When did "Old Firm" originate?

When did this become a moniker to describe us and the dead ones?

Why did we willingly participate?

Surely by accepting this moniker it helped to fuel the notion that they were the Protestant club and we were the Catholic club.

Did we do this on purpose?

I honestly don't know the ins and outs as it's something that i've always rejected so never felt the need to investigate.

I'm just wondering if the whole "tribal" thing has made it easier for people outwith Glasgow to identify with one or the other, therefore hurting their local team.

You would have thought with us being an all inclusive club that we would have wanted to distance ourselves from those elitist * across the water.

What's the origins?

I could look it up but where's the fun in that? :smiley-laughing002:

 

Is not something to do with a business relationship between the two clubs ? Same sponsorships etc ? * knows. Maybe it was just a phrase coined to describe the two teams that dominated Scottish football.

 

Its unclear as to when it starts. However I always believed it was coined after Protestants took Rangers to be their club, to compete against the Catholics and Celtic. They could use this institution to vent their frustrations.

Aye, they were that petty, the protestants couldn't have the Catholics having their own club.

Then it was labelled the 'Old Firm' as it grew and became a heated rivalry.

Might be talking nonsense though. Im sure there will be experts regarding this matter.

 

The first sponsorship I remember was CR Smith, the old firm tag was around longer than that.

 

This is what I'm wondering.

If that is the reason then why didn't we distance ourselves from it, seeing as we have never been a Catholic club?

I know they reacted to us, but why did we willingly participate?

We should have told them to get to *.

i think I probably know the answer to this.

 

Aye that might be true. I heard Rangers weren't founded as a protestant club. It is crazy how fans can take a club in certain directions.

 

I don't know, I think the moniker was commercially enticing.

I remember watching an old documentary, that showed footage from the 30's and 40's (I think - was very early) and they didn;t call us the Old Firm then.

So I am not entirely sure when this fully came in to play.

 

* all to do with fans.

Struth (I think) tapped into the anti Irish feeling in the shipyards and turned the club into a Protestant club where these Northern Irish settlers could identify with.

Before we came along they were just a small, run of the mill club with modest success.

 

"Commercially enticing"

This is what I think.

So we were probably willing participants (at executive level) in the ruse to corner the Scottish market for support at the detriment to everyone else, by giving credence to the notion that it was Catholic against Protestant? Therefore giving everyone a team to identify with?

I * hope not.

 

This should be in Scottish Football.


In fact, it should be in HP&R, can someone move it please.

History being the operative word.

 

From Fifa!

 

I'm sure I read that a newspaper detailed the amicable nature that existed around the fixture at an early stage and described the supporters and players as 'old firm friends'. From there the moniker stuck.

 

Found this
It was coined the "old firm" after a cup tie in the early 19th c.about 1906 not sure,but a cup final was played and drew,the replay was ordered and the fans cracked up because they thought it should have been played to a finnish,the press then called them the old firm as it seemed the clubs where trying to get as much money as they could from the supporters,ie they where playing first games for a draw so as they had to replay,it is also fact that the teams dabbled in "lending" each other players to win games against the other teams

 

Canw e please move this from Celtic Chat.

I'm feeling dirty for putting it in here.

 

So the moniker came before the true rivalry so to speak?

I'm sure their hatred of us never took hold until the 20s when Struth spied an opportunity to tap into the hatred of Irish Catholics.

 

It's over a century old and it emerged because of, and to make, Money.

The leaders of both clubs quickly realised there was a * of a lot of cash to be made out of a deadly rivalry, certainly a lot more than pally-pally happy time. Hence why us and Rngers (R.I.P.) made hundreds of millions of pounds and won hundreds of trophies, and Partick Thistle are diddies.

 

The Old Firm tag is older than their identity as a Protestant club. The moniker was coined around the turn of the century due to the money that was made from, at the time, two of the biggest clubs playing each other.

The whole anti Irish * never kicked in at Rangers until after WW1

 

the reactionary club. Always have been always will be.

We were dominating back then were we not, sure we done 6 in a row back then?

Edit.

Always have been always will be? Did I just * say that?

I need some kind of electroid therapy to erase that bullshit from my mind.

 

We won the league in 1905/6/7/8/9/10... 1914/15/16/17/19...

no wonder those * turned it into a religious rivalry, they would just have been a diddy team otherwise, we * left them in our wake.

all the more annoying that we seemed to entertain the "rivalry"

 

It just came about due to our consistent ability to sell games - box office, ie. Old Firm /Old Reliable. Nothing about religion or any other nonsense.