should be protected from the questionable behaviour of markets. That our football clubs belong to fans needs protection in UK law.
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This is my final blog before theelection and I’m fairly clear about my preferences. I want Alex Salmond to disappear without trace. I would like the Green party to advance and to remain a necessary part of our parliament’s clear majority for Indyref 2. I would like the Tories to take a hit for their sleaze and Labour to become the official opposition under the promising Anas Sarwar. On Sunday, I watched Nicola Sturgeon’s stunning interview with Andrew Marr – her outrage at the suggestion that Scotland, with our history, our natural resources, and our people, could not be a successful independent country. We’re very lucky to have our First Minister – I think most Scots know this.
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I’ve long been dejected, that Boris Johnson looked immovable for years as PM – but I’ve started to sense that he could self-destruct – especially if dodgy Dominic Cummings ‘comes clean’ to save his own skin. Alan Massie’s Spectator portrait of Boris, is of a gifted entertainer, totally unsuited to high office.
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I have long been vaguely aware that Scotland, and particularly Dundee, is a world leader in computer games; but until I read this article by Neil Mackay, I wasn’t aware that we basically invented the entire sector: around 425 companies, employ 1300 developers, generating £340 million annually – and yet for some reason we don’t want to talk about it.
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This openDemocracy article is about a growing global coalition of NGOs, states, and UN agencies, that favour the recognition of vaccines (and health in general) as a public good and not a business, and the consequent temporary suspension of patent rights. The consensus is, that intermittent outbreaks of the current pandemic, will be with us for a long time.
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Nicola Sturgeon’s commitment in 2015, to closing the education attainment gap – ‘her defining mission’ – was bold and brave; perhaps she didn’t realise that this will require nothing less than closing the poverty gap. This FT article suggests that the state of Scotland’s Education Service does not reflect well on the SNPs 14 years in control of devolved Govt.
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A couple of times a year, for no apparent reason, a ‘grace moment’ can visit me – for a few seconds, everything seems exactly as it should be. In his poem The Window, Raymond Carver describes a similar experience.
“A storm blew in last night and knocked out the electricity. When I looked through the window, the trees were translucent. Bent and covered with rime. A vast calm lay over the countryside. I knew better. But at that moment, I felt I’d never in my life made any false promises, not committed so much as one indecent act. My thoughts were virtuous. Later on that morning, of course, electricity was restored. The sun moved from behind the clouds, melting the hoarfrost. And things stood as they had before.”
