Today is November 11, the day traditionally designated to remember the dead in the two awful World Wars of the 20th century. In recent years, this has been a bone of contention for many Celtic supporters who don’t feel that they should be part of this. Observation of Remembrance Day and the wearing of poppies etc. is of course a very personal matter. What is unacceptable is the deliberate upsetting of others who wish to observe the remembrance.

The major mistake is the assumption that the observation of Remembrance Day in any way implies some love or respect for the British Royal Family and the British Empire. Not so!

If anything, it implies quite the opposite. It shows the sheer folly of imperialism and wars. In fact it was more than folly. It was sheer criminality. On Remembrance Day under all “the guns falling silent” and “heroic sacrifice” sort of cant that the media peddles, we are thinking, are we not, of the millions of men cut down in their prime, the consequent widows and orphans, and the sheer wickedness of wars, soldiers and armies?

And the finger of blame can be pointed at no-one other than the corrupt, effete, luxurious Royal Families, none of whom were worth supporting in the first place, and their allies of international capitalism who made their profits, while so many died to “make the world a safer place for Henry Ford and Pierpont Morgan”.

There is no reason why Celtic supporters cannot associate themselves with this remembrance – call it protest if you will. Celtic supporters took part in the war as well – not necessarily willingly – but some marched across Africa with the thoughts of the Empire Exhibition to sustain them, others wrote from far away Mesopotamia to tell their families that they were looking forward to see Patsy Gallacher again, and of course we have the many Celtic players who fought, the egregious example being Peter Johnstone who was part of the glorious half back line of Young, Johnstone and McMaster of 1914, but died three years later in 1917 at Arras. We must commemorate him, must we not?

And then we have men like James Connolly and Padraig Pearse, and those who died on Bloody Sunday. Are they not also war casualties? Should we not remember them? The war dead are not all on one side. And I think that one minute’s silence is not too much to ask to commemorate all those who have died unnecessarily simply because their leaders and their rulers decided to play war games with one another!

Please, boys and girls, it you cannot bring yourselves to remember those who died in wars, respect the feelings of those who do.

David Potter