Unity – Donald C Stewart

Date: 15th November 2025

Unity

Donald C Stewart

Unity and disagreement. Two sides of the very simple sporting coin: opinion. It is what sport is based on. We can look across from our cityscape or the county in which we live and see our bitter rivals and hope that somehow every time we meet them, we shall thump them five, six, seven, eight nil. In footballing terms, you can mix your metaphors and want a cricket score up against your main rivals.

However, things ebb and flow and when the crunch comes, no matter the rivalry we can find common cause against a common enemy: authority.

There are organizations out there that will represent the views of fans, players, managers and the authorities themselves, and no matter what we don’t agree on, we all have one purpose: that the sport we love thrives.

Of course, unity is often lost when disagreements spill out into terraces and discussion forums, but it is healthy and normal within a democratic society.

We should not shy away from different opinions but when it comes to the crunch, when it is really important, backs against the wall, and every other cliché, football needs to stand together to ensure that what we get is what we need.

That is never more important than now within Scottish football because coming up there is an election where we are going to be asked to express our opinion on a ballot paper.

And no matter your politics, that’s important.

And an opportunity.

Unity has been much in my mind because over the last week or so, as I have read Dougie Imrie’s brave interview about the loss of his daughter. When Imrie was not in the dugout for a Morton home game and Billy Davies stood in for him, the media dampened speculation and were universally clear that there should be nothing read into it. It was similar within boxing when Adam Smith, the Head of Boxing at Sky, went off for a period of a year and nobody would tell what it was that he was suffering from. When we discovered it was cancer and he had fought it, beat it and returned, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief based upon knowledge that most of us simply didn’t have. But when we got it, we were absolutely delighted to see “the voice of boxing” back. The support and the respect form the sport was palpable.

For Dougie Imrie, the one thing that really hit home for him was when Motherwell supporters had a banner at a game in support of his family. A bitter rival when he was a player, Imrie was blown away by that level of support and respect, after he had terrorised many a Motherwell defender. You can also think back to Cristiano Ronaldo who lost a child and then at a game against Liverpool, witnessed a similar expression of support from the Liverpool fans. It’s an incredible bridge to cross and witness when people, humans, realise that their nemesis may too, be human. In Glasgow, Jock Stein exhibited just that in the wake of the 1971 Ibrox Disaster as manager of bitter rivals Celtic.

There are often, however, too many headlines reporting the appearance of songs mocking disasters involving players and fans. But who can forget the Liverpool kids, who appeared at Anfield, I think it was, one in blue, the other in red, with the numbers nine and six emblazed upon their back, noting the number at that time who had died as a result of Hillsborough. Liverpool was neither blue nor red in their condemnation of what was, in my opinion, manslaughter.

We have an unbelievable opportunity to platform our collective views that we should take with both hands. To demonstrate the unity, we all share when the world comes crashing down upon our icons, players and clubs, can also be shown before tragedy strikes.

Never more so than now, it is important because Scottish football is in a state of flux. Performance schools are going to be abandoned because they haven’t provided the right type of top flight players. Top flight clubs have abandoned the idea of bleeding in younger players because the financial rewards that come with being third in the Premiership outweigh the risk of putting under-20s on a bench or in the first team. Our need for the development of good new young players is underlined by the fact that many of them are now plying their trade abroad, especially in Italy. Where is the next Scotland Goalkeeper actually going to come from?

Why is it that they’re not here plying their trade?

What has gone wrong?

What do you think the solutions are?

The one solution that you can grasp right now is to find the unity amongst us by taking part in our Fanifesto campaign. Working towards a manifesto that can be placed in front of all of the Scottish would-be politicians and current crop and ask them to make a commitment, is within our grasp.

That commitment may never be realised, but our voice will at least be collectively heard.

Scotland’s national independent fans organisation, the Scottish Football Supporters’ Association (SFSA), is reaching out to all football stakeholders to contribute to form a National Football Manifesto

The details gathered from the survey will form the basis of the research that will be developed into a Fans Manifesto ahead of the Holyrood 2026 elections.

Co-founder of the SFSA, Simon Barrow, said: “With the Scottish Parliament elections coming up soon, it is vital once to get the views of the football community across to politicians of all parties – as happened in 2017, when nearly 17,000 fans submitted views that led to the first ever Fan-Led Review of the Game, summarised in our 2023 report, Rebuilding Scottish Football.”

The organisation says that it is “excited to look for fresh and innovative thinking that can help move the dial on how the game in Scotland is developed from the grassroots right to the top of the pyramid. Football fans need a voice, and their votes are very much up for grabs.”

Unity – Donald C Stewart

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