Regular readers of this notebook will know about my long-standing love affair (not too strong a word) with Tottenham Hotspur, the north London football club I’ve supported through thick and thin for 50-odd years.
I’ve made less of my other football allegiance, with Glasgow Celtic, the Scottish club that my Irish father supported all those years ago, and which I kind of inherited from him.
Celtic was, and still is, a magnet for Irish football fans throughout the world, and when I was growing up it had the best team in Europe, proving it by winning the continental championship in 1967.
Anyway, those are my two football teams. Being in different leagues – English and Scottish – they have very rarely played each other, so I’ve been largely spared the agony of choosing one over the other in a game.
Football fanhood brings with it a whole set of prejudices and built-in antipathies, and with my Spurs-Celtic profile my natural enemies must be Arsenal, the other north London club, and Rangers, the other (now much smaller) Glasgow club.
The rivalry in both cases is intense, but probably more so in Glasgow, where there is a religious dimension to give it edge. Celtic has a Catholic tradition, Rangers a Protestant one, and these things matter in Glasgow.
All this is by way of introduction to Nick Peel, the new chief executive of Marka, Dubai’s upmarket retailing and restaurants business, whom I met the other day.
Nick’s CV is impressive, with lots of experience at the sharp end of branded goods retailing, but two things stick out, especially for me: his stints at Arsenal and Rangers as an executive in the clubs’ retail, merchandising and brands business.
Mr Peel kindly invited me and other journalists to a “round-table” lunch, his first serious bit of media exposure since he took over the Marka job last year.
I must admit to a twinge of trepidation at breaking bread with the “enemy”, but there was no need: he is a gracious and hospitable chap, and we swapped stories of the Old Firm – as the Celtic-Rangers rivalry was known before Rangers got themselves relegated as a punishment for financial irregularities.
We had friends in common, and it’s even likely we met in Glasgow some years back at a football match. Small world.
His connection to Rangers was purely professional anyway, as he revealed that he had the honour of being only the second Catholic director the club had employed. But his loyalty to Arsenal was deeper, and he counted himself a true Arsenal fan. Well, I decided not to hold that against him, benefit of the doubt, etc.
With that background, however, his views – personal, he stressed, nothing to do with Marka – on the football business were worth close attention. He thought there were only four clubs that could travel internationally: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and one of the Milan clubs.
Surprising that. – and London – would disagree. Arsenal, in particular, might feel left out. After all, they have cultivated fans all over the world for many years, none more so than in the UAE, where they have long-standing links with Emirates.
But none of that counted for much in Nick’s book, despite his declared loyalties.
He insisted: “There are more Arsenal fans in Nigeria than there are in the UAE, or in north London.” A controversial view that I hope we will explore further.
fkane@thenational.ae
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